spiderwrangler wrote:Congrats man! Sorry if I interjected too much
ery for them to link to this thread directly....
Haha, I don't think that was it -- there is just a much bigger audience on HBT. Anyway, the Almanac guys mentioned that both forums are kind of dense, which is what we beer nerds thrive on, but the average consumer may want a more blog-like experience. Point well taken, and I think I should write up the field notes in a way that can be more easily followed by a newby to growing anyway.
But before that day comes, the hop harvest is in:
Among 10 surviving plants, I only got about one ounce of hops! I attribute this to a first-year (and transplant) problem, but problems with irrigation and overfertilization may have contributed. Regardless, I think I got enough to bitter one small batch of beer.
I harvested the cones by hand and dried them in a 110F <35% humidity grain drying room for three days each. Then I put in freezer bags and store at 4C. Just need to get out there and grab a few more grains from the hay still sitting to the side of the field, and I'll finally have that 100% homegrown beer.
In the meantime a little beer porn:
Those are the homegrown and homemalted grains on the right, and the resultant beer on the left. It's a little bit darker (more orange) than an all-pale malt grist, right? Hmm, hard to say, but you can taste the crystal malt for sure.
