Boy do they do grow quickly

Been out there watering today and the small Cones from Sunday are now plump and "beaming".
Bines that had some small cone are getting large too. As much as i thought we might not get much this season, it looks like I was wrong.

We really do need to get a watering system into place for rest of season as they are definitely doing better with regular watering. Johnathan has agreed to work on the well tomorrow.

I have found another hops grower in town and hope to make contact with him soon. The other project in Mebane has already harvested the first Cascades and will get a beer made by a local brewer for an open day in September. Looking fwd to tasting that Green hop beer.

We will also move the drying cabinet into place soon, so that any hops we do pick can be put onto drying racks.

We have 3 Sterling that remain - the worst of all the varieties, 12 Nuggett, 12 Cascades, 7 Centeniels , 7 Golding, 8 Willamette, 8 Mt Hood, and 4 Chinnook. or 63 of the 70 we bought.

However there were a few plants that had not sprouted when we planted out and I left them in the greenhouse, some of those did eventually sprout, so need to work out what they are and plant them in the Hops Yard.

Wow , how the time flies !!!!

It seems like just the other day that I was updating you all on a regular basis, but life has come at us so fast this summer, with my wife working 6 days a week, we are just on the run all the time. Kids keep us running when we have any down time.

The hops have finally come alive, 5 weeks back I started to fertilize them , as I was not happy at all with the growth, and this has definitely worked , within 5 days we saw better growth and a lot of rain at the same time also helped no doubt. just used a general 17:17:17 , which had in my shed already for my garden use.

Rain has been hit and miss - literally - last weekend Greensboro City got 3 inches in one storm, and we got only trace, the second time this has happened in last few weeks. According to weather channel we are 5 inches behind this summer , and we are heading into another heat wave this coming week

I finally sent some time across the road working on the back row, we managed to put up a cable on top and Saturday with help from my neighbor , put up ropes for all but the Chinooks - as we still need one more pole and cable to that pole . That has made the hop yard look like something finally. I decided to try some basic twine for the Sterlings, as they are very slow growing and wont get heavy this summer yet.

We have also learnt a few things along the way - firstly , Rotted mulch is not a great soil additive as it ties up the nitrogen decomposing further,

despite the warnings about not using a high Nitrogen fertiliser - HOPS are gross feeders and need it...

also the warnings about horse manure - for same reasons above - are not true, the plants that had manure have done the best

using natural ropes are great, BUT they dont like soil contact, they rot very very quickly,

Lastly the Sterlings were not proven in this climate and have proven to be slow and difficult to grow - we lost 4 of the 7 plants taht made it to planting day, and I doubt we will get any yield off them at all this year, all the rest have done great,

For next year, we MUST get a waering system in, we need early planting on any new rhizomes, Cascades, Nugget, MtHood , Chinook, Centeniells will all get more plants next year

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...