Hop Cultivation

February 21, 2010 · Posted in Homebrewing, Meetings, Supplies · 1 Comment 

Deck Hop GardenAt the February Club Meeting, Don shared some tips and techniques on growing and harvesting your own hops. Although Central IL is not known as Hop Country, they grow really well here - as many members can attest. Not only is it fun to chat with your neighbors about your hop garden, it gives you control over an additional aspect of your beers.

Here are some of the tips that were shared:

  • Plant your rhizomes in early spring, after the last sign of frost
  • Plant in rows running east-west (facing south)
  • Plant in well-drained soil (consider burying a large container to keep the runners in check)
  • Trim lower leaves to keep pests and mildew away
  • Harvest when cones have a papery feel and are very fragrant
  • After drying the hops, freeze in vacuum-sealed bags
  • Compare your hops to something that should be comparable before using in the boil (or use them for dry-hopping only)

Some of the sources for hop rhizomes include:

Midwest Supplies

Adventures in Homebrewing

Freshops

Northern Brewer

The Thyme Garden

More Beer

Other Club Members!

Water Quality

January 21, 2010 · Posted in Homebrewing · 1 Comment 

At the January Club Meeting, Jim Nettleton presented the Beer Style of the Month: Brown Ales. Check out the BJCP Style Guideline for details on this and all other beer styles. For a general overview of beer styles, visit the Brewer’s Association website.

During his presentation, he shared some tools with the club that can be used to adjust your brewing technique based on your water quality. These tools, as well as more information on water quality can be found in John Palmer’s book How to Brew. He covers everything from how to obtain and read your water report to how to adjust for your findings, depending on the kind of beer that you want to brew.

If you’d rather have your home’s water tested individually, a couple of club members mentioned having a satisfactory experience with Ward Labs.

The Brewer’s Friend website has a Water Chemistry Calculator that homebrewers might also find helpful.

Delayed Racking Experiment

August 23, 2009 · Posted in Homebrewing · 2 Comments 

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat (or so I’m told), there’s more than one way to brew great beer. The September issue of Brew Your Own featured the first in a series of collaborative experiments with Basic Brewing Radio. This first experiment focused on the impact of leaving beer on the primary yeast for an extended period of time.

Diacetyl Molecular Structure

Diacetyl Molecular Structure

One of the twelve homebrewers that participated in this experiment was Abnormal Brewers club member, John Chubick. John brewed an American Pale Ale using Safale US-05 yeast. John found out about this experiment from Chris Colby during a recent Basic Brewing Radio podcast. John said that it was easy to participate in the experiment and enjoyed the chance to put “conventional wisdom” to the test.

The results of the experiment showed that leaving your beer on the primary yeast for a moderate amount of time does not ruin it. The beers in the trial showed subtle flavor differences but no brewer reported that the beer was marred by excessive off flavors. There were slight changes in character. Some actually preferred the beer that was left on the yeast.

I asked John if he would change how he brews beer based on the results of the experiment. He said,  “I don’t know that I’ll change what I do but I certainly won’t get overly anxious about having to rack beer off primary. I still try to rack off primary after the first week but I just don’t worry about it if something comes up and I can’t get to it for another week or more.”

John advised, “In addition to BYO magazine, I highly recommend the Basic Brewing Radio podcast. I know I’ve mentioned it numerous times in meetings but I’ve learned so much listening to the show. James Spencer covers a wide variety of brewing topics. He interviews many prominent people in the brewing community and shares recorded audio from some of the keynote speeches at homebrewing conferences.”

The next experiment being conducted by BYO and Basic Brewing Radio is: How does pitching rate affect beer character? For more details on this experiment, please see Chris Colby’s blog.