I finally got around to ordering two hop rhizomes tonight.
Magnum Hop Rhizome
Mt. Hood Hop Rhizome
I bought a Magnum rhizomes because I have had difficulty buying the variety at my local brew shop and I wanted to grow a good bittering hop.
Mt. Hood was bred to be a Hallertauer replacement, so I thought it would be interesting to compare it to the noble hop. Plus, I wanted to grow a good aroma hop.
Once I get them, I’ll snap some photos and get more information about planting them.
The Brew Dudes have a twitter account – http://twitter.com/BrewDudes – and we use it occasionally.
Now I know some people use it all the time, but we put all our free time and energy into this blog rather than microblogging somewhere else.
Without getting into too many shouldas, couldas, and/or wouldas, we do use Twitter to quickly ask questions about homebrewing.
Here was the question I posed last week:
How long does it take a lager to clear? Maibock is still fairly hazy after two weeks. Sorry, patience is lacking.
First response we received was from rvitek and he typed:
my Belgium Triple takes 7 weeks to clear! Well worth the wait.
Second response we got came from FieldpointeBrew and he typed:
Give your Maibock until May and all will be well. Fitting?
Absolutely. As a brewer, I have never had that much patience. I am just going to chill out on this one.
I haven’t even opened my fridge to look at it in days.
If you’re a regular reader you know that I recently added a second brew assistant to my brewhouse. With two sons now at home it becomes more difficult to find time to brew. I have been thinking of ways to get in brewing sessions that are short and quick to slake my thirst for brewing whenever I have time.
I have been pondering the occasional dabble in extract brewing again. I don’t plan to abandon my all-grain brewing setup as I love the process and the control. But extract brewing would be a quick way to bang out some easier beers, experiment with ingredients and just stay active in the hobby when a 6-7 hour brew session with all-grain won’t cut it.
So this post is a call to all our extract brewing readers. What styles of beers really lend themselves to extract brewing? I was thinking of putting together a simple Amber recipe to get myself started in the 2010 brewing season. I figure maybe a good dry Irish Stout and maybe a couple good English Brown ales, milds or other session style brews.
What is on your extract agenda these days?
BREW ON!
So, we made a hard cider last fall. You can read more about the making of the hard cider if you are keeping score at home.
We used my grandfather’s old press. When I say old, it’s older than your age plus my age. It’s oooooooooold.
Although I cleaned it as best I could, the old press left its taste in the cider…but I am getting ahead of myself.
It poured clear and sparkling into the glass. In the photo, there is some condensation on the glass but looking at the bottom of the glass it looks crystal clear.
In the aroma, you could detect apple tartness and a bit of the sweetness of apple blossoms.
As for the taste, the champagne yeast dried the cider out. It starts out clean with the CO2 bubbles all around. Then there is a sharp tartness. All the sweetness of the apples is long gone. Then it ends with slightly moldy wood taste.
Yeah. That old press left it’s mark.
What have we learned?
I am going to hide a bottle or two to see if more aging will mellow it out further.
Ever onward and Brew On.
‘Tis the season to buy hop rhizomes or at least that is what I have read. Usually around this time of year, I will get inundated with emails from home brewing stores making sure I know it’s time to order rhizomes. Usually they are only available in February and March, right in time for the growing season.
I think I need to revisit this post about growing hops.
My plan is to buy from Northern Brewer and get a couple of rhizomes. I want to get a bittering variety and an aroma variety so my plan is to grow Magnum and Mt. Hood. I think those two will make for some good American style ale brewing in the Fall.
My brother has a pretty good set up for his garden and he is on board for some hop growing this summer. I have been jealous of other homebrewing blogger around harvest time. Here’s to a favorable growing season and a good yield to show off on our blog.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén