Homegrown Hop Harvest is Complete!

The first year plants had their ups and downs, two bines, the Willamette and the Northern Brewer's were non-existent, grew just enough to ensure some action next year. The other two bines, the Magnums and the Cascades went nuts and produced BIG TIME! With those two bines I got almost a pound and a half of homegrown organic hop goodness!  1.43 pounds or 23 ounces! The tallies are 12 ounces for the Magnums and 11 ounces of cascades. The cascades were a nice late surprise as we had the nice warm October weather here in Minneapolis and the matured in those two weeks and headed to the drying racks. Both plants matured late but since mother nature was kind so were the plants. I cannot imagine having two more mature plants as I feel like I have been picking and drying hops for the past two months, but once I get to brew with the hops all of that pain will be forgotten. I think that I am going to brew a nice American pale ale with the homegrowns, I will probably brew something similar to the Amarillo pale with the homegrowns for a nice comparison. I also have a breakfast stout waiting in the wings to be brewed which I will probably use the magnums for bittering. So there you have it, homegrown hops pay off big time and they are not that much work. For those of you wondering, I ordered the rhizomes online and got them in march and planted in Late April early may. I dug a nice big hole, placed some bone meal in the hole, filled the hole with compost, placed the rhizome in the hole and covered it with about 2 inches of compost and a thin layer of mulch. I also grow bushes along the fence so I already had drip irrigation there so I just moved the hose to be near the hops as well and watered them about for a few hours every week or two and bam! Please let me know if you have any questions about the hop setup! Cheers!