Beer Forum

What did you guys do / are you doing?

thatguy314 wrote:What did you guys do / are you doing?

I"ve seen 2 things that I'm considering.

Either way, I don't have a house, but I have space in a garden. I was going to lay cement foundations for 3 posts. Either way the foundations wouldbe permanent but I could remove the posts I haven't decided if I'm going to use a wood beam or PVC tubing.

For a wood beam, I would probably get 12'x6"x6" beams, and grow vines growing up E, W, S south sides. I might be able to get taller beams custom cut, but these would probably stand 11' above ground. The nice thing about a wood removable post is I can take it out to let the hop vines down and harvest without killing them. It's also more stable than PVC so it would probably be a free-standing post

PVC I would set up multiple posts with T-tops and run another pipe across the posts. I'd string hop twine to the horizontal posts. Advantage: cheaper, can probably fit more vines that way, but I'm probably not going to get much higher. than 10 ft. Also going to have to cut the hops down to harvest, so probably slightly lower hop yield.

I'm only growing 4 vines on this setup, but I want to give myself room to expand next year if I get going well this year.

thatguy314 wrote:

thatguy314 wrote:What did you guys do / are you doing?

I"ve seen 2 things that I'm considering.

Either way, I don't have a house, but I have space in a garden. I was going to lay cement foundations for 3 posts. Either way the foundations wouldbe permanent but I could remove the posts I haven't decided if I'm going to use a wood beam or PVC tubing.

For a wood beam, I would probably get 12'x6"x6" beams, and grow vines growing up E, W, S south sides. I might be able to get taller beams custom cut, but these would probably stand 11' above ground. The nice thing about a wood removable post is I can take it out to let the hop vines down and harvest without killing them. It's also more stable than PVC so it would probably be a free-standing post

PVC I would set up multiple posts with T-tops and run another pipe across the posts. I'd string hop twine to the horizontal posts. Advantage: cheaper, can probably fit more vines that way, but I'm probably not going to get much higher. than 10 ft. Also going to have to cut the hops down to harvest, so probably slightly lower hop yield.

I'm only growing 4 vines on this setup, but I want to give myself room to expand next year if I get going well this year.

I have PVC posts (1.5") with a T top and a short piece to extend the T, and it sucks balls! it's too flimsy. I have jute strings hanging down with a screw at the end of the strings which is stuck into the ground. That gives the trellis a little more support but it is kinda weak. if i wanted a more permanent set up i'd do wood.

boobookittyfuk wrote:i'd do wood.

You said you'd do wood...

carry on...

I went with 2" PVC for my trellis. I was going to use 1.5" but I stood up the piece at the home improvement store and shook it. Way to much wobble. It didn't cost much more for the bigger tubing. Much sturdier.

I kept mine simple. I made 2 15' uprights (10' piece plus a 5' piece joined with a glued coupler) with a cap on the end. Just below the top I put an eyebolt in each to hold a piece of nylon rope to with the support cords for the hops are hung. The nylon rope is simply strung through the eyebolts and tied off at the base of each upright with enough extra rope so I can easily lower the support cords without taking down the uprights.

The entire garden area (50' X 75') is surrounded by a 6' high wire mesh fence to keep out the deer. My uprights are fastened to the 4" X 4" fence posts with large SS hose clamps. The thing survived the 70 mph winds the other night so I think it should hold up for the rest of the season.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

Last year I had made a 2, 15ft tall PVC framed "upside-down U-shaped" trellis' and had them in the foundation garden strip right up against my house. It sounded like a good idea when I thought it out, but i practice...not so much. PRetty flimsy. I ended up tying one off to my gutter downspout to help keep it from flopping around, and the other, I insert 2 steel pipes into the vertical posts to help give it some stability.

This year, I scrapped all that (I'll figure out what to do with the PVC later) and I simply screwed in 6 eye-hook type hooks into the side of my house at the roof line. I've run strings down the side of my house and just anchored the bottom of the string with a wooden spike that I cut from some leftover pressure treated wood.

So far so good, my cascades are passing the 2nd story window now.

I use 3/4" EMT. Seems to be pretty secure, but I don't go over 12' without support.

I bought a 10ft piece of steel fencing (like for chain link) and a cap with an o ring designed for it at home depot. I then bought 3 ft of galvanized 1.5" pipe and pounded it into the ground. I then stick the steel fence post inside of the pipe. It is very solid. Then I pound 4 little wood stakes into the ground by each hop plant and run 4 lines of jute to the top of the post. Works great and is cheap. The 10ft pole is only about $10. and very rigid.