Stringing up the Hops!

Spring time is there and the hops are going wild. One day they were just poking through the ground and the next they are waist high. That means its time to get them strung up. I’m going to try cover a few brief points here on how to get them going, from planting, to stringing them up on a trellis, and keeping them going. In the end, don’t stress things too much. Hops are basically weeds that will grow and grow and will take all you can give them.

My hops are in large 5 containers. I recently bought a home and had to move them (and have been too lazy to put them in the ground). You can grow container hops just like when they are in ground you just need to water a little more. When you get a rhizome (baby hop plant), it looks like a stick with some bumps. Plant the rhizome about an inch under the ground bump side up.  The soil should be well draining and fertilized. Keep the soil moist without puddles and in a few weeks you’ll see little buds popping up.

As the hops break through you’ll want to prepare a trellis. Hops don’t grow on the first few feet of the plant, but don’t worry. The overall height of a hop plant will go up to 25 to 30 feet! My first trellis was a may pole style trellis. One 16 foot pole in the middle of my five plants. I ran twine from the top of the pole to each plant, getting about 18 feet total per plant. This never worked well for me. The hops grow up, but they also grow out as well. Eventually all 5 would get mixed with each other and it would be a real hassel to harvest.

This time I build trellis that strings up the hops in a line. I got 3 twelve foot 2x4s and strung up an aircraft cable between them. I originally was going to use two 4x4s but the cost was quite high. I was able to get the three 2x4s, 3 bags of quick dry concrete, heavy gauge cable, and various bolts and what not for the cost of less than one 4x4.

Some folks I know grow hops along their fence, along old cloths lines, or run them up the side of their house. Any way you go, get them strung up. They will grow as high as you let them and will try for more!

As the hops grow I usually trim back any mid-season or late season stems that pop up. This will help focus growing into hops, not leaves or bines. Quick aside, hops grow bines, not vines. Bines are climbing plants that climb by growing around and up as were vines use tendrils to grasp as they climb.  I also keep the leaves cut back for the first foot or so to promote better air flow and to minimize fungus growth.

Before long you’ll notice little fluffy “burs” growing from the plant. These are hops in the making, as the season passes these burs will turn to cones. The cones will quickly grow bigger and as harvest time approaches the cones will lighten up in color and weight. When the edges of the cones brown slightly and they will take on a papery feel the hops are ready for harvest.
Later this summer we’ll cover harvesting your hops, different methods on drying them, and brewing a home grown wet hop harvest beer.

So you want to Brew

Oak Aging and Barrels Part 1: Recipe Formulation
I’m just a guy writing about beer. The reason this is important is that whatever is happing in my home brew life is what I blog about here. What’s happening is that I am getting a barrel from HomebrewStuff. 10% off an already low price is pretty darn good. This barrel is going to be the focus of the next few posts here. First I’m going to cover building a recipe from scratch, in my case it is an American Stout to show case the oak. Then we will cover oak and oak aging. Third, we’ll cover Barrels, from how to prepare a new barrel, aging in a barrel, and maintaining it and getting it ready for the next beer. Lastly, we’ll have a follow up on the Oak Stout tasting notes, possible recommendations on changes you can make to make it better.

Recipe Research and Building:
So you want to brew but don’t have a recipe, what to do?  This usually hits me about Thursday as I start preparing for the weekend’s brew session (it’s going to be an American Stout this weekend).   I think about all those great beer styles I like, all those I have previously brewed and which ones turned out well. I think about the beers I’ve tasted and the homebrews my friends have had me sample. Once I figure out what style of beer I want to brew I dig in and work out a recipe

I have several standard ways of getting a new recipe, or at least a base to build on. First and foremost is your homebrew store. Often they will have kits on sale that correspond to the style you want to brew or at the very least they will have advice on how to build up a recipe for that style. Also, ask your fellow home brewers for ideas, tips, and tricks. A fellow home brewer sent me a sample of his single hop Session IPA. I was pretty wowed by it and asked for the recipe. Next time I want to brew something like that I’ll pull it up, take a look at the grain bill and hop schedule to give myself a starting point and play with it to make it more my own.

Next, hit the books! One book that I always recommend is “Brewing Classic Styles” by Jamil Zainiasheff and John Palmer. This book covers each beer style, as well as tips and tricks for making the style.  Each recipe in the book has won an award so you know they are good recipes. Another book series is the Classic Styles Series. There are several books in the series, each book covering a specific beer style as well as several recipes.  While discussing publications, I need to also recommend BYO magazine. Each month they cover a variety of topics with many recipes, a lot of which are online.

I know about now you are sitting there reading this asking why I didn’t just go straight to recipe forums like Homebrewtalk.com, and I’ll tell you why. You can find some great recipes out there on the internet (and a lot of bad ones), and while this is the next stop in recipe building, it shouldn’t be your first or only stop. You need to trust the source of the recipe. That is why my first stop is usually the home brew store or fellow home brewer followed by major publications. Finally for online sources, I usually look up the style on the BJCP website. Each style is covered and has a basic overview that describes what the beer should be like as well as standard ingredients that are used.
So far this has all been pretty straight forward. Basically asking others what they do, reading up on beer styles, and hopping online to see what the community at large does. So how do you go from what others have done to making it your own?

Only you know what kind of beer you like. More or less bitterness, darker or lighter grains, it’s a playground of flavors.  This is where the chef side gets to come out to play (or mad scientist maybe….). Look at the flavor and aroma descriptions of grains and hops. Potentially change the hops to be more spicy or floral, maybe drop some of the Crystal Malt and replace it with Cara-something malt. Perhaps instead of using chocolate malt you could replace it with chocolate wheat malt. Change up the yeast from nice clean American ale to malty or bready English yeast.

Let’s put this to practice:
BJCP.org says this about American Stout
Overall Impression: A hoppy, bitter, strongly roasted Foreign-style Stout (of the export variety).
Comments: Breweries express individuality through varying the roasted malt profile, malt sweetness and flavor, and the amount of finishing hops used. Generally has bolder roasted malt flavors and hopping than other traditional stouts (except Imperial Stouts).

Ingredients: Common American base malts and yeast. Varied use of dark and roasted malts, as well as caramel-type malts. Adjuncts such as oatmeal may be present in low quantities. American hop varieties.

Brewing Classic Styles says a base of two row malt or light malt extract, roasted barley, chocolate malt and crystal 40.

This means we can assume the base will be American two row malt or Light malt extract, we should include Roasted barley, maybe a little Black Patent, some medium Crystal,  maybe a pinch of darker Crystal, even a little bit of chocolate malt, Munich malt, or some other malt to make it stand out a bit.
 I think I am going to use some Cara-Red and Munich Malt, Crystal 60 and 120. Why Crystal 60 and 120? Briess Malting Company says 60 should provide pronounced Caramel flavors and 120 should provide slight burnt sugar, raisin and prune flavors as well as caramel flavors. For bittering I’m going to shoot for 60 IBUs at 60 min, likely Horizon or Magnum hops, and one ounce of Centennial hops at flame out for about 5 IBUs.  My goal is to produce a nice clean American Stout that will show case the oak that we will add once primary fermentation is finished.



Oak Stout:
15 lbs. two row (10.5 lbs. LME), 1 lb. Roasted Barley, 0.5 lb. Cara-Red, 0.5 Crystal 60, 0.25 lb. Crystal 120, 0.25 lb. Munich malt. For hops use 1.5 oz. Horizon at 60 min., 1 oz. Centennial at flame out. For yeast use a clean American Ale yeast. Once primary fermentation is done add 2 oz. oak chips for 3 to 5 days before bottling.
I’m brewing this in a few days. We’ll pick up next week with a discussion about oak. I’ll be splitting this batch between light, medium and heavy toast oak and a second batch in a barrel. Reviews and tasting notes to follow in a few weeks!

Going Big!

Going Big!
There comes a time for all home brewers that the decision to tackle a bigger beer
than any they have brewed before is made. Big beers like Imperial IPAs, Dopple
bocks, and Baltic Porters require special handling to ferment to completion.

You were asked to pick which experiment I should tackle and the majority voted for
Eisbock. An Eisbock is a dopple bock that is freeze concentrated. I typically don’t
brew big beer styles like the dopple bock so it took a little work that I thought I
should share. There are 5 essential topics to cover when talking about big beers.
The first topic is what exactly is a “Big Beer”? Many publications will say a big beer
is anything over an original gravity of 1.070, or maybe anything over an ABV of 8%. I
say a big beer is anything that requires more grain or extract than you normally use.
If you often brew a 7% AVB beer then an 8% beer won’t be that much bigger. But if
you normally brew beers in the 5 to 6% range then that 8% beer will require some
extra work.

Second topic is all about volume. Whether you brew extract or all grain, you need to
realize just how much it takes to go big. The Eisbock I brewed used 23 lbs. of grain
for a 5 gallon batch. My mash tun didn’t have enough space to hold all the grain and
strike water, let along the sparge water. Previously I’ve brewed a barley wine that
had 20 lbs. of grain and that was pushing the limits. Knowing this, I was able to
borrow a larger mash tun from my friend. Estimating the amount of grain and water
you can safely mash, or the amount of LME you can add and still have room to boil
can be difficult. I used the slowly go bigger method. If you normally brew with 14
lbs. of grain try going up to 20lbs. If you use 8 lbs. LME try going up to 14 lbs.
Third on the list is for all grain brewers. Mash low! Low mash temperatures will
increase the fermentablity of the wort. Aim for 149 degrees Fahrenheit over a 90-
minute period. This lower temp will create shorter chain sugars, which are more
fermentable by the yeast. If you mash too high the yeast will slow down and stop
before getting anywhere near done. Even with the extra fermentable wort you’ll still
end up with a full-bodied beer. Extract brewers will have trouble getting big beers
to ferment enough to not be sweet. Even the best, freshest extract has a predetirmed
fermentablility. If you go big with extract pay extra attention to the next two topics.
Forth is oxygen. Yeast need oxygen, especially when you’ve brewed a big beer. Yeast
use the oxygen to build up their cell walls, to multiple themselves, and generally to
be healthy enough for a strong fermentation. If you use the rock and splash method,
you’ll need to splash for about 3 times longer than normal. If you use an air pump or
oxygen tank, double the amount of time you normally use.

Lastly on this list is yeast. Yeast eat the sugar and convert is into alcohol and carbon
dioxide, in essence they make beer. We home brewers can’t truly control the yeast;
we just try to create the most optimal environment we can for them and hope they
do what we want. That being said, there needs to be A LOT of yeast to fully ferment
the beer. This means yeast starts, repitched yeast, or using multiple yeast packets. I
use www.mrmalty.com to help figure out how much yeast to add. Using multiple
yeast packets is easy but expensive. Repitching yeast works well if it is not stored
for more than a week or two. Yeast starters though are my preferred method.

My method for yeast starters is easy. 1 gram DME per 10 mL of water. If you are
making a 500 mL yeast starter, add 50 grams DME. Boil for 15 minutes, chill in an
ice bath, add yeast, let ferment. I use an erlimier flask that I can boil in on the stove
and I cover the top with tin foil for the duration of the boil to sanitize, I don’t use an
airlock. You want oxygen to be picked up in solution to keep the yeast multiplying as
much as possible.
No matter what vessel you use to ferment the yeast starter, you need to keep it
suspended in solution. This means swirling it up every so often or using a stir plate.
And finally, once the ferment is done on the starter, chill it down for a day or so,
pour off most of the liquid, then let warm back up to room temp. Swirl and add to
well oxygenated wort and let them do their magic.