Growing Hops for my beers...

[inark]

Not sure if this should be in here or not but I went into the local brew shop the other day with a recipe for a Belgian Wit Bier and was informed that he was out of one of those hops (Goldings) and instead gave me another. He told me about a Hops shortage and that most of the hops these days actually comes from NZ etc etc (You guys probably already know this).

So, i decided to grow my own instead... i purchased 1 Hersbrucker, 1 Perle and 1 Hallertau rhizome and am also ordering a Goldings and Cascade and wanted a NS but was told it was unobtainable because of some NZ like law that stops plants being copied or something. I noticed a lot of people use Fuggles in their recipes too so might get one of those as well.

Luckily for me my mother in law has a rather large back yard (about 500sqm) so theres plenty of room and she knows what shes doing in the garden so hopefully they live.

Does anyone else grow their own and if so what sort of structure have you got for them to climb and produce easy access to the yield?

Also, is there anything in particular i should know about growing them? Someone told me that there is next to no difference between fresh hops and pellets...

oh and is it like wine making where the soil affects the plants aromas and flavours etc?

[drsmurto]

Whoever told you fresh hops are no better than pellets likely thinks McDonalds is a 5 star restuarant.

Tips - make sure each plant is at least 1m apart, preferably more.

They grow up like vines, the commercials hopyards let them grow 20-30ft upwards.

I grow mine approx 2m and then let them run along string between fences.

You wont get anything useful in the first year unless your rhizome + roots was the size of a soccer ball.

Soil pH/structure etc will have an influence on the final product as it does with any plant.

They are weeds and tend to look after themselves. I water mine regularly but at the moment we are getting enough rain in the Adelaide Hills for me not to bother.

500m2 isnt a big backyard..... well, city dwellers might think so (mine is several times larger)

[inark]

hahaha ok then... i'll tell him that too... actually he does eat a lot of McDonalds

ok so if i put in some 2ish meter steaks say 1 meter to each side of the plant and put a series of chicken wire between them that should work ok yeah?
would create like a screen sort of wall.

yeah for a suburb house its pretty big, thats just the available space in their backyard.

are there any places online people know of that sell other hops other then ebay?

[pixelboy]

mine are growing up a 4m string attatched to a gum tree.. I guess it'll grow arround the tree after that

[Daron1973]

Anyone able to tell us where to get the plants? I live out of Melbourne, but fresh hops do sound like a winner.

[inark]

I got mine from ebay

[drsmurto]

Its probably too late now as most hops are growing like crazy now.

They are normally for sale during winter, early spring.

Wait until next year and you are likely to get them free or close to it as the market has been flooded.

In Adelaide we have one bloke who took cuttings from ever variety available and he is now growing them up in a glass house. they will be given away next year at the princely sum of a bottle of your finest.

I scored an extra POR and a Victoria from him recently.

Dunno what other states will be doing but i would hold back on forking over lots of cash next year.
i will be giving away cuttings of mine next year for $0. Am currently taking cuttings to see if i can master the art and grow them into their own plants, doesnt look good with the first batch!

[Daron1973]

Anyone in the vicinity of Woodend or Melbourne's north-west or CBD happy to do a hops for homebrew swap?

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Inark,
I've got a few hops growing - we put in several 2.4m gal posts and ran stainless wire across them at 200mm intervals - I'm using this to train my hops onto - I've got Mt Hood, PoR, Chinook, Cascade and Goldings flowers to keep me happy!


Cheers,
TL

[inark]

thats how i want my garden to look

[inark]

Cant believe how quickly these things grow... after only 1 month theyre already quite large. I think i may need to redo the structure theyre growing on to tho, should have concreted the posts.

Cant wait til late next year so i can use fresh hops... plus hopefully by then i would have the confidence to start doing AG rather then partials and another 3 or 4 different types.

[Trough Lolly]

Good stuff....you probably thought my concreted steel posts and wire were overkill, but trust me, it isn't. Any tall structure that the hop runners can climb onto will do - the fun part is trying to recover the flowers from whatever skyscraper you build.

Remember to slash them back to ground level after the season ends - you often make good cuttings from that stock when you do and you can swap them with local growers to build up a cheap range of hops in the yard.

Cheers,
TL

[Biernut]

G'day T/L

Just a question: given the fact that you don't know the a/a percentages of your crop how do you determine the amount of hop additions to go into the brew. Also does one gram of flowers equal one gram of pellets when formulating hop IBU to fall within the target range. I have the facility to grow hops here in southern Tassie along with other commercial plants and was interested in the possibilities of hop growing.

Cheers

[inark]

Good stuff....you probably thought my concreted steel posts and wire were overkill, but trust me, it isn't. Any tall structure that the hop runners can climb onto will do - the fun part is trying to recover the flowers from whatever skyscraper you build.

Remember to slash them back to ground level after the season ends - you often make good cuttings from that stock when you do and you can swap them with local growers to build up a cheap range of hops in the yard.

Cheers,
TL

ok, well my next week off i'll have to go around and sort out something a lot more steady to hold them. Will have to see if my mother in law is ok with a 2m high and 5m wide steel wall blocking off the sun to her raspberries and figs

when you say ground level, do you mean so there is literally no vine or just so its a small bush?

[inark]

G'day T/L

Just a question: given the fact that you don't know the a/a percentages of your crop how do you determine the amount of hop additions to go into the brew. Also does one gram of flowers equal one gram of pellets when formulating hop IBU to fall within the target range. I have the facility to grow hops here in southern Tassie along with other commercial plants and was interested in the possibilities of hop growing.

Cheers

Im definately not qualified to comment on this, but from what i have read its 4 to 1?

4g of fresh to every 1g of pellet

so if its 20g of pellets then its 80g of fresh.

TL or Dr if you read this can you confirm?

[drsmurto]

According to the calcs in beersmith, the utilisation for flowers is -10%.

As for weights of flowers vs pellets its the same.

Kind of like which weighs more, a kg of lead or a kg of feathers.

Flowers tend to have a fresher flavour/aroma. Only got 4g from last years crop which is fine as the 1st season is really just about root development.

This year i am looking at a decent crop with my chinook starting to flower now. My plan is to use them late in the boil where the AA is largely irrelevant.

There are companies that will analyse your hops for you to determine the AA but there is no RELIABLE at home measurement. Some people guesstimate by making hop teas of a few different AA hops to compare.

You can buy hop flowers (NZ and Aus) and plugs are just compressed flowers (vs pellets which are pulverised to near dust) and when i use them i allow for the -10% in beersmith for the bittering but still use the same amounts of flavour and aroma.

I prefer plugs for flavour/aroma (and flowers altho i dont use kiwi hops all that much - prefer the originals) and pellets for bittering when i can.

[Trough Lolly]

when you say ground level, do you mean so there is literally no vine or just so its a small bush?

Yep, slash to the ground - in the extreme climes, the hop plant is covered in snow. The hop rootball will go dormant during winter - avoid over watering in the cold times otherwise you may rot the root ball and stuff the plant. When it gets cold, I use a straw mulch to keep the frost away and water no more than fortnightly. They will return next season with fresh runners.

Cheers,
TL

(and +1 on Doc's response re hopping rates - for home consumption, I use the flowers for bittering, flavour and aroma additions. If you want to be more precise, eg for a comp, you use a known bittering hop eg pellets from the HBS and then use your fresh flowers for flavouring / aroma. Practice makes perfect)

[inark]

Excellent... cant wait now.

Thanks everyone.