Prince of Fatness
Well despite the heat I managed a decent hop harvest this year. I don't have an exact weight yet but i think it's my best Willamette harvest yet. The cascade look to be a couple pounds dried. Not bad for 4 potted bines. Now I just need to see how many potatoes I can get for my cream ale. The Willamette are the small strip at the top and the rest are cascade. I may try some other types next year since the Willamette don't seem to like the Indiana climate.
A couple of questions out of curiosity. Do you dry them or brew with them fresh? Are you able to measure the AA% so that you can calculate the IBU's in your recipes? If not I have read that most brewers just use them for flavoring additions.
As for the potatoes, I added 20% by weight to my cream ale. That seemed to work well. I also add 10% flaked maize. The rest is grains (60% US 2-row and 10% Vienna). In the pictures I posted that lasagna tray has 2 pounds of grated potatoes in it.
Not at it at all.
Feeling the growl again
Aw crap. Hops will grow in Indiana? I REALLY don't need another hobby....don't need another hobby....
Good thing I have not even found time to extend my winemaking gear to beer.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Former runner
I dry them on a simple frame made with 1x2s and some window screen material. I've thought about brewing with them fresh but it's just a matter of timing. I usually vacuum pack them in 1oz bags once they are dried and toss them in the freezer for storage. I don't know the exact AA% so I just use them as late additions like most people recommend.
Cascade grow great in Indiana. In fact the guy that gave me the rhizomes said he had to dig his out with a backhoe because the root system was so large. He showed me a piece of root that had to be 4" in diameter. For that reason I grow mine in 20" pots. There was an article in BYO that gave me the idea. They seem to do fine except that you have to water them daily in the hot months. I set up a simple trellis behind my garage but I'm thinking about moving them closer to the house next year.
Ross
Thanks. I have virtually unlimited space and hundreds of yards of 8ft pagewire fence I could unleash them on. Watering...eh...did that with stuff this year but that might be a deal-breaker....
This is one of the reasons that I don't grow hops. I had heard that their roots systems are invasive so I would need pots. That and I would have to rig a trellis. I have a hard enough time keeping up with what I have growing now.
I have just bottled 4 cases and have beer up the wazoo but I really wanted to try my hands at an Octoberfest style beer. So tonight I brewed one. I call it 3-2-1 Fest. 3 parts Light Munich, 2 parts Vienna, 1 part US 2-row. No specialty grains, the Munich and Vienna should add enough character. German hops. Wyeast German Ale yeast. This is an alt yeast and it tolerates cooler temperatures. I am going to put the bucket in a cooler with water and swap out ice bottles to keep the temperature 55 - 60 degrees.
Anyway, the work for the Labor Day picnic is done, other than sampling the beer in a couple of weeks.
Mission accomplished. Pictures....
Potato Cream Ale
Nice no frills beer, goes down easy. Note that there is absolutely no color from the purple potatoes.
Watermelon Wheat
If I had to do it again I would add more watermelon juice but this is still very good.
Brown IPA
Nice bit of roastiness and some hops. This is good.
Barleywine
Not for the picnic, this I brewed February and am just seeing how it's coming along. So far so good.
Hasher Rick gets a plug. I got that glass at one of his races.
I dug the first of my Purple Majesty potatoes today. If yours looked like mine no wonder you did not get any color in the beer; mine were not nearly as colored as the online pics, even.
If you try it again and want to really try for color, it seems most of the color is concentrated in the skins. You could try doing a heat extraction in a minimal volume of water, then using the colored water in the beer. If you know someplace with winemaking supplies you could get some pectic enzyme and soak skins at room temp for a day along with the pectic enzyme, then heat and press out. That may help release more of the color.
Mission accomplished. Pictures.... Potato Cream Ale Nice no frills beer, goes down easy. Note that there is absolutely no color from the purple potatoes.
Yeah after I mashed the potatoes the skins were the only thing that still had color. I really think that there is not enough color to influence that much volume of beer. Not worth the effort I think.
The picnic was yesterday. Four cases of homebrew are gone. The watermelon wheat was a big hit. One case of that did not last long.
For any Saison du Buff fans that want to brew it....
http://blog.stonebrew.com/index.php/dogfish-head-victory-stone-saison-du-buff-homebrew-recipe/
I finally got around to brewing again on Sunday. I made my version of the potato cream ale with the 2lb of potatoes from my garden. I shredded and cooked them in the crock pot for a couple hours before adding them to the mash. Not sure if it made a difference but there were a couple of chunks that seemed a bit firm after the mash was done. I used a lb of flaked corn, 6 lb of 2-row and 8oz of sugar for the rest of the fermentables. I used Goldings for the bittering and a 1/2oz of my home-grown cascade at the end for aroma.
I want to make some more hard cider this year but at $9/gal I may skip it this year.
This turned out pretty good. It's not overly complex as it is all base grains, but the yeast lets the malt shine through nicely. I brewed up a 5 gallon batch of coffee porter last weekend and served this up. Almost another case of home brew is gone. I think that between my Labor Day picnic and this last brew day I went through about 5 cases of home brew. I guess that I am doing something right.
Just got done bottling a small batch of pale ale. Lots of yummy Citra hops in it.
http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/10/24/smash-brewing-single-malt-and-single-hop-beers/
Am I doing this right?
Just heard about this for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'm considering giving it a shot. We'll see.
Currently I have all 5 kegs full right now though. IPA, Porter, Red Ale, Dry Irish Stout, and Black IPA. I think next brew day will be a Pale Ale, maybe a SMaSH, but probably go back to the Dry Dock clone.
No excuses....
Just heard about this for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'm considering giving it a shot. We'll see. Currently I have all 5 kegs full right now though. IPA, Porter, Red Ale, Dry Irish Stout, and Black IPA. I think next brew day will be a Pale Ale, maybe a SMaSH, but probably go back to the Dry Dock clone.
One of the best beers that I have made is a SMaSH. Here.
I have done a few of these and since I started it has gotten me to keep my recipes simple. I just brewed one over the weekend. Light Munich and Saaz. Should be interesting.