Zenzele Brewery

2012 - New year

2012-01-05T16:05:00.001-05:00

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

2011-12-21T00:35:00.003-05:00

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

2011-11-22T14:31:00.002-05:00

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

2011-05-03T08:03:00.001-04:00

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

2011-04-12T13:53:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-14T09:15:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

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.

Making a South African Snack - Biltong

2009-12-21T19:10:00.004-05:00

Biltong - a Spiced air dried meat snack, similar to American Jerky, Origins are from the South African settlers who in 1800's hunted as they moved into the interior, and had to store their extra provisions, they salted and spiced the meat and hung it out to dry.

Some of my friends asked me how I make my Biltong.

So here goes, it takes about 5-9 days, with three steps, preparation , soaking overnight and then drying

We need the meat, 5 -100lbs
about 1 1/2 cups of vinegar in small flat container,
coarse salt , I use Kosher Coarse Salt
spices , peppercorns and whole coriander
and a large storage container before we start. I use an 8 gallon Rubbermaid

I use Beef or Venison, best cuts are Round of Beef, or Eye of Round. Obviously the Ham is best from Venison , but I will cut up a shoulder too.

Prepare the spicing - I use coarse salt, coriander whole seed, whole peppercorns and vinegar. My best mix is 1/5 Peppercorns, 4/5 coriander, I then grind these in a spice grinder (or clean coffee grinder). I spice pretty heavily , so for about 20lbs of meat I use about 1 cup of whole spices before grinding. You want them fine ground with a few coriander hulls still whole (see pic). The reason why I use whole is that they stay 500% more fresh if kept whole and in the freezer.
If it is your preference , you can add other spices or herbs or chili peppers. Garlic and Chili are regular additives in commercial Biltong. Some guys add in Worcester sauce into their dip, I dont like it. Once ready , put aside and start cutting up the meat.

I cut both along the grain and across depending on the muscle being cut, about 3/4 to 1" thick, long thick strips make the best Biltong and all pieces being similar thickness is also important. Biltong will dry to be at least 50% less in weight, so keep this in mind when choosing how much to make at one time. I typically buy two whole Round of Beef from Cosco or Sams Club - expect to pay $2.20 or so per lb. On specials I can get it below $2/lb

Once all the meat is cut up, trim off yellow and dry fat (chalky in texture), as well as sinew and stringy pieces. Fat does not shrink like the meat does. The white outside skin fat is acceptable on Eye of Round. I also cut very large pieces into narrower strips of about 2"- 2.5" wide.
You want the best quality meat to make good Biltong, cheap cuts of meat make poor Biltong. Brisket does NOT work for example - too much fat.

The method from here is important, put the vinegar into a flat container, it should be big enough to be able to dunk the largest piece of meat. Coat the bottom of your storage container with salt, and then spices - see pics

Now dip each piece of meat into vinegar, then lay it flat on the spice salt mix, cover the whole container base with meat side by side without overlapping. Then sprinkle salt over the meat, you want a piece of course salt about every 3/16 to1/8" apart. You get a feel for this . You can over salt - it is a fine line - rather be light first time. After salt then cover it all with spice, here I am heavy with spices and make sure you can see no meat when done.
Then next layer of meat and do it all over again.

Meat is left soaking in the spice and brine solution, for just 24 hours, then it is time to hang it for drying. I made a drying box out of a large cardboard moving box, some thick wire as horizontal hangers and a computer (muffin) fan. I punched 8 holes about 1" at top of the sides of the box with it closed off. Bottom is left open and taped up , fan is mounted in one side of the box with it blowing air into the box. Meat is hung on long wire rods , each piece is threaded onto "S" wire hooks made from galvanized wire which I boil first , each piece of Biltong must be spaced so that they are not touching each other, and you can do more than one level , no issue with upper pieces dripping on lower pieces as they dry within a day . The box is placed onto multi layered newspaper to soak up the first few hours of brine drippings.

In the old days in South Africa I just hung the meat on racks in the garage in winter (no flys or bugs in winter), and a friend has made a wooden box with screens on it and added a 60 watt bulb for his biltong dryer, I am sure a dehydrator would also work, but the meat must hang without touching anything. meat can be threaded with twine to hang it or reuse galv "S" hooks. I have also hung mine in a box over an aircon floor vent in desperation when I first came to the usa and needed to make some in summer, before I came up with the computer fan idea.

Thin pieces in a dry winter environment can be ready for snacking within 3-5 days. I like mine still wet in the center, and it is usually ready by day 7 or 8. Two weeks for really dry and no longer. Vinegar is critical in summer as it helps start the drying process by creating the outside skin and you must check it carefully in summer to make sure enough dry air is circulating or the meat can go off BUT in winter spring and fall it is never an issue.The few times I have made Biltong in summer I cut much thinner pieces to help it dry quicker.

Here is the old drying cupboard,

but I have a new drying cupboard, powered by two computer fans.

Here is the final product,

Brewery details

2009-12-04T11:21:00.003-05:00

Recirculating Infusion Mash System

I thought it was time to publish details of how the brewery works as a few have asked.

Beer is made by taking sugars from Malted barley (and other grains at times) and then adding yeast to those sugars, fermenting it out and the by products are then Beer and CO2. As brewers we call this the All Grain method of brewing.
To extract the sugars we must first mill the grain which strips off the husk, then we mash the grain (make a porridge), which is the process of mixing your milled grain in with hot water at very controlled temperatures, and letting the mixture rest for a period of time.

Enzymes found naturally occurring in the grain are activated by the heat and water so that they begin to break down the starches within the grain into sugars.We then boil these sugar waters and add hops to create the unique flavors that starts the foundation of our beer, the yeast also adds flavors to the final beer, based on the sub type of yeast and the temperature it is fermented at.

The Zenzele Brewery is very similar to a full size brewery, other than the heating method. Big breweries either use steam jacketed kettles or direct steam injection (older style). I use direct fire method from below the kettle using Propane.

The brewery consists of three vessels on three levels - which can allow for gravity feeding but I do pump most of my liquids. At the top we have a Water Heating tank called the Hot Lauter Tank , this feeds hot water to the Mash Tun (48 Qt Igloo Marine Cooler) , and on the lower level we have the Kettle. The system also has a much smaller Heater in the Mash circuit which is part of the RIMS system, the basis of the system is to recirculate the mash water in a controlled way while applying heat, to do this we use a smaller heat chamber and in my case a 1500 watt heater element controlled by a PLC.

This is version 3 of the solution for me. Vers 2 used a free standing PID (proportional Integration) temp controller, which I was never happy with - either due to my lack of understanding of the unit or the fact it was far too cheap (ebay).

The BCS - 460 by Embedded Control Concepts which I use today and helped beta - is a programmable logic controller which can be used for many functions, but I use just for heat control at present in the mashing cycle, I have started to build a HLT controller using Electrical heating so that I can wake up to Hot water for the mash in.

All piping on the brewery is 1/2 ID copper tubing, with soldered joins, this includes the RIMS Chamber too, which is a 1 1/2" Tube with 1/2 in and out, all the major systems can be taken apart using unions for extra cleaning and repair. I also built a clean in place fitting to flush the system with cold water, which is done both post brew as well as pre brew days. The system is stored dry though, and a full HOT deep cleaning cycle is done after about 4 brews.

The BCS can be run stand alone or hooked up to a PC to see the interface and outputs.

I also have a motorized Grain Mill, which also provides Grain Storage underneath, as I decided if I was to use a footprint in the brewery I might as well , maximize the footprint , but going vertical.

So a typical Brew day consists of preparation the night before, weighing out grains and milling them, I also typically measure out the Mash water and fill the HLT.

In the morning I get up early, fire the HLT and go and have breakfast, it takes about 45 minutes to get to Mash In temp , which is calculated by the sw I use - Promash , Mashing takes about an hour , and it is at this stage that all the extra toys come into play, I start the pump, and recirculate the Mash water, keeping volume slow and steady, the BCS is programmed to the temp I need - typically around 148-154 deg F for most of the beers we do (low means dryer). I start my mash timer from Brewtimer a freeware program that I also helped improve with feedback in early editions, and go back inside where I can watch the temps via wireless connection to the BCS. I also have to fill the HLT with Sparge water and put onto a low heat, with expectation of 170 deg by the end of the hour of mashing.

Next part is Sparging, which is washing the grains, a method to extract as much extra sugar out of the porridge we made during mashing. Three methods exist to do this , and I use the lazy method - Batch Sparging, which produces very high % results and is being followed more and more by Homebrewers. I drain off the original Mash water completely into my kettle, and then taking half the calculated volume of sparge water (volume calculated to give me a final volume of 11.5 gallons after boiling) fill the mash tun and recirculate for just 5 minutes and drain off again.

At the same time I have fired up the kettle to start heating the wort towards the boil. I then perform a second sparge with the remaining hot water and drain off after 5 minutes.

Getting to Boil can take another 30-40 minutes with 13 odd gallons, at boil we have to be careful of boil over and I have started to use a silica based product Fermcap that prevents that from happening. Hops are added to the boil based on the recipe, which can vary by qty as well as frequency. Typical is at boil = 60 min, for bitterness, at 10min for taste and at 2min for aroma.

During the boil, preparation is done for the fermenter to be sanitized, using Star San in my case , a No-rinse phosphoric acid sanitizer used in the food industry.

I use one of 5 types of Fermenters, 6 gallon buckets - the original method , 15 Gal Food Safe Plastic Fermenter , Glass Carboys, Stainless Conical - homemade, Stainless Kegs converted to Fermenters

The Wort is cooled via an immersion cooler and a counterflow cooler until, around 70 deg min, I try for 65 but not so easy except in mid winter as ground water is only in 60's around here . This is then pumped into the fermenter and yeast is added and sealed with a blow off tube immersed in Star San. The whole fermenter is put into the temperature controlled fridge for approx 1-2 weeks before racking off into a secondary - which in my case is always the serving kegs. Depending on the beer type , it could sit in secondary for between a week and 6 months. Higher Alcohol Beers take longer to condition, as do lagers which need 4 weeks min.

I dont filter any of my beer yet, but cold conditioning over time makes most beers very clear. Beers are then put on tap in one of the three Zenzele Brewery kegerators.

So a Brew day is typically about 4-5 hours long after clean up, but a lot of time is spent sitting around and occasionally sampling last brew days efforts , I often run chores or take kids to their events while brewing , except when the boil is more than half way - I remain at my post, as hop profiles are very time dependant.

I hope you have as much fun as I do. In taking this hobby far too far. Projects under way, using BCS 460 to drive the electrical HLT which would allow me to walk down in morning to water already at strike temp (Phase 1) , then adding a dump valve and mash stirrer (Phase 2) which would allow me to walk in once Mash is under way, ....... in addition I have been working on a two stage controller with the BCS to run both heat and cold systems for the winter fermentation, where we control the heat during exothermic beginnings of fermentation , but provide heat later when too cold. Right now I am upgrading the Propane burners and all the piping for those, but will post separately about that soon.

More details in picture format can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rick.abc/BuildingTheZenzeleBrewery#

RIMS Diagrams

2009-12-03T12:06:00.043-05:00

RIMS by Diagram , this shows the overall solution using a 3 tier Brewery like mine

The first diagram shows a single tier where

water is filled into the HLT , this is then pumped into the mash tun at Mash In to me mixed with the milled grains.

Mashing takes place while the mash water is recirculated and heated to keep temperature constant , with a PID temperature controller or PLC as in my case where I use the BCS 460

Sparging or washing of the grains, takes water from the HLT at around 170 deg and flows through the grain bed , dissolving out additional sugars and at same time filtering the mash water of particulates , this is then tranferred to the kettle , in preparation for Boiling.

Once the wort has been boiled it has to be cooled and transferred into the Fermenter , some brewers also add a hopback before cooling, this is a way to add additional flavor hops to the brew. As boiling has driven off all the oxygen , we need to add Oxygen back and this is done on the cold side or in the fermenter, as Yeast cells requires O2 for creating wall strength .

Finally here are the electrics I built , which have safety built in, the heater will only work if the pump is on, and I use a GFI for this whole system. I have changed the Heating element back to a 500 watt one , as the PID (or now the PLC) regulate the heat enough to prevent scorching.

First hard frost

2009-12-03T09:27:00.000-05:00

Well the first Hard Frost - all of 31 deg finally hit the hops yard, almost 5 weeks later than normal and not as hard as we typically see.

The bines are now resting and we need to do a clean up as a result, but i amazingly still have a few peppers growing as only their tops were singed by the frost.

I have a full 6 gallon bucket of peppers to turn into sauces and storage, will borrow a pressure canning pot tomorrow.

As the hops are over I will start to blog about the brews instead this year, so expect to see more about the brewery and beers in next few months.

2009-11-11T12:05:00.001-05:00

Brewery Updates:

I am in the process of helping another member plan his 3 tier brewery and his immediate comment was: "I will not do what you with the burner and will buy two and hard plumb them into the stand".

This gave me a kick in the pants to get on with finally fixing my kluge of moving the burner between top (HLT) and bottom (Kettle). That same night I placed the order and am in the middle of adding black pipe and fittings to make the system easier to use.

I have also in parallel also started work on an electrical HLT for winter, I can program the BCS 460 to start heating water to strike temp and even dump into Mash if I want to, this can happen much earlier than I get up.... so the basics of the beer process could start automatically before I rub the sleep out of my eyes, sounds cool and far fetched , but I now have all I need to make this happen. It will most likely just be the first phase which is heating to strike and keeping it there , till I come down and mash in manually. Per my original ideas of using gas to do this , the electrical method is safer. I still have the gas valves but they are on/off not proportional and will maybe look at other solutions along the way.

The fermenter control project is still after 9 months at 95% complete - life just got in the way.... but one part that did intrude has gone away, making my time more my own again.

These projects are what keep my beer making hobby alive....

2009-10-09T12:16:00.004-04:00

The hops season is well over, in fact it was over by July for us. More below

Boy oh boy, have I been slack.... many have asked why i have not updated this blog..... welllll

The economy and other factors in my life made me lie low, with no energy to write anymore.

The last few weeks have been hell, but a resignation letter today , made it all OK and a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

We had a mixed success year in the hop yard, the expected varieties did OK not great but OK , nitrogen remains a challenge and I will have to make regular efforts next year to stay on top of the big N. The early summer rains and heat , made the plants go gang busters and we were harvesting by June 15, far far too early. The newly planted Rhizomes we bought this year were a disaster for some reason, maybe just too wet when we planted them, less than 40% came up, weeds however grew like there was no tomorrow.

Brewing always slows in summer because of the heat, this year it halted completely , because there was no passion. I did however brew a back to back - hellish day - ale and lager at the same time 2 weeks back, ale will come off the yeast today and go into dry hopping for a week, Lager I will leave alone a few more days.

The hop yard has a second crop of Cascades, on vines that grew since picking the main crop, and look pretty good. Vines/ bines have taken a hammering since the harvest , but i think this is normal , we have had a hot dry second half to summer. The weeds have taken over unfortunately, and we will have issues next year, but with good food and care we should have a very successful 3rd season next year, as we have learned so much more about how to grow these relatives of cannabis :-).

We will have a fall yard clean up once the first frost has swept past us, and then it will be quiet until March when we will harvest rhizomes for sale, local to start with, and if enough further afield. The massive amount of brewers growing hops last and this year will subside as prices continue to decrease (from $30 a lb , back to $10/lb now) but we will continue to have fun doing it next year.

Rain glorious Rain

2009-06-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

Since our workday Sunday , where we thought we might get rain but did not, we have had 3 full days of rain.

Almost 2" , which is terrific for the hops and surrounding areas. I did make it across in the rain to turn off the watering system.

By June 16th we had started to pick hops, some pics and our drying rack constructed by Dan - thanks a bunch Dan

Some growth pics:

Mid June

2009-06-11T12:30:00.000-04:00

Well I had planned that the rest of May and June would be general growing and Maintenance months, yet here we are ready to start picking hops , MID JUNE - DAMN !!!!

Sunday May 3rd

2009-05-03T20:21:00.003-04:00

Mark, Jason , and Don worked Saturday with me , and most of the others came out on Sunday this weekend. Don did a sterling job of weedeating the boundary of the farm so we have clean areas now between the trees and along the fence lines.

Plenty of weeding got done by all the guys , we also hung up the project banner and cleaned out and resorted out the container (thanks Steve). The base of each strongly growing hop plant was also cleaned up , Tony teaching others how to go about this task

Derick, Sam, William and Tony helped me get the back wire up finally over the Chinooks and they then hung ropes while I planted the last of the Rhizomes. Tony was the monkey up the pole this time - thanks.

A positive weekend where we are now on top of all the major tasks of the spring - just a few bines to train and clean the bases on and we are ready for the growing of summer. The soil test again showed low Nitrogen , so will take soil for a proper test to the extension service tomorrow and then fertilize appropriately once we get results back. I did feed all plants with miraclegro this last week - so in short term they should be fine.

The watering computer was also installed and programmed for an hour each day. I will monitor to see if this is enough. The computer can have up to 6 programs so can either do twice a day or lengthen the cycle.

A full stock take tonight showed we have 138 potential plants growing - some are still below surface as only planted in last week. So plenty of harvest work ahead of us.

A good week

Irrigation is complete

2009-05-01T22:33:00.005-04:00

Well with a bit of work and help yesterday Mark and I finished the irrigation system. The system has a 1" main PVC feed from the tap fed by the pressured well pump. We have 60 Psi static from the well which is plenty and not an issue with our 2GPH pressure compensated drippers which will work all the way down to 10Psi

1" couplers

The Main line is joined by 4 couplers so that we can do maintenance and also take apart at end of season.

Main Line feeding the circles and back Row

All 2nd year Growing bines as well as new hop plantings have a 2 Gallon per hour dripper

Dripper and new Chinook

some 110 of them, tomorrow will be official stock take to confirm the actual number and planting of the last few Rhizomes left- most from the experimental ones.

Branch off to circle with valve, roll of 3/8" Poly

The circles are each fed by a 3/4 PVC with each one on its own valve, these 3/4 are buried so that the tractors etc can easily move around the hops yard. The dripper line is 3/8 Poly, which we got donated

I am also experimenting with taking green shoots for growing on in the greenhouse this year, to propagate new plants. That way we will start next year with new plants already rooted.

This weekend will be the last full work party , as we will have a lower work load now that watering is fully automated. No pics of the controller , but will add a pic later.

Building up the irrigation system

2009-04-28T22:27:00.009-04:00

Over last 2 weeks we have been busy building up a drip irrigation system to make watering all our plants so much easier. The well is working fine and water seems strong - the pressure is a strong 60 Psi, but after about 30 minutes the volume does seem to drop a bit, but keeps going beyond an hour which is the longest I have run it continuously.

The main irrigation spine going down the main back row is 1" PVC - from that we have 4 separate 3/4 " PVC pipes that we have buried to feed the circles, these in turn feed 3/8" black poly pipe onto which we have put the 2 gallon per hour pressure compensated (cleanable) drippers from Irrigation Direct. The side pipes are joined with couplers and the spine is also joined with couplers in 4 places so that we can remove this main feed at end of season.

Each hop crown has its own blue dripper , the poly pipe is then anchored in place using 12" wire hooks pushed into the soil. Each circle has between 20 and 24 hops plants, and the 128ft back row has them spaced 3 ft apart.... right now we are tilling up a back back row , an additional row on the same wires spaced 3 ft behind the main row. This will add space for our extra Goldings and Chinooks.

The drippers seem to work very well on the well water so far without supplimental pressure , but will monitor once fully installed within next few days.

The main valve will be on a timer with two settings per day allowing about 3 gallons per bine

3rd Hops Farm workday

2009-04-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

A Great day out on the Farm...plenty to do.

During the week Barry helped me get the core of the watering and Irrigation system laid down, and this last weekend the co-op members turned out in force and we prepared the remainder of the beds, trained bines, thinned out the rapidly growing hops weeded and also raised the last pole on the end of back row (finally). This was an interesting task as the arm on the backhoe has a problem with lateral movement (the control has a suspected broken spring) - and wont work , but even worse wont hold it's position and swings left and right on its own.

So backing the tractor and moving the arm was needed to position the pole, but after a few tries we got it done.

Lots of advice from the sidelines ...

I also worked on the well again during last week - repairing freeze damage to a small section of pipe in front of the one way valve- obviously water collected and then froze and expanded, I replaced it with a section of 1" galvanized pipe

Mark taking a rest.

It was a wonderful warm but cloudy day on Sunday - ideal for working outside , as it followed an 81deg day Saturday and would have been too hot to be working outside all day, so the cloud cover was wonderful , later in the evening we had 1/2 " of rain which was just perfect for the hops.

WE also created more metal stakes and continued with roping off the back row until we ran out of the old rope - new rope due in tomorrow.

Also expected this week are all the irrigation drippers so that we can test the irrigation system. I chose flag drippers - 2gph and these can be dismantled for cleaning too.

Lastly we also worked over some expanded areas (extra 3 feet width) behind the Goldings and the Chinooks , so that we can plant a second row - at least the beginning of one - for the extra rhizomes we have.

Talking of extra rhizomes, cleaning up the Mt Hood I found three plants that had thrown rhizomes up to 2 ft from the crown , so cut them off and created another 5 plants - all of which are growing. I also cut two Centenniels and planted them too.

Last interesting thing we noticed is that amongst the Nugget, we have two plants that are obviously different, growth pattern is diff as well as shape of leaves, so we will monitor these and have marked them as well. Watching the emergenmce of new shoots of all the hops has been interesting as each variety has been different, either by time they came out, or color of shoots and by growth pattern. Leaves are subtely different too.

2nd Work day - April 5

2009-04-05T22:22:00.006-04:00

Well two weeks of almost permanent rain (over 3"), have brought tremendous growth and advancement to the hops.

The Nuggets, the Cascades and Centennials are all 18" to 24" tall. The newly mulched centers have new weeds to.

Once again we had a good turn out of the members and three pardons and later on email found another pardon, which means 14 of the 16 Guys either turned out to work or excused themselves today - excellent job.

We had lots to do, we had to make wire rings and find all the old stakes, which in many cases were below ground, I found that using the rake helped us a lot as the metal on metal ring located them easily even when buried. Grass was cut and edges weedeated , as well as all the surrounding areas. We also rolled out the beginnings of the irrigation system, with the 3/8 piping rolled around the circles.

Jason and I sorted out the first circle (Nugget) before lunch and when all the rest arrived we climbed in and resolved most of the rest

We also planted the 5x Chinooks from the Greenhouse, so we now have 8 in the ground with rain expected tomorrow.

A good days work

First work day - begining of March

2009-03-21T21:23:00.006-04:00

Great turn out of the team , we had rain beginning of the week but a nice day to get out there after a few days drainage.

We weeded , hoe'ed , dug, used the tiller , and got the ground ready for first spring.

The Nugget and Cascades were just starting to shoot.

We also decided to mulch the circle centers to prevent weeds and grass being a problem , like it was last year.This required me to get a tractor working, easier said than done...... took about 3 hours in all, battery out and on charger, then reinstall, try start, no luck, easy start being careful because too much can cause a bent conrod.... eventually I managed to get it started and it ran without issue all day. Just the rear backhoe arm has an issue with left right control - seems like there is a broken spring in the control valve........ task for another day soon.

One hop got dug up thinking it was a large weed , the person will remain nameless to protect him hehehe LOL

Jason and Dans' sons both had tractor rides while carting mulch, which made their days.
Dan brought a trailer of Compost - ahem , well it was supposed to be compost and brought more mulch - to add to the 5000 tons I have on the farm

Mark also welded up the door which made a great difference as it works fine now and we were able to lock up our tools and stuff.

Mark Stoehr our new member this season, worked tirelessly with his tiller....

First work of the 2009 season

2009-03-20T11:41:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow we spend the afternoon working in the hop yard, lost of activity already with most varieties already showing growth activity.

The rhizomes in the greenhouse have plenty of leaves already , and looking much better than last year, some of these are ones that did not sprout until very late last year and I decided to keep them potted. Others are cuttings from the clean up at end of last year. If it had buds I kept it and stored over the winter and then a month back planted into the Greenhouse.

Tomorrow we will weed the beds, clean up the area in general and till the beds that are open for new plantings to come, we should see new rhizomes in about 2-3 weeks.

We have plenty to do - but first I have to get at least one of the damn tractors to run, both we used last year have not run in a few months. The big Backhoe has a flat tire too.

Pics to follow

From Snow to tanning

2009-03-09T16:36:00.003-04:00

Last weekend - 6" snow

This weekend , 80 deg weather , awesome, ..... at least we know winter in NC is being pushed out by the warmer air.

I fertilized the hops last weekend and went looking for activity this weekend and the shoots are right there , just below the surface.

The Greenhouse has shoots on almost all the rhizomes that were left over or newly planted during winter. Another 10 plants , at least 4 Chinooks and definitely 4 Goldings, not sure of the other two yet. The pots have got algae growing on them so I need to dry them out to see what the text is.

Well it was a winter weekend

2009-03-02T14:34:00.003-05:00

More of an interesting set of pics...than hop info

Greensboro had 6 inches of snow Sunday evening, so I got up early and went across to the Hops Farm for some Winter Pics..

Trying to shake off winter

2009-02-20T15:42:00.003-05:00

Yet another cold winter weekend, but planning has started for this season.

We will plant out the 4 front circles, giving up on the Sterling in #1 . This will be replaced with another variety or used for our experimental hop varieties- Glacier, Horizon and Santiam. Was hoping for Northern Brewer, as one of the suppliers had them on their website , but they emailed back to say it was a mistake.

Chinooks will be extended and we will get that damn last pole up this year....

Feeding has already started with an application of general fertiliser and I also found an interesting tidbit about the anti fungal properties of Corn meal, thus will spread a bag of corn meal over the planting area this weekend. It has been found that any field rotated after Corn had almost no fungal issues with the following crops.

We will start out working on the afternoon of March 21st, planting preparation and general cleaning up and mulching again.

We will also establish an irrigation system this year making all that manual watering a lot easier.

During clean up last year I found a few large nodes on the Goldings old growth that we cut off and decided to cut these off and put them in wet papertowel and into a baggie in the fridge. Found them this last week and they are growing, so planted them out in the greenhouse , all 4 had great looking sprouts and shoots. The other rhizomes that were in the Greenhouse left over from last are looking good with a few new shoots already up and showing.

The PLC expands to monitor and control fermentation

2009-01-25T14:14:00.007-05:00

I started wiring the solid state relays to be able to control both a heat and cool cycle in my fermenting fridge.

Deciding and buying a cheap case has been a bigger issue than the wiring, the local box stores only have a few choices and want too much money, and my budget is blown , so I stuck with an outlet box instead and used an extension topper box to make it deeper.

Still busy with the wiring, but the plan is to have two outlets that are independently controlled by the BCS, that way I can control both heat and cold on the same system for Winter or later in the season can control two separate cooling fermentation systems

Each outlet will also have an OFF switch as well as a signal neon light so that I will know when it is triggered.

First brew day with the BCS-460 Temp controller

2009-01-25T14:07:00.002-05:00

The first full brew day on November 15th went without a single hitch, the sw was updated Friday night and wiring completed around midnight.

Here is the unit with ethernet connected (red) , output to the SSR (orange) and the two thermistors (white)

Adam has done a great job with the new additions to the sw, the frames are gone, additions include color buttons showing what outputs are active and what state they are in RED is ON, Green is OFF

I mashed in, aiming 3 deg below my real strike to see how the system would cope. It fired immediately and within 4 minutes had stabilized at 150 deg, I monitored both the output from the mash as well as the output from the RIMS heating chamber so that I did not scorch the wort. I never saw more than 3 deg difference.

Front temp probe is Mash out, behind is RIMS out

I chose to monitor both the mash tun output and the RIMS heater output to make sure I am not scorching the wort and also how close the temps are.

I verified the actual mash temp with a lab thermometer to be 100% sure.

I also used the new feature of being able to change the actual temp in the middle of a cycle, so changed from 150-152 after 45 minutes, it worked really easily, again did not did not see too much differential between Mash temp and RIMS heat output

The system is running a 1500watt element at 120volt AC. My system also has a hardwired interlock so that heating cannot work if the pump is not on, I can also switch heating off at any time with a manual switch (by same token I can forget to switch it on too []). The heating element is fired by a solid state relay which needs a 3-30 volt trigger from a controller. The BCS-460 provides this control voltage..

The mash stayed 100% within 1 deg the whole hour and switched off exactly at 60 minutes as programmed. The only missing part for me is an alarm (which was added in production sw) , so I used the Brewery Timer (which I also helped Beta)

Derek Meyn spent the morning with me checking that I made no mistakes, we brewed the Rittmeyer Kellerbier , my copy of the beer from the brewery I visited in Germany, I used Weyerman Pils Malt and 2% Munich with Spalt Hops - exactly what Alois used. The yeast is the only unknown , so used generic German Lager WLP830. We aimed for 12 Plato or 1.048 and got 1.049 with 83% eff, sparged to 13 gallons exactly and had just on 11.25 into fermenter at the end.

Once the brew day was finished I decided to do a cleaning cycle , and programmed the BCS to do a step mash during that. I used 3 gallons of PBW strike at 120, programmed it to step at 122 and hold once at temp for 10 minutes, then step to 150 and mash for 60 minutes.

Here is the back pic showing the unit on top of my existing control box and the SSR mounted on a heatsink below.

The steps took about 25-35 sec per degree, not too bad at all. I wrote it down but stupidly threw it out when cleaning up late last night, so don't have the empirical data I should have, I guess I had too many home brews yesterday.

A very successful first run with the device which worked perfectly. I intend to build a new SSR housing to use for Fermenting next, and will also use a DIN input next time to start the process - ie wont need the ethernet connected.

PLC for the brewery

2009-01-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

Well it is the off season for hops growing and the fields stand empty at present , even though planning has started for March.

I have been busy in the brewery at least and I was lucky enough to be a tester for a new PLC temp controller.

I firstly had to understand the concepts of State Machine programming and it did not take too long - surprisingly as I haven't done anything like this since Uni, almost 25 years ago.

OK, so the unit arrived early November from Embedded Control Concepts and I experimented with the system dry for a few days proving my programming ability.
http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/ for more info.

The unit is packaged into a Black 6x4x1" Alu container

The I/O is all on one side - very neat for a beta box.

First out - the Ethernet port is self sensing , and even if directly connected does not require a cross over cable (I spent 30 minutes looking for the one I know I have and never found)
The system will auto fail to DHCP and self assign it's own IP address after 20 secs if directly connected.

I tried networking it through my wireless router and had no luck finding the assigned IP address, (I later found out the WIFI router has a table of all assigned addresses and I could have looked it up - DUH).

I had to force my Local Connection ethernet port to a fixed IP in the end, as the WIFI kept setting its IP config to same as WIFI. This issue we overcame during the beta. I will also attempt to look at connecting this to more than one PC to see how easy / difficult the first connection is. I later used a WIFI Print router to connect it remotely.

The external items needed and sold on the site are the Immersion temperature probe, 10K ohm NTC thermistor input. 6" (15 cm) or 4" (10cm) 304 SS stem and 1/4" NPT brass adapter with compression sleeve for adjustable insertion length. Accuracy of 0.2Â°C,
You will also need Solid State Relay's - rated for switching 15-40 amps, these are the ones that are switched with a 3-8v input
The system allows for 4 inputs and drives up to 6 outputs.

For my first test , I programmed a simple RIMS mash, and did a dry run, to confirm the parameters and switching of everything. A hot water test followed to confirm heating.

The gas control valve arrived in December , just need the pilot burner to be able to test that. I will use it with a temp probe to heat and keep to temperature the HLT water , both strike and later sparge water. This is still part of my testing regime for January.

So I have started programming for the day I can get the system to start on its own, firstly a delay till on, then gas valve will fire and HLT water will start to heat and keep its temp within 2 deg for strike water.
This means I can go to bed the night before after lighting the pilot light on the gas system and wake up with Strike water ready for me.
Next will be mash in (could do this automatically with a water valve), mash stirrer ON for 5 minutes, and then into mashing for 60 minutes and RIMS will take care of hitting and maintaining the mash temp. This program is what I have used for the last 4 brew days, which have all been very successful. The only issue I have had was an intermittent display problem where the timers stopped showing updates, they did keep working in the background and I discovered why the display had stopped.

The first year in summary

2008-11-10T11:13:00.006-05:00

So to summarize the year:

We prepared land and beds for around 100 potential plants, we ended up buying 70 total split up into the following:
Nugget x12 (all grew)
Cascade x12 (lost 2)
Centennial x 8 (lost 1)
Mt Hood x8 (all grew)
Goldings x8 (all grew)
Willamette x 8 ( lost 1)
Chinook x 10 (3 grew and 3 more eventually came out in greenhouse)
Sterling x 8 (lost 5 - 4 of those to animals)

The most voracious growers were the Nugget, Cascades, and Centennial , followed by Chinook and Goldings. Weakest were Sterling. Most yield - Cascade and Centennials followed by Nuggest and Chinook and Goldings.

Water was a challenge, the well was only repaired very late in the season , early August, and this was a setback for us.

We learned that hops are a gross feeder plant and the use of the rotten mulch as a soil enhancer was not very sensible as it tied up the Nitrogen and reduced growth. Once we realized this and fed the plants they took off, at first I used some "Miracle Grow", and after that used a balanced general fertilizer, spread liberally at base of the vines.

We chose to let any and all greenery grow this first season, so that we would get a big root system for future , this was at the expense of hops cone production, but we still harvested about 4-5 lbs of hops overall.

And dried them on racks in the container we organized from the farmer, sadly a set of large storms came through and blew the door off its hinges and damaged most of the picked hops

But the small $$ we all have invested so far will easily return itself next year, with a lb or two of hops to each stake holder if my projections are correct, the commercial guys get as much as 10lbs per bine on vigorous growing varaieties like Cascades and Nugget, and 3-4lbs per other varienties, with 2 bines per rootstock, we should be good next year.

We only overspent the budget by $75, and more than half the team worked all season including the clean up this last weekend.

Questions for next season:

1) Are all stakeholders happy to continue and prepared to continue to work or do we buy out the ones who were not able to help with the work
2) Do we plant more hops of the varienties that did work?
3) Do we abandon Sterling, as a bad example ?? Or do we try again and have better animal control ?
4) Do we install an irrigation system?
5) Do we mulch the circle centers for better grass and weed control ?

Please comment here or email me for any more information....

Rick

End of the hop season

2008-11-06T21:47:00.004-05:00

Oh well

I have not been very good about updating this blog, as life (to quote an ad) has come at me fast in last 2 months. Been across the Atlantic 3 times in last month, once to Africa, twice to Europe. Our Club has also had our first sanctioned beer competition last weekend, so a little busy to say the least.

The Hops season has come to an end with the first frost a week back and as expected some plants took a knock. We have learned a bunch from season one.

Hops are gross feeders and need fertilizer and water constantly in beginning of growing season, once cones get there ---- water water water.

Of course the weeds also like the food and water, we will need to do a better job of weed suppression, some have suggested we kill off the grass in the centers of the circles and mulch, and we will probably do this early season, and use some roundup to keep the beds clear of the infringing grass.

The plants delivered surprisingly well for season one, Nugget, Cascades and Centennials all did very very well, Mt Hood, Golding OK, and Chinooks did well too. Willamette and Sterling were poor.

We will need to decide what course of action we follow next year, maybe try a few new ones?? and certainly fill extra plants in the 3 that did so well , to complete the circles of all three.

Chinnoks will also add a few more plants..

As for qty, well I had intended to be very accurate , but we picked a bunch of hops and put them on racs for drying and the storms came, blew the drying containers door off its hinges and drenced the "drying" hops, thus they oxidised and turned brown. I estimate at least 4lbs were picked , with the three already mentioned being the vast majority of that 4lbs.

We entertained quite a few visitors along the way, we had a group of business students from NC State, who were seeing if they could make a business case for Hops in NC, we also recently had a Christmas tree farmer who wants to change over to some hops in Ashe County. I am always happy to talk about what we started.

Disease and pests....... luckily NONE. We had something eat the young plants right at the begining, probably a bunny or Phil the groundhog, and I will take better steps with young new plants next year.

We have started the clean up the hops yard, and will cut off all greenery at the ground and mulch up the rootstock and will water with a weak fertilizer mix once done.

Till the late winter, except for a few pics, this will be the last Hops post, but will update the brewing tasks and talk about the new controller I am playing with.

More hops have been picked

2008-09-09T11:37:00.004-04:00

Derek and Scarlet spent Saturday morning picking and William came out Sunday and again Monday, together we have picked most of the hops that are ready presently.

The cascades I picked originally have gone brown, whereas the ones I brought into the house have stayed green ?? I asked on the forums if this was an issue and no-one thought it was, they do smell great. I suggest we package these up soon.

The back row does not have much to offer , but maybe enough for a single brew per variety.

Harvest time

2008-09-03T15:18:00.002-04:00

Spent an half an hour on the farm last night and picked 2.5 lbs of Cascades. Many more still to be picked.

Centennials are also ready and some of the Nugget. Rest of the varieties are poor to medium. Might get enough Chinooks to use for a brew or two, and the Goldings look OK too.

Obviously this year was primarily root building , next year we should see much better growth.

Watering continues and the well has done well (no pun).

We are headed to big big rains this weekend with Hurricane Hanna headed our way, predictions so far are that it will still be a Force ONE when it hits the Triad.

2008-08-27T10:40:00.002-04:00

The first of the Cascades are now ready for harvest, we will start as soon as the rain stops.

During last week we moved the drying container into place, over the last year the wind had damaged one of the doors, so I had to make a plan welding it. Unfortunately the work truck welder was NOT working, so I had to fire up the generator and make my old stick welder mobile, on the back on my garden tractor's trailer.

A few tacks later and the old door was a door no more.

Pics to follow.

The saga of the well.

2008-08-08T12:21:00.003-04:00

After two full days of back breaking, sweaty, dirty work , we have well water.

What a frigging nightmare of a job...

When Johnathan and I tested the water originally (back in March) it ran for 2 minutes and died and teh pump to be reset on the well pressure switch each time. An electrician friend tested the windings and found it was running on start cct only, so we pulled the well , 53 ft only , but let me tell you heavy enough full of water, .......... inch and quarter black poly pipe, plus pump - old style 4 wire.

This was sent away to be tested , and came back fine, we did find on examination - a section of the Red phase wire that was open to the water, maybe this affected it too.

Anyway it took awhile to get back to working on this well..... Johnathan brought a helper this time - AB who has worked on his own well before, so he knew 100% more than the two of us.
First we tested the water depth - around 30ft from surface, then the well depth - 76 ft, plenty of water, , so we sourced additional pipe and a joiner and new cable to give us 70 ft - we pushed the pump down and it stuck at 53 ft.

The next day and half we spent trying to snag , or break whatever was down there, we dropped heavy metal, we ran chain , we made a cone to go over the pump end to see if we could slide it past , we cut a whole in the roof of the well house and connected 70 ft of 3/4 galv pipe and pushed that down hoping we could get it into the center of the pipe , that got pretty heavy and we were scared we would drop it - AB on the roof , Johnathan and me inside holding on for dear life - no go , - we made an evil looking spike with a 6ft long, 1 inch diameter steel bar , a woodsplitting wedge and rebar welded to it like a reverse grappling hook , to see if we could snag or even break it - it jammed many times but would not hold waterever is down there -

In the end nothing worked , we dropped and pulled the damn heavy spike 30 or more times - dropping it full height that it shook the ground when it hit the obstacle - and we also pulled that pump and pipe 5 or more times. We tested the water and with such a large diameter pipe we pumped the 20 ft of water in about a minute, but it also recharged in about 45 secs, so there is plenty of water.

Finally it was decided we would just live with 53 ft, as were all out of ideas , in the end we actually managed to get 54 1/2 ft , probably because we drove the obstacle down about 18 inches.

AB tested the pressure tank and the internal bladder was faulty, probably the main reason why the system had stopped working originally - yes - all that work and the issue might have been on the surface all along.

AB had an old spare tank - which was much bigger , and it was decided to redo all the piping at the top, we also found the one way valve faulty when taking it all apart - another potential issue that would have caused problems.

So a new tank, a new one way valve - and we also decided to put a new pressure switch on at same time, so all the head gear is now new.

Johnathan and AB finished up the work last night - I was playing my weekly Thursday night tennis - and today we have fresh, clean , continuous water from the well.

We are going to get the 200 gallon holding tank fixed , welded to its stand and start on some irrigation systems for the hops now.

Hops are growing nicely , plump but not much Lupilin so far , regular water is certainly helping the growth.

Boy do they do grow quickly

2008-07-30T19:03:00.002-04:00

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 !!!!

2008-07-28T19:36:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-01T20:34:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-30T11:40:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-05T11:39:00.004-04:00

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 !!!

2008-04-28T11:12:00.011-04:00

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

2008-04-21T12:06:00.003-04:00

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

2008-04-15T18:07:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-13T20:35:00.009-04:00

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.

61 Hop Rhizomes happy and warm

2008-04-03T21:14:00.013-04:00

Despite yet more bloody horrible weather, all the hops are now potted up. The Midwest order arrived three days after posting which is pretty awesome, and I went to work before the rain came again.

These were individually packed and marked, and mostly in good condition - only two were soft and broken - but the worst one had shoots on both sides of the break, so I divided it and will try for two.... who knows what will happen.

61 Rhizomes are potted in the peat pots - warm in the heated greenhouse. And I have 4 pieces of root from the original cuttings, which I will attempt to get growth out of.

Tony's fresh home grown Nugget have been the most prolific growers so far and all 4 are green and north bound. (Green pot in front as well as mid left) The other 8 Nugget were in the first batch to arrive and 6 are above soil already.

The smallest and thinest rhizomes we got were all the cascades which is annoying as most of the members want them the most, including me. They are in the foreground of the pic above and only two are above soil so far. At least the Centennials are good solid quality.

The first aphids have also found the hops, I found two little buggers on the large Nugget, soapy water and vinegar dispatched them and I sprayed all the other shoots just to be sure.

I also took advantage of the sun yesterday and stripped out the blown hose from the Backhoe, covering myself and Jonathan in hydraulic oil, and also heard some new expletives from Johnathan who got the most of the spray. In taking out the hose I discovered two more that were almost ready to blow. So I took - or attempted to take both out, of course the last fitting would not budge - there is always one......... I need a 1 3/5" Crowsfoot wrench and the largest I own is 1 1/4"

Saturday's solid rain has played havoc with any plans to get poles up, the large forklift is still solidly stuck in the mud, and the forecast is no better for tomorrow and Saturday.

We will most likely be planting before we get poles vertical and buried.

Sunday was no better, the rain continued through the night , and was still drizzling Sunday morning, so the only work done this weekend was to mow the grass around the crop circles.

Work Day 3

2008-03-29T09:50:00.006-04:00

Saturday morning , raining, windy , cold, crappy day, after the most unbelievable spring day Friday with temps in the 70's Friday.

Oh well, we have holes to dig and poles to raise.

The fair weather hopsters did not leave their armchairs , so just Steve , Jason and I cut the poles to length, 25 ft each, and as the rain had hardly broken, the ground was just too wet to do anything else. Jonathan later tried moving the poles with the forklift and got it stuck in the mud. William arrived as we were toasting a job well done. Seems like those who stayed at home were right !!!:-0

My postman Fred did deliver the second batch of Rhizomes 30 minutes after everyone left, so
(Pics still have 2007 - guess I need to fix that)

Sunday morning in the rain I potted them up. These came from More Beer and were not as good quality as we had from Alt Beverage.

In fact one twig (second from left)was not a Rhizome at all..... no sign of any shoots and broken in the middle on top of that, the other three were fine, but these were the Cascades dammit !!!! ( edit: More Beer agreed with my Picture and credited me for that one which they said should not have made it past Quality Control- Thanks Robin !!!)

....but they were all dusted with rooting hormone and potted and nestled into the heated greenhouse.

The Nugget and Sterling are all doing very well, with lots of green shoots sticking up, Marigold seedlings have over 60% out as well.

I got a shipping notification, so I am expecting the last rhizome shipment to arrive on Wednesday this week. Dan has the 5x Chinooks as well.

We have 14 days to complete the work and get them planted, so will have to put some after work hours in soon.

Till next week..

2nd Work Party a success

2008-03-23T21:32:00.011-04:00

March 22nd , a big party turned out to work on the project.
Mac , Steve, Dick, Don, Sam, Eric , William and Dan all arrived willing to work.

Friday night I moved 10 backhoe bucket loads of rotted mulch to the hops area from the far side of the property, in preparation of mixing it into the soil, I also started to plow up the long row using the backhoe rear bucket. The whole area was also mowed with one exception, circle D, as it had too many sticks in it still (it was where the old tree fell ) . I chose an old push mower from the pile on the property (there are over 20 old scrap mowers back there) to work on and got it running pretty quickly and it will be our mower for use on the project. It was a drive type and the drive gear box had seized, so I just dismantled the gearbox, the motor ran fine.

A beautiful day greeted us Saturday and a long list of items to be done. We had to mow the last circle after picking up the sticks- with our new project mower, we had all the horse manure , compost and mulch to add to the existing circles and the long row. We had to till it all and then mound it all up again. Poles were supposed to be chosen and dug in, but our Landowner struggled to get equipment to us, but we still had plenty to keep us busy. The small tractor would not start, and then the Backhoe blew out a hydraulic hose and had to be sidelined. We eventually got the large excavator working, and small tractor with tines and scraping blade working to help with the work. The final outcome is 4 crop circles, and a 120 ft line all mounded and ready for planting.....

We rolled out some cable for the full length, but Jonathan wants us to rather use a smaller diameter and also a cable that is not quite as new as the one I found. We also tackled cutting the brambles and area between the trees and the road, and we will try and keep it clean too.

At the end of the day after most had left, Jonathan and I managed with Eric and William to pick out 8x 25ft (and longer) poles and set them aside for next time. These will be raised after the auger holes are dug- at least 4-5ft, and then all will be topped to the same height for uniformity.

A soil test was done Sunday and except for Nitrogen all looks fine- amazingly the PH was almost neutral , which is perfect , will put a bit of nitrogen rich fertilizer down and recheck in a week. Maybe we do need some more horse manure for the circles ???

Our potted hops, have started to sprout, with the first two shoots out the soil, the first tray of Marigolds also have sprouted

The first Hop shoots

2008 Shamrock Open

2008-03-18T08:47:00.005-04:00

Saturday was the first homebrew competition of the 2008 season.

This was the Shamrock Open, held in Raleigh NC by the CARBOY homebrew club http://hbd.org/carboy/

They attracted 424 beers, and our club The Battleground Brewers Guild sent a group of Judges , Stewards and helpers to help them out.

The BBG showed extremely well with 9 of our members taking awards. Full results are posted here : Shamrock 2008 Results

My own haul was great, I had 5 beers entered and all 5 won ribbons, with my Springbok Traditional Bock in Category 5B winning a gold. Overall two thirds, two seconds and a first.

Springbok was brewed from an old Randy Mosher recipe that I tweaked and played with, having brewed it now 3 times. Beer has been lagering for 3 months and will be served at the BBG's March Bockfest on March 19th.

St Patrick's day was celebrated with two Guinness pints at McCoul's downtown Irish pub, with dancing girls, bagpipes and far too many drunk Leprechauns , sadly kid taxi was in force and I had to leave at 5:15pm.

Oh well , at least the 18th was started with a clear head.

The First of the Hops arrive

2008-03-17T20:48:00.007-04:00

Monday morning Mr Brown - UPS delivered the first of the parcels with Hops in them. 16 rhizomes in all, in two scrawny plastic packets.

8 each of Sterling - the thin ones to right, and 8x Nugget (the bigger ones in the pic below)

In fact the ones that arrived were the last ordered, from Alt Beverage in Charlotte - way to go Jess and team....

To ensure freshness, they were potted up in 5" peat pots and put into the greenhouse awaiting Saturday for planting. I also experimented with some of the roots Tony dug up from his Nugget bines, by using some rooting Hormone , I also potted up 4 that looked promising. These are clearly marked to see what we get out.

During last week Mark delivered more compost, and Jason arrived with the horse Manure as well.

Plans for this weekend , are :
Add more compost, add well rotted mulch and turn the soil, then to mound up the areas, ready for planting.

Planting poles in both maypole area and the long row, and erecting wires for the long row.

Preparing the water tank for filling, this requires welding up the stand, and getting piping for filling from the well point. Adding in the water pump if we chose to go ahead with using it, and lastly planning out the actual water pipes.

BBG Hops project update

2008-03-11T13:25:00.007-04:00

A very busy early spring season for me.

Samiclaus is in Fermenter, almost 3 weeks and still an occasional bubble.... time to rack to secondary.

On Tap : SN clone Pale ale
Chocolate Stout
OH MY Oatmeal Stout
Springbok Bock
Kolsch (from last summer)- still tastes great
Helles

Brew plans are for an easy drinking ale this week and another Lager - probably Munich Dunkel next week.

Hops project is off to a great start, 8 members turned out to help get the ground ready, first maypole areas are tilled and compost turned into the soil

Guys work ed hard despite the crummy weather