2012 - New year

The Smoked Porter was fabulous, probably a bit young when we quaffed it, and maybe I need two lbs of Smoke Malt next time LOL. the kids also drank a lot of my Root Juice - home made Root Beer which I cannot stand as i did not grow up with it, but I do it for the kids, with a separate Keg, seperate taps , seperate everything to keep the flavors away from real beer.

I also have tapped into my South African Hopped Amber ale - hops were Experimental US38 from the SAB Hops farm in George South Africa, a super malty hoppy ale. The first keg did not last long at all.

planning is under way to brew an IPA and a BIG BREW too, ie a high alcohol beer.

Hops farm is quiet, and other than mowing the grass , nothing happening,......... mowing because we have had so many warm days this winter, typically I do nothing for almost 4 months.

Early March will see us out there cleaning up and preparing the beds for the extended Cascade expansion this year

Smoked Porter

So my brewing apprentice , wanted something special to go with an Oyster roast on boxing day.

We decided on a smoked Porter. I turned it into a boys night and Dave and Bobby came out in force, we drank a few cold ones, stood around in the cold and brewed beer.

Beer was tad stronger than planned but maybe that is a good thing.

Will be checking it tomorrow.

2011 in summary

Despite far too few workers , we knuckled down and did the work needed to get Hops up the ropes and as a result saw a great increase in production on the hops we concentrated on.

Nugget and Cascades were superb, with at least 20 lbs coming off the bines this season. Chinook also produced well with a few lbs.

A number of members brewed beers with only farm hops, all nice Pale Ales. I have dry hopped with cascades twice now and had excellent beers.

We also cleaned out the non producing hops from the back row and have space to plant plenty more cascades next season.

Hops update May 2011

May is here , warm but not hot weather yet, Cascades and Nugget are up
the ropes like homesick angels. In fact Nugget is setting first cones
already. Rain expected Wednesday and will put ammonium nitrate 34-0-0
down tomorrow in prep for it.

Chinooks are also working well and some more work has been done on the
back row in prep for planting more Cascades. Must be done this week
or we miss the season.

Well has a broken pipe in pump house - my fault as I forgot to get in
there and winterise before the first big freeze. It did sneak up on
us- but as we had stopped watering long before that I should have just
done it early.

Some pics will be added when I get back from Tampa.

--

Regards
Rick

http://zenzele-brewery.blogspot.com/

http://ballingerbees.blogspot.com/

Another spring has us out working on the farm

Fewer members, I guess too much work.

8 so far involved and we are concentrating on the production hops, Cascades Nugget and Chinook. Will also work on the experimental circle too, and try propagate the Glacier and Horizon.

Good three weeks and all the Nugget and Cascades are roped and thinned, weeds are sort of under control. Chinooks are being worked on now. Feeding is next, and getting the well and watering up and running before the heat of May.

Started digging up the back row, Goldings are mostly gone, but this is big and tough work. Willamette next, MT Hood if we get there.

March / April 2010

Well not exactly weekly , but will try to keep up again.

We are year 4 - amazing........ NC weather was very strange this winter, ice cold all the way to mid March, with not a single warm day - unheard of around here. In fact our Farmer who was born on the farm and in his 70's now , said it was the worst winter he can remember.

So the hops were still sleeping all the way into March, just the tiniest of green buds, then we had a week of 80 deg weather and they went gang busters. We are now mid April and we have 4ft of growth and have still not even completed winter weeding - we also slept until it got warm.

The Main varieties are all growing strongly, but it is produce or die for Goldings and Willamette this year. Rest all did fine last year.

Experimental varieties have all done well (2nd Year now) and I have 4 new ones from Germ Plasm Laboratories of the USDA.

Irrigation is up and running again, after rebuilding the piping in the well house, we also extended the PVC feed pipe back to the faucet and buried it, so no longer have to run a hosepipe.

Have fertilized with a high Nitrogen feed and will now used Miracle gro again as they are starting to set cones. Growth has been very quick this year and we have had to work most weekends to keep up with weeds and cleaning up bines.

New season

After a miserable Winter which stayed cold for 3 months with no warm days (very unusual for NC) , we had a sudden warm up 2nd week of March and the hops literally popped out the ground in about 4 days.

We have had two work days to get on top of the ever present weeds , and have harvested rhizomes too, about 150 Cascades, and now starting on Nugget , 30 potted up so far. Chinooks next and maybe Mt Hood as well.

Two new members in the co-op after 4 dropped out , one through moving away and three just not having time anymore.  We agreed that the founding members would remain silent partners and also get a share of product, as they put plenty sweat equity into the foundation of the hops yard.

No expansion planned this year , I am too bushed and the damn tractor I fixed last year is dead again.

The extended cold weather also froze up the well head pipes and will have to do repairs there too, despite putting a 60 watt bulb in for heating.... next year I will wrap pipes with a Reptile heating pad.