Brew day

After being up till 2:30 am waiting for my wife to come home , she was helping out a friend in need, .... brewing was a big lag today.

I eventually started around 9:30am and I brewed Rick's Ten Hearted Ale , this is my clone of the Bells Two hearted ale. Centennial hops up the wing wang, 11 gallons swallowed 8 oz of pellet hops.

Used a new sack of Maris Otter , and eff was a little off , but still hit 73%

I almost finised my new Conical Fermenter in time. The stand is welded , the lid has a hole for the bubbler, the outlet now has a 90 deg elbow , so all was ready but I found the edge of the lid hits the top of the legs, so need to weld in some spacers , and with so much to do today before we leave in the morning for Kansas City, I just decided that it would wait for the next batch.

OG of 1.064 , a big 1800ml starter of WLP 001 and ice water pumped thro' the immersion cooler to get wort to only 74 deg (ran out of ice too quickly) but the Fermenting fridge was already down to 55 deg in prep for it (set at 64 deg for the primary)

Smells wonderful and tastes good too.

I also have a peach beer fermenting with Champagne yeast , and it is an interesting experiment, which will be ready when I get back.

Hops
With the big rains on Sat and Sunday (..and the fertiliser I'm sure), the hops have taken off, I am seeing inches of growth already since Saturday's work.

Till next week...

June Update

Well , we have been crazy busy and I have not had much to say about the hops, other than I seem to have made a mistake with the addition of the rotten mulch into the soil.

The plants have NOT grown as expected , by now we should have 10-15ft growth and only have 3-4 ft.

Either the mulch has robbed the Nitrogen , or they really need daily water.

The plants are all healthy , and while we have lost a few more , we still have over 70% of the ones that we planted. The worst hit have been the Sterling, we have lost over half of them.

I fertilized with some balanced 10:10:10 two and half weeks ago and the plants have started to react , so this weekend I bought some 17:17:17 and fertilized again just before good rains on Sunday ( we got over 1.5 inches).

I spent the day also putting up more ropes, so now only the back row need trellis.

The well , is still not working , and when back from vacation will give it my best go.

The Cascades and Centennial both have some small cones , and Nugget are also growing very well. The Chinnook at the back are very healthy and have long runners, so need to get some ropes up soon.

The working teams seem to be "working" as most weeks people have been out and watered and weeded. Hopefully it continues well.

I am off on vacation tomorrow and will add to this when back

We have Maypoles

A small group turned out to help get most of the poles properly packed and upright, only two left after this weekend,

Mac, William, Derick, and Barry helped out for a few hours Sunday afternoon in a very nice hot sun.

We also took the opportunity to water them all, as the promised rain (amazingly) missed us this weekend. During the last week the well pump was tested and passed , so now it is either the controller or the badly insulated wire we found when we pulled the pump out the well. We will attempt again to reinstall it and get it working this week. The water is a serious issue as we head to warmer weather.

We also have something eating some of the hop shoots (Sterling hops) , just seems to be happening on one circle which is also the closest to any hiding place, so the most likely culprit is a ground hog who is known to frequent parts of the property close to the old Farm house. I did try planting Marigolds to see if that would stop bugs , but I think he likes those as well :-) , as a few have also gone missing.

The team managed to get 4 more poles correctly tamped tight and vertical, with only two remaining to be done, one the hole was waterlogged , so we could not work it and on the last one , the pole is rotten , so we need to replace that pole. Boy the tamping was hard on the arms , as the large tamper was pretty heavy and all had to take turns as a result.

We then started putting up ropes and anchors, Derick was the pole climber and he had to slip the steel ring over the top, then drill two pilot holes and fasten steel eyes each side of the pole , and lastly tie nylon rope to the steel ring after passing through the eyes, so we can lower and raise the ropes.

Mac and I then started on each circle and tied ropes to the ring and used steel anchors at each plant , and voila we now have two Maypoles complete.

Our project banner should be here this week too, so that all the inquisitive passersby will have an idea of what is going on, we had two visitors this weekend while working asking what was happening.

We are almost there !!!

We had a small turnout Saturday , but got a lot done .. Four of the guys were in Raleigh helping Judge the NHA competition and a few others had prior commitments.

Don , Steve, Derick and William helped to plant the rest of the varieties for us, and mulched them as well. As it was so hot we also watered all the plants to keep them from withering. We do seem to have a bug or two that are enjoying new shoots, but all plants are pushing out multiple shoots that I am not too worried yet, Marigolds do seem to be working where they are already in place - I guess I need to plant a bunch more soon. The only disappointment so far has been the Chinooks , only three rhizomes have shown us some green , and they are now planted out, I keep hoping the others will shoot soon. There are only three other rhizomes that have not sprouted yet, so viability has been pretty good.

Not enough people for poles Saturday and Johnathan had been tasked by his dad to do another task at the same time , but we did get the auger working and dug all 8 holes successfully. This was Hard work and Don did a great job of making sure the holes were vertical, the old tractor had it quirks and I had to learn each one as I worked , the PTO drive did not like being engaged with full clutch in, had to lift it up a bit, and if you know tractors- the clutch is for guys with BIG thighs , we also did not have a pin on the PTO shaft, so each time the auger came up the drive shaft would fall off - grrrrrrrrrrr, but we got it all done.

Don shared a super beer at the end too, we all needed a pint working in that heat. I ducked at 5 and the rest carried on working till about 6pm in the end as Johnathan arrived just after I left.... It was suggested that we try again Sunday to get poles in place.

So after a 7:30am tennis match and a full morning deck building out at Bulamanzie Farm, I came back just in time to start at 3pm with poles. Of course the regulation black clouds started to form just after we started work. Jason, Dan , Derick, Sam , Mark and I were all out there and Johnathan arrived very soon after that to work the excavator to raise the poles. We decided to try and deepen each hole a bit and used a longer albeit thinner auger blade to get another foot or so, so all 8 holes had to be reworked , that old tractor worked me solidly. Dan's young daughter Caitlin (sp) was the official photographer for us till the rain started.

We got the first two poles up and vertical when a light rain started , the guys tamped down the earth in layers and Dan, Johnathan and I got to it with the other poles. The rain steadily got stronger and unfortunately the dry soil turned to red clay mud very quickly, we decided there was no point in tamping the poles as the mud would not pack correctly, using an alu ladder to remove the chains we were using to raise the poles was a bit hairy as lightning flashed overhead..
but we did continue to raise all but the last pole into their holes, so we have 7 out of 8 happily vertical , with two permanently in place ,..... as I write this Monday midday it is still raining steadily with about 2" since it started. Good for hops and farmers, no good for soil needed for pole tamping.

The afternoon was ended as it so often does , in the garage quaffing a cold one. We were all too muddy and dirty to go inside yet again for the third work party weekend in a row.

Yet another rainy weekend

The Hops have fared well the last week, despite the frost and lack of water.

The well pump is damaged – it runs only on start circuit and does not switch to run, this kicks out after a few minutes, but will be pulled and repaired hopefully sometime this coming week , the well is 55ft deep , so not a big job , but still requires two people, and have not managed to get two of us together yet.

I ran a 400ft hosepipe from the house next door and managed to water the plants Friday in desperation.

Two have been damaged or eaten by bugs , but new shoots are down below the mulch level and the rest all look very healthy.

We have an uphill battle to get the rest of the rhizomes planted this week, and of course to get the poles and trellis's into place.

The Hops still in pots in the greenhouse are all looking strong with only a few not yet above surface, some of the Centennial and Cascades are the laggards for now. All other varieties seem to have have taken off.

We were away Friday and Saturday, so Sunday afternoon was the only time we had to work.

Rain was forecast again, but Jason arrived at 1pm and Steve about 40 minutes later. We started to plant the Cascades and were about halfway done when Jim arrived to help. Almost completed with planting and laying paper when Jonathan offered to get poles moved , so we went across to do that , and in the middle of that the first lightning blasted right overhead and a light rain started. We loaded up the poles and the stand for the water tank and moved them all across to the Hops field. Mac joined to unload and then the rain really came down.

Boy did it rain, a little hail too, and we huddled under the porch of the old farmhouse and had a history lesson from Johnathan about the Ballinger Farm (settled in 1751) , Ballinger Inn (Where Washington dined and stayed the night) etc

The temperature dropped too and before long some of the guys were feeling the cold being so wet. We made a dash for my garage and had a beer to warm up, discovered Turtle warm in my house talking to my wife (mmmmmmm) , but after a full hour the rain was still pelting down and Jason and Steve left, Mac Jim and Turtle stayed and very soon the rain stopped and we went across and finished the mulching. I also took the opportunity to start planting the Marigolds between Hops, - these are used as companion plantings to keep aphids at bay.

Oh well , we still have plenty to do, but it will get done eventually.

The annual April Frost

Last Frost day in Greensboro NC, is supposed to be Tax day - April 15th , and we have had frost , 13th, 14th and now expecting frost again night of 15th .

Last year it was brutal - temp dropped into 20's and it wiped out apple and strawberry crops completely. We lost all our apples and all our Azalea buds , thus having no Azalea color last year. Our strawberries we covered up and managed to save most of them.

This year , we have been a bit luckier, the frost for last two nights has been very light and the hop plants that have stuck their heads up have been just fine. Our Strawberries and apple blossoms look just fine.

I did chicken out and did not plant all the hop plants on the weekend because I was scared of frost, but could have gone ahead anyway.

The well has been checked and the diagnosis is a bad pump, I might add this was a brand new pump last summer. So we will have to pull it and replace. It is only 53 ft down, but will still take a few hours. Water this first year is vital, so we must have a solution.

I hope to have the poles finally up within a week or so, as some of the bines are already 3 ft tall.

First of the planting days

We attempted to move poles twice this last week, firstly the large forklift got stuck, then the rollback got stuck next to it, and when the ground dried out a day or two we had another go and we pulled the rollback out , but the forklift would not run, after an hour I worked out the fuel pump was not pumping, I had a pump I use as an emergency for my track car, and once wired and plumbed the forklift ran immediately , but the sun was headed down , so we left it and went to work on the backhoe finishing replacing the hoses - after about 6 or 8 hours work it was working again - this was over three days though.



Another dreary, rain threatening Saturday dawned and scared off many of the members , but Tony came out early as promised and got a bundle of work done. As he says he has such a long way to come , he might as well make it worthwhile.



We tackled the rest of the briar's on the field and also cleaned up around the trees in front of the property , a task that will need doing at least Monthly. The hop rhizomes that were well above soil level in the pots were taken from the Greenhouse and planting was begun.

I decided to limit it to 3 or 4 varieties to start with, the reason behind this is that they will all be kept separate in different areas of the farm, so that mulching would be easier is a long run.


The most prolific were the Nugget's , so I started with them and planted 12 rhizomes in Circle "B" , making a note of each plant and it's origin (where we bought it and which time - Alternative Beverage bought theirs from two sources) ,

if there were any notes made when I potted them, I also wrote these down - like "broken rootstock"


Sterling were next and 6 plants were put out, then 6 Centennial followed and lastly 6 Mt Hood were planted . The quantity planted was purely the number that were big enough to plant out

While I took a break to watch my son play his first Baseball game , Tony started making stakes for the hope ropes. Barry arrived just after lunch and Tony headed back to help at home as promised. Barry and I started laying paper and mulch for weed suppression.

William arrived around 2pm gave us all a flash of leg as he arrived in his swim suite (long story , but split alcohol and his normal work clothes were involved ). Barry and William continued to make stakes until all the rebar was cut up, approx 130 odd stakes.

So we continued the afternoon laying paper and mulch. In total 30 rhizomes were planted , papered and mulched , I started watering but the well is giving problems , and quit again after only 8 minutes - will have to be looked at this week.

Rain is forecast tonight and tomorrow, and we can only hope it actually happens as the new plants will need some water.