Hop Breeding (2015) Hop Breeding (2015)

Wednesday, February 11th, 2015

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding (2014), Breeding results 2014 During fall of 2014, we collected thousands of seeds from the two hop yards. The individual flowers had been pollinated by hand and carefully isolated to ensure parentage. In total, we collected nearly 40 crosses: Male/pollen source: NHB002 […]

Fresh Black Frost Fresh Black Frost

Friday, September 12th, 2014

Another version of the award-winning Black Frost. This time, with a fresh hop twist! The hops are in my yard and will be thrown in the boil minutes after they are picked. Since they are fresh, we will be using 4x the normal weight for a combined  total of 48oz. Recipe Specifics Style: 23 Specialty […]

Hop Breeding, 2014 Results Hop Breeding, 2014 Results

Thursday, September 4th, 2014

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding (2014) The seedling grew rapidly in their first year. 18 plants produced significant amount of hops by the end of August. For comparison purposes I decided to pick, sort, and catalog all the cones at once. No doubt this means that some […]

Are your hops ready to pick? Take a closer look Are your hops ready to pick? Take a closer look

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014

Unlike tomatoes, peppers and other crops, it can be really difficult to tell if they are ready to pick. Commercial growers often target a percentage of dry matter. This means taking samples, drying them and comparing the weights before and after. Optimal picking is when the wet hops are 4 to 5 times heavier then the dry matter. This […]

Another Another Cream Ale

Monday, May 19th, 2014

Used the exact same recipe as last time… Another Another Cream Ale Create your own recipe with All Grain Beer ABV: 4.48% IBU: 11.2 SRM: 3.9 OG: 1.045, FG: 1.011 Batch size: 12 gal Brewhouse efficiency: 77% Boil time: 60 min Grain 16 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (36 ppg, 2 srm) 1 lbs […]

Growing hops from seed Growing hops from seed

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

Note: this is from 2013. You might also be interested in the 2014 breeding, 2015 breeding… Oregon is an optimal place to grow hops. They take up a lot of space, but are very gratifying and economical to grow. At the local homebrew store, hops will run $2-3 per ounce. Last year, with 7 mature […]

Wil Wheat: Second Place

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

A few weeks back, I entered the Wil Wheat beer in a local competition. I knew that it was off-style when I created the recipe, but was interested in some feedback. Surprisingly it took “runner up”. The judging notes (below) reflect that it was a very well made brew – just too hoppy for a […]

Black Frost (An Epic CDA): v3 Black Frost (An Epic CDA): v3

Monday, May 28th, 2012

Our friend Joe has been really interested in brewing lately. In fact, he volunteered a bunch of time to help out during the Barrel Project brew day. We decided to get together and split a 12 gallon batch. Just by chance, Cascade hops went on sale. I grabbed 2 lbs and we decided to brew […]

Loop de loop - Imperial British Pale Ale Loop de loop – Imperial British Pale Ale

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

I was not expecting to brew this weekend… Then Jamie started talking about the yeast he purchased to brew 24 gallons of “Snowfall Pale Ale” (his house beer). We quickly realized that he would need at least 1 Trillion yeast cells – he only had 2 vials of WLP005 (200 Billion total). He also wouldn’t […]

Ebenezer IPA Ebenezer IPA

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Time for another IPA. I love the Ranger(ish) clone that we brewed last time. It is simple to brew and delicious. However, I remember thinking that it could use some more Pine/Citrus hop flavor. Lucky for me, I have a glut of Chinook right now. So, the following recipe is based on the Ranger with […]