Hop Help

[kieran]

Anyone here growing their own hops?

 

 

 

I am, I have two bines going, and one is a Columbus, and the other a Willamette. Neither are doing super well, slow growth, not a lot of cones/flowers.. but I'm giving them so much love that I'm not sure what's going wrong. They get liquid nitrogen fertilizer when necessary, and I have wetting agents in their soil so they don't dry out (its been a dry dry summer in Melbourne this year).

 

 

 

I know they're like a weed in Europe, and they'll just about grow anywhere, but I reckon if I neglect them too much, they'll die completely. The columbus gave me about 8 cones and that is about it. I'll be able to bitter a brew with a volume of about 100mL with that amount of whole hop flowers! yipee! After I clipped the flowers off, all the leaves dropped off though.. so I'm not sure what's going on.

 

 

 

I guess it could be because both are still in their first year, so the roots are still becoming established.

 

 

 

I know this is a pretty specialist area of brewing, so I probably wont get many replies, but if any other green thumbs might be able to give me some tips, that'd be sweet.

 

 

 

I dream one day of being able to bitter with my Columbus, and then add my noble Willamette for aroma, in a nice Pacific Pale Ale.

 

 

 

cheers,

 

Kieran

[PB2]

I can speak as a voice of authority on this subject coz my thumb turned green on St Pat's day when I dosed up the cauliflower with food colouring. :wink: The youngest daughter insisted on shutting her eyes and holding her nose as she ate it - at least she ate it!

 

 

 

I would think, as with fruiting plants, the first year or two is a time for establishing itself in the patch of dirt and developing a strong root system. I reckon they will do better in the ground rather than pots. Keep the water up to them but don't let their feet stay wet. Probably hasn't helped things with the hot conditions. :(

[rossm]

We have an introduced plant here in the centre which is 'Rosey Dock' or sometimes referred to as wild hops, they grow wild and everywhere there is sand, they don't seem to mind the heat of spring/early summer out here, but I am not sure if they are related to real hops or not, they reckon that the seed came from the cameleers saddles, they used the plant to pad them, so I guess they are native to Afghanistan.

 

 

 

Not much help really but I just thought you might be interested!

[kieran]

Well the family are native to that region. The nepalese foothills have wild marijuana growing in the fields, so its plausible to me that similar plants, the hop 'cousins' would grow and originate from the foothills in northern afghanistan..

 

 

 

Side note- marijuana is not hops, but genetically they are related, and they have similar flower 'cones'. The THC content of beer hops are nil, and the humulene and other hop oil content in marijuana is also nil. So they are not interchangable for their uses, but their growth environments and origins are probably from similar parts of the world.

[Hashie]

Hi Kieren, don't know if I can help much, but I will try.

 

 

 

I have 3 hop varieties growing, all in their first year.

 

 

 

They are Mt. Hood, Wurttemburg (sp) and Hallertau.

 

 

 

The Mt. Hood produced around 110 grams of cones, while the Wurttemburg produced around 250 grams. I have a beer kegged that was enhanced with fresh Wurttemburg flowers :) the Hallertau has just limped along like a lame dog.

 

 

 

They are all in the same position, climbing a North facing wall. And all are in identical pots. They are watered when the other garden plants are watered and ignored all other times ( they have not been fed ). All hop plants should be dying off at this time of year, putting their energy into the rhizomes for strong growth next season, although my Hallertau is still green as.

 

 

 

You are right about them being related to cannabis and cannabis grows best if treated as a weed (so I'm told ) and left to grow on their own. Maybe you need to treat them a little more harshly to stimulate some good growth, but either way, don't panic. Transplant your rhizomes around July into fresh potting mix or into a permanent position in the garden and watch them take off in spring.

 

 

 

Hope that has helped some what.

[kieran]

cheers mate, they're in pots because we're renting, and I wanted to take them with me easily if we had to leave mid-season.

 

 

 

I partly think it was due to their position, as they've both north-facing, but one gets partly covered by shade in the morning. That plant is still green as, hasn't produced ANY flowers.. other other has produced a handful, and dropped its bundle now.

 

 

 

thanks for the tips.

 

cheers,

 

Kieran

[Luke]

When using fresh flowers as opposed to pellets, what quantities do you use? If I was using for example 12g of bittering pellets, what would the equivalent in flowers be?

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Luke.

[kieran]

I'm not sure Luke, depends on Alpha acid content of your fresh versus the pellets. However, if both were 9% w/w (for example), that would mean that if one hop pellet weighed 1 gram, and one flower weighed 0.5g - you would need twice as many flowers to get the same amount of alpha acid/mass into your brew. So that's easy, its mass for mass. Of course, more calcs are necessary if your pellets and flower acids aren't the same. If your flowers were 4.5%, you'd need twice as much mass for flowers to pellets to get the same alpha into your brew.. or. four flowers for every pellet (assuming the same mass of pellets and flowers as above).

 

 

 

The volume these things take up in the boil is the biggest issue for the home brewer. You need a decent sized kettle to use all fresh flowers for bittering a brew.

[Hashie]

When using fresh flowers as opposed to pellets, what quantities do you use? If I was using for example 12g of bittering pellets, what would the equivalent in flowers be?

 

Cheers,

Luke.

 

 

 

You need to remember hop pellets have been de-hydrated and compressed.

 

 

 

So you will need around 3 times the weight in fresh hop flowers to get the equivalent bittering/aroma characteristics that you would get from pellets. That's assuming A/A% is the same.