Reclamation Project (Hops and Our Garden)

Our garden has suffered neglect for at least two years. When we first moved into this house, we were excited at the prospect of so much space: more yard, more garage, more storage... We wanted to put the garden in the sunniest part of the yard, but it had the worst soil. In order to take advantage of the sun, we had to build raised beds.

After constructing four large (72 square feet each) beds, we soon discovered all the critters were drawn out of the woods by our new vegetation: the deer and rabbits had their way with our produce. Next came the fence!

This was an unexpected expense, so I built it on the cheap... I ended up using "cherry" landscaping timbers instead of decent treated posts, along with 60 inch "rabbit" wire. I soon realized that the deer could easily make it over the 5 foot wire fencing, so I added two rows of single-strand aluminum electric fence wire to extend the fence height to 7 feet. The posts made it five years before the first one rotted and failed. One-by-one, a handful of other posts began leaning. The sagging fence was the final straw - it was time to fix up the eyesore that was once our garden.

Of all the victims of our neglect, the saddest to me was my burgeoning hop collection. Two years ago, I harvested close to 10 lbs, of hops (wet). I'm pretty sure that was the last time I harvested, and did nothing in the way of maintenance since: no pruning back, no fertilizing, no supplemental watering... It's a bit depressing to think that I had gone from 10 lbs. from 13 varieties to completely ignoring them altogether.

As I prepped to replace the fence and shape up the garden, I eyed my pots of hops. The pots are arranged alphabetically, and the first in the bunch was Cascade: a complete loss - rotted out by poor drainage (and a pot that had apparently been dumped then righted). It got better after that, and despite my laziness, the rhizomes themselves were thriving - completely filling the pots (especially the Cluster).

I trimmed things back, saving a handful of starter rhizomes for friends before carefully repotting. This is my 2nd, and in a couple of cases 3rd, division and repotting. Recommitted to their care, I am hopeful about this years crop.

Now I need to get back to work on the fence and reclaiming the rest of the garden!

Hops 2013

All the signs are pointing to spring here in the PNW!

Last year I repotted my hops into larger pots (fear of commitment keeps mefrom planting them in the ground!). I think this was at least part of the reason for my reduced yield - in 2011, I got several pounds of hops, but not even a pound in 2012, despite adding several new varieties. I am hopeful that I might return to higher yields this year!

When folks (homebrew shops, hop farms) start talking about selling rhizomes each year, I start checking my pots... Two weeks ago, I started to see things other than weeds starting to poke their green heads up! So, this past weekend, I weeded the pots (no small task!), and heaped done fertilizer and compost onto each family of new bines... Some of them were already close to 6" tall and looking to grab onto something!

Tomorrow, the plan is to string my twine. Fifteen feet of fun! By now, all of them should be getting talk enough to train to the twine... A few wraps clockwise will get them headed in the right direction! Depending on just how talk they are, I might also be able to leaf them up a bit as well...

Brew Day Wrap-Up & 5 Month Update?

Great googly moogly! May 22nd? I just can't seem to maintain any kind of momentum here.

Today was a gloriously beautiful day in the PNW! It was a perfect brew day - we could not have planned it better. Robert arrived just after 10 AM (after doubling back to get his forgotten hops), and we started the day with some cleaning... Wouldn't it be nice if everything was clean when you got started? Yeah, right!

We got going on the brewing fairly quickly though. Robert always gets an early lead and finishes first, because he's still doing extract/steeping partial-boil batches! Today was no different - he already hit flame-out before I even finished my single infusion mash. Plus, I am always multi-tasking here at the house: doing something for my kids, or my wife, or cooking lunch...

He brewed up a batch of American Stout... Once his primary is done, he's going to rack it onto about 5 lbs of blackberries. I've never had a Blackberry Stout, but the LHBS owner says it's a great recipe. In a similar vein, I brewed up a batch-and-a-half of Dry Stout; I'll end up with 5 gallons of Dry Stout and about 3 gallons of Cranberry Stout. There was no collaboration in advance, and yet we still somehow ended up at fruit beers - both Stouts, no less!

I had a substantial amount of 2nd generation Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), so I split it up for our batches and got it reactivated with a bit of starter wort before the brew session. It is always confidence-inspiring to have a good-sized pitch of active, healthy yeast that get things off and running right off the bat! This yeast really gets mixed reviews on various forums, but I've always had good luck with it. But I always use Jamil's yeast pitching rate calculator and either pitch multiple packs/vials or do a starter.

The last 5 brewing months in review:

June: Hops were growing like crazy - I had to weld up some additional supports to keep them from pulling my cross-wire down. No brewing. Bummer.

July: Hops threatening to take over the garden - wife threatening to hack away at the hops (Something about having them winding their way into the corn?). Brewed up two batches of beer right at the end of the month for a leadership retreat: an Amber and an American Pale. Both were well-received, but folks were drinking very conservatively (it was late in the day and a short BBQ - everybody was playing it safe!), so despite having about 20 folks, we only put a small dent in the beer (more for later anyway!).

August: 2 kegs of beer delivered to leadership retreat... Brewed a quick batch of extract English Pale. Began monitoring my hops very closely in anticipation of the upcoming harvest!

September: No brewing, some cleaning around the "brewery". Began harvesting the first of my hops. The first few varieties ready were the weaker producers - a bit of a disappointing yield on my Cascades and Horizons (right around an ounce each of dried hops); looking at the others, I had to take comfort in the fact that they were faring better. The Chinooks did a little better, and I ended up with several ounces of dried hops.

October: Finished up the hop harvest/drying... Ended up with about 1/2 pound of Fuggles. I gave up trying to separate the Glaciers and Nuggets which had decided on near-symbiosis, and I just harvested them all together; this was the big haul - over a pound of dried hops in this batch! In fact, I had so many, I had to switch from a window screen to a sliding door screen to get these dried! And I brewed today!

Birthday Party Dry Hop

My Double/Imperial Red Ale (Bruise Bros) finished out right around the same time as my Redwings: good on the beer, bad on the'Wings. Time to dry hop it!

Weekends are always busy, and this was no exception. Mother's Day tomorrow, and today we did the family celebration of Brandon's birthday a week early, since I won't be around next Saturday on his real birthday. I had a bunch of stuff to do in the morning to get ready for company to come over, so I was just preparing my hops when folks started showing up...

My dad, who used to work at the Rainier Brewery back in its heyday (and whose grandfather was the business manager of the Horluck's plant for Sick's Brewing from the late-30s through the 60s), always takes an interest in my brewing despite the fact that he no longer drinks. As I weighed out the hops, sanitized marbles (to weigh them down), and shoved them into a hop bag, he shared how much he hated the smell of hops.

What? Are you crazy? Hate the smell of hops? He explained that he liked the smell as they were added to the wort, but he had negative associations with the smell of plain dried hops. It seems that when he first went to work at Rainier (he was 14 years old), one of his jobs was to move hop bales from cold storage to the brewhouse for the brewers.

Just like today, the hops were bundled into 100 or 200 pound sewn burlap bales; at 14 my dad probably did not weigh much more than 90-100 pounds since he weighed about 120 when he enlisted in the Marines at the age of 19. At any rate, he had to wrestle the bales out of cold storage, transport them using a hand-truck through the brewery up an elevator into the brewhouse. It was exhausting work, and he could not get rid of the smell. I guess I can see where his dislike comes from... I still like it though.

The Hops Are Coming! The Hops Are Coming!

Well, they're sprouting up at least. I noticed right around the end of March that there were some green nubs poking up through the soil in my hop containers - and a little over a week later, they all have significant growth!

I got the twine hung, so that the bines have something to train along before they go too crazy. Last year, I had 3-4 twines running up at an angle to one central point (a 15' piece of rebar). This worked well (and my wife was happy with the aesthetics), but once the bines reached the top in around August, they got all tangled up. This made it more challenging to keep the hop sorted out when I harvested them.

This year, I moved the two pieces of rebar to the extreme ends of the area planted by hops. I strung a piece of aluminum wire horizontallybetween the two pieces of rebar (this is similar to what the hop farms in Yakima do). I tied each piece of jute twine to a zinc washer, then threaded that onto the aluminum wire. This will make harvesting the hops way easier, and will keep the bines from getting tangles since they will grow straight up this year.

Judging from the density of the shoots sprouting up in each container, this will probably be the last year that I can keep the rhizomes growing in them. I started the rhizomes in containers last year, because I was not sure if this location was going to be conducive to the hop growth - clearly it was, since I got well over a pound of hops in the first year! I actually had begun preparing the soil at the foot of the raised beds so that I could move the hops this year, but by the time I got around to it, they were already coming up. I didn't want to risk it, so I'll move them for next year.

I am excited to see if my yields increase this fall!

Hop Trellises

In a recent post, I lamented the loss of my established hops due to a poorly executed move. In that same post, I also spoke of planting my new rhizomes. As I eagerly awaited bines to sprout, I contemplated trellis possibilities...

At my old house, I strung twine from my roof down to the ground - this gave me about 10' vertically. At my new place, the hops are planted away from my house in an area of raised garden beds. The trellis issue presented two problems. Of course, the first problem was the trellis system itself -what was I going to do? Secondary, and possibly more importantly, whatever trellis system I decided upon had to meet my wife's approval, since she is in charge of the aesthetics of the garden area.

What I really wanted to do was weld up a sturdy, permanent trellis... I felt that the unfinished steel would rust up nicely and complement the rustic wood of the raised beds and fenceposts. My wife thought that this plan would result in a "rusty monstrosity" which would undoubtedly be an "eyesore." (the quoted parts are her actual words) Likewise, any wooden trellis structure was likely to be a visual distraction.

I reluctantly concurred, putting off any truly permanent construction until next year when I plan on putting the hops into the ground (or at least planted more permanently).

In the end, I opted for simple. Material-wise I purchased two long 5/8" pieces of re-bar, 4 u-shaped 1/2" conduit brackets, two 1" screw eyes, 2 worm-drive hose clamps, and a spool of natural fiber twine. Planning-wise, I did not consult my wife (this simplified things greatly).

I used the hose clamps to fasten one of the screw eyes to the end of each piece of re-bar; tightening down the clamps as tight as they would go (along with a little bit of shaping of the clamp strap) added a sturdy circular eye to the 'top' of my trellis rod. Next, I test-fit the conduit brackets, and bent them to insure a secure and stable fit. I began by fastening only one side of a pair of conduit brackets for each trellis rod to the end boards of a raised garden bed. Before I mounted the re-bar to the garden box, I threaded 4 strands of ~20' of the natural twine through the eye at the top (this way, I avoided having to climb up a ladder to do that later). Finally, I fitted the re-bar into the conduit brackets and finished screwing them in. This resulted in a trellis that will be plenty sturdy for the hop bines, and hardly noticeable in the garden area.