Hops Update – 5/6/2012
With the semester coming to an end I haven’t had a whole lot of time to post updates of the hops. Things have changed dramatically in the past few weeks with good growth seen on every plant. I found a T8 light ballast at a yard sale last week and have added that to my patio garden to supplement my lack of light. My patio is east facing and gets good light from about 6 to 10 and then my plants are in shadows. I need to switch up the bulbs in the ballast since I have no idea what the Kelvin rating is and I want it near 6500K for the grow portion. From what I’ve seen 2700K seems the most popular for home lighting and I’m assuming that is what I have. That spectrum of light is good for flowering so I’ll switch back to that when the time comes.
Hops
The hops are coming along well, all over 6 inches and a few over a foot tall now. That Nugget you see above decided to shoot up all of a sudden and surpassed everything else. For weeks it sat as a little nub just barely poking out of the soil and I thought it was dead. Two weeks ago I did a REALLY good watering and it shot up and shows no signs of stopping.
Lesson 1 – Water
I had my first death a couple days ago and I believe my problem was improper watering. The soil I have most of these girls in is not a well draining soil and thus the water doesn’t absorb and get to the roots efficiently. I put a gallon of water on one plant and 10 min later dug 1/2 inch in it was completely dry. What I’ve found I need to do is conduct a thorough watering, giving the plants half the water and let it absorb, then come back about 45 min later or so and soak again. A lot of places recommend watering only when really needed and then realllly watering to ensure all parts of the root system are hit. Since I’ve started watering more effectively the plants seem to be really responding. The newer plants (Chinook and Willamette) with the sand added into the soil are doing tremendously better because the improved drainage allows the water to seep through better and provide a good oxygenated environment for them.
Hydroponics
The experiment with hydroponics has been a bit trying. The pepper I posted a few weeks ago has lost most of it’s leaves and I believe that was due to nutrient burn. When I purchased the nutrients I used the recommended strength on the back not realizing that was the strength for soil plants which was roughly 3.5 times the amount recommended for hydro. Woops!
After talking to the guy at my local hydro-store I decided to switch from organic nutrients to chemical (CNS-17 Grow) and I now have a half strength solution to help this little guy recover from the torture I put it through. I’m not particularly attached to him, especially as ugly as he is, but I don’t want to put a hop plant in there until I feel comfortable I can keep it alive.
Hops Update- 4/22/2012
Alright, so I added a couple extra hops varieties to the collection (as if I didn't already have too much going on out on the porch). I now have Willamette and Chinook. The Chinook rhizome I received from Bald Brewer in Longmont was huge with massive nodes ready and begging for earth. I cut that one into two and planted it in a new mixture of soil.
Soil
My original mixture was 2 parts organic miracle grow to one part cow manure compost. I had some left over and mixed it 2-1 with sand to increase the drainage. I'm note sure if it was the rhizomes or the soil or both but the Chinook took off and has surpassed the Nugget which was planted weeks before.
Sun
I think a lack of sun is starting to take it's toll on my little girls they popped out quick and rose to about 3 inches and have failed to grow much more. I may be looking into buying a fluorescent system with bulbs in the 6500k spectrum for optimum growth.
Playing with yeast – Amber ale (extract)
Over the weekend I took part in my friend James’ extract amber ale brew. This was a pretty standard extract brew with a few exceptions: brewing a larger than normal batch (about 7 gallons when it’s all said and done) and splitting it into two different carboys for fermentation. The fun part comes during the yeast pitching and fermentation. James decided use two identical (maybe not truly identical, but for our purposes close enough) batches and ferment them with separate yeasts. The batches are currently bubbling away at a steady 68º and should be ready to bottle shortly!
First BJCP Inspired Tasting
Today we attempted to do a BJCP inspired tasting to begin to experience what it would be like to judge beer, or at least look at it more objectively. Being new to this, and not thinking, I made some delicious pizza earlier in the day. The issue with this is that the garlic that I used not only ruined my taste buds, but happened to be an over powering smell that sticks around for a few hours and makes it very difficult to detect any sort of aromas. I had never done any serious tasting so I was not paying attention to the little details of the tasting environment.
Once we aired the house out (which was not a pleasant experience given the snow and freezing temperatures) we were ready to officially begin our first tasting. We were not attempting to become immediate judges, we were just trying to get a bearing and start working towards a goal of becoming proficient enough to improve our home brew. The structure was a blind test followed by a review of class requirements and then other (much more experienced) judges opinions.
My First Homebrew Experience
When I first learned about home brewing, I was in my friend Dusten's dorm room kitchen. The entire room was about 7ft x 12ft with a tiny sink, studio size electric stove and full refrigerator, not to mention the table for two he managed to squeeze into the corner. He had recently learned about this new thing called "home brewing" and was very excited about it.
I was 22 at the time and had been drinking beer for a few years. I had acquired a taste for it over time, specifically the sweet malty flavors of dark ales, but had no real knowledge as to what goes into the production of whatever was in my bottle at the time. This was a new experience, I had never thought it was possible to truly make your own beer at home; and to be able to do it in a dorm room kitchen… amazing!
