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Posts tagged Cascade
The Return of the Hops!
Mar 14th
We built a big, sturdy pergola in the backyard last spring, and planted two rhizomes each of Nugget and Cascade hops at either end of it. Despite the summer’s ridiculous heat, lengthy dry spells, and some non-native insect invasions, we somehow managed to grow some pretty happy hop bines. I ended up harvesting several ounces from each plant, which was, quite honestly, more than I had even expected. I even brewed up a rather tasty, thirst-quenching American pale ale with my homegrown hops.
Second Year Nugget Hops Emerging
Well, it appears as though the little guys survived the winter just fine… and they’re already starting to poke their second-year shoots through the steadily warming soil. Woohoo! Time to get busy re-mulching the area this week.
I’ve also read that, once your hops are established, it’s beneficial to prune the first round of shoots each year. Supposedly this technique causes the second round of shoots to be even hardier and produce more cones. I still have a hard time imagining cutting back my newly emerged hops, though. Does anyone have any experience with this? Recommendations?
In any event, I’m already looking forward to enjoying many a toasty summer evening relaxing under the shade of my hop-covered pergola, and a delicious homebrewed ale in hand. Cheers! And, if you see me out back, stop by and join me for a cold pint.
Homegrown Haus Pale Ale
Jan 2nd
Since I’ll probably never manage to catch up with myself at this pace, I’m just going to go ahead and skip over a few brew day write-ups for now. I’ve brewed five batches since my Raging Bitch-inspired Belgian IPA: two batches of Graff (malty cider), a Chocolate-Vanilla Milk Stout, a Belgian Pale, and a Belgian Stout. Right now, I just want to get to my latest brew, though.
I mentioned earlier that our first-year hops plants ended up yielding several ounces each of Cascades and Nuggets. After harvesting these, I dried them on window screens, packaged them in air-tight bags and stored them in the freezer.
Given the pretty small yield amount, I figured that an American Pale Ale was the best way to go. I kept reading great things about EdWort’s Haus Pale Ale on the forums, and I figured my homegrown hops might be a good match for this impressively pre-approved grain bill. It also didn’t hurt that his recipe is extremely cheap (roughly $22, including yeast), so if my hops end up being unworthy, it won’t be a major loss.
It seems pretty common to lose a good amount of wort to absorption when using whole cone hops, so I decided to scale the recipe up to yield 6gallons before racking to primary. I also decided to use hop bags in the boil, to help cut down on wort-loss.
This ended up being one of my smoothest brew days so far. I had all of my equipment ready to go the night before, and I pre-measured my water volumes. This meant that I could roll out of bed, fire up a pot of coffee, and hit the burners first thing in the morning to get rolling. It turned out that my hops still smelled great, so I’m feeling pretty confident about how this one might turn out, even though I had to estimate their bittering power. I also managed to hit my target gravity almost on the nose. Overall, I felt like I was really in the zone – focused on the details of my process, but relaxed and open to the flow of the brew day.
Homegrown Haus Pale Ale
——————————————
Style: American Pale Ale
Brew Date: Tuesday, 2010.12.28
Bottled: _______
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Boil Time: 60 min
Expected IBU: ~45 (?)
Expected SRM: 5
Measured OG = 1.054
Brewhouse Efficiency = 78%
FG = ______
ABV = _____
Grain Bill
———–
8.81 lb US Pale (2 Row)
2.19 lb Vienna Malt
0.56 lb Crystal 10L
Hops Schedule
—————-
0.8 oz Nugget (Homegrown) @60 min
0.5 oz Cascade pellets [5.4 %] @30 min
0.5 oz Nugget (Homegrown) @10 min
0.9 oz Cascade (Homegrown) @5 min
Yeast
———
Danstar Nottingham dry yeast
- 1 packet, rehydrated
Mash Schedule
—————-
- dough-in with 3.75gal water at 167F
- mash temp stable at 152F for 60min
- infuse 1gal water at 178F, rest 10min, vorlauf & sparge
- collected 3.25gal wort
- infuse another 3,75gal water at 180F, rest 10min, vorlauf & sparge
- collected 7.25gal wort total, pre-boil SG=1.046
First Year Hops
Dec 19th
We had record-breaking heat and incredibly long stretches with no rain this past summer, but our first-year hops plants still somehow managed to pull through. In addition to the climate issues, we had to deal with some aphid attacks, as well as the constant presence of those newly-arrived stink bugs in Maryland.
Despite these troubles, though we ended up with several ounces each of Cascades and Nuggets – much more than we honestly even expected to yield this first year. Planting the hop rhizomes from Northwest Hops also gave us the perfect excuse to build out a big pergola and lay down some pavers. It makes for a great spot to kick back with some friends and enjoy a homebrewed beer on a summer evening.
Click on any of the images below to check out a bunch more photos of the hops garden. Can’t wait to see how they come back next year.
Palilalia IPA
Aug 11th
OK… So, I have a fairly massive backlog of homebrew activity to report here, and I’m hoping to possibly get up to date over the next few weeks. Since my last post I’ve brewed seven more batches of beer – three more extract with specialty grain batches, two partial-mashes, and two all-grain brews. I’ve been keeping pretty busy, learning a lot, and loving every minute of it.
Again, I’m going to try to keep these recipe posts as short and sweet as possible, and just get the basic info logged for my own records, if nothing else. For my third batch, I went with Papazian’s “Palilalia” IPA recipe. This is meant to be a classic, well-balanced IPA:
Palilalia IPA
Brew Date: Sunday, 2010.03.21
Bottled: 2010.05.11
Recipe: Based on Charlie Papazian’s recipe from “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing”
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
OG = 1.056
FG = 1.012
ABV = 5.9%Malts / Fermentables:
—————————
6 lbs Amber dry malt extract
1 lb Crystal (60L)
4 oz Victory maltHops:
——-
1.5 oz Northern Brewer @ 60min
1.0 oz Cascade @1min
0.5 oz Northern Brewer @1min
1.0 oz Kent Goldings dry-hop for 20 daysYeast:
——–
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
– 03.19: first yeast starter using my diy stir-plate ~ 650ml H2o + 1/2 cup DME, boiled 15 min, added 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
- 03.20: stepped up the yeast starter, uncertain of specifics (bad notes)Procedure:
————-
10:30am - 1 gal bottled water heating in small pot for specialty grain steep
steeping grains
11:30 - steeping water reached 160੦F; grain bag with Crystal & Victory added; steep 30min @ 165 – 180੦F
12:00pm - added steeped specialty grain wort to 5gal filtered water (@70੦F) in megapot
12:10 - added 6lbs amber DME; heat to boil, keeping lid on for heat retention
12:35 - boil reached; added 1.5 oz Northern Brewer hops
1:10pm - placed immersion chiller in wort to sanitize
final gravity
1:50 - wort chilled to 70੦F (15 min); began pouring wort into carboy, using funnel with built-in filter
2:10 - pitched entire yeast starter, without decanting; shook carboy for several minutes to aerate; sealed carboy; began cleanup.
Notes:
——–
- We had some ridiculously hot days following brewday. The fermometer on the outside of the carboy was reading 78F on the 22nd. It was fermenting at least 6 degrees higher than the recommended temp range for this strain of yeast, so I moved the carboy to the basement after work.
- Moved the carboy back upstairs again when temps dropped after the first few days. I have since figured out some better ferm temp controls.
- I checked in on the gravity and temps far too many times for my own good on this one.
- I found some kind of “off” aroma that I still can’t quite describe – my notes say “doughy / bready / wet dog”… but I think it may have just been green and smelling of yeast still. I have since noticed a very similar smell in a number of commercial IPAs, including Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo, which is one of my favorites.
- After a full month in primary (04.21), I racked this beer over to a secondary fermenter and dry-hopped it with 1oz of Kent Goldings, hoping to cover the mysterious off-aroma, and / or let it mellow out.
- bottled on May 11th, after a little over 7 weeks.
- Tasting notes to follow…
