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Cascade Hop Growing – 2011

By on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 | No Comments

It is mid April and thus far April has generally been cold and wet here in southern Wisconsin.  But the Cascade hops have still awoke and the purple shoots have begun to poke through the ground.  That’s right PURPLE shoots!  When hops first poke through the ground they have a purple color, but the leaves then begin to open and take on the expected green colors.

This will be our fourth year of growing these hops and expect another good sized harvest.  We’re guessing it may be a bit larger than last year, hopefully around a pound (16oz.) dry weight come this September.  Here are a few pictures of Cascase hops poking through the ground (green stuff are weeds, purple shoots are the hops, and lots of sawdust mulch).

Carty Cascade Pale Ale 2010 — Finally

By on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 | No Comments

So all the way back in very late August our Cascade hops were harvested.  It was the third year of growing the three Cascade hop plants and we had a bountiful harvest — about 12oz. dry weight.  The hops were vacuum sealed and stored until brew day.  Over the winter this past year I was hoping to make the 2010 version of Carty Cascade Pale Ale……..well the weather (bitter cold) got in the way a couple times, as did other things,  so it took until April for the brewday to commence.

The inaugural Carty Cascade Pale Ale (the 2009) version was brewed up and the beer was incredible!  Since the inaugural batch was so tasty we decided we’d recreate the recipe with every year’s harvest and use additional hops for whatever beers we wanted to make.  And so the brew day.

The recipe was the same, very simple grainbill and a nice showcase of our backyard grown Cascade hops.

9.0 lbs Maris Otter

1.0 lbs Wheat Malt

1.0 lbs Crystal 40L

Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

1.25 oz Cascades 60 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 15 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 0 mins

The brewday was wonderful weatherwise, in the 50s and 60s.  The brewday from a technical standpoint also went perfectly.  The basement is at annual minimum it achieves by mid-winter and doesn’t warm up until mid-spring……..right around 59F.  But a cold fermentation works nicely for this beer, where we are trying to showcase the flavor and aroma of the hops.  I’ll be sure to post a review once the beer is done, but fermentation has gone well and transfer day will be occurring in the next day or three.  Until then enjoy some pictures of brew day.  Lots of pictures, the hops, the grain, the wort, but by far my favorite ones are of the bittering addition of hops right after being added to the kettle.  I love the green color of the hops against the orange/copper wort with white steam rising.

Carty Cascade Vintage 2010

By on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 | No Comments

The 2010 version of Carty Cascade Pale Ale using exclusively homegrown Cascade hops will be brewed up soon, probably this weekend! Look for some posts regarding that brew and a recap of the hop harvest from this fall.

Happy 2011!

2009 Cascade Hop Harvest!

By on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment

So a few weeks back I ventured into the hop garden at my friend’s house.  We harvested the hop cones from the 2 year-old Cascade plants we have growing along a fence in their backyard.  Last year we got very little hops, not even enough to really use, but good bine growth.  This year the bines were longer on June 1 than they got the entire first year.  As the summer continued the hop bines became littered with flowers and eventually plump hop cones.

Sunday, August 30 we harvested the Cascade hop cones.  We harvested 15 5/8 oz wet (444g) of luscious hops!  Below are some images of our hop harvest.   After I got the hops home I set them out on some non-fiberglass furnace filters and bungee corded them to a box fan for drying.  I can’t accept credit for this drying method, I got the idea from Alton Brown’s Beef Jerky Good Eats episode on the Food Network.  Below are some pictures of my drying rig.  I blasted them with the box fan for 4 days, I’m sure they were plenty dry after about 2 days, but wanted to be sure.  After drying, the hop’s weight had decreased by nearly a factor of 5!  The 15 5/8oz (444g) of wet hops now tipped the scale at 3 5/8 oz (106g).  Finally I put all the dried hops into a vacuum seal bag and sealed them up for storage in the freezer until brew day.  You can seem them sealed up in a bag not much longer than an average size banana.

Now the brainstorming begins for a recipe using these hops.  Although it shouldn’t take too much brainstorming.  We want to showcase our hops in an American Pale Ale, so the recipe will be rather simple with a clean yeast and we will use only these hops.  Look for the recipe sometime soon!  Until then, enjoy the hops pictures!

Cascade Hops Growing Nicely!

By on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | No Comments

So last April (2008) my buddy and I planted three Cascade hop rhizomes along a fence in his yard.  Last year our harvest, as expected was quite minimal, but we got some good vine growth.  By early April this year our hops were poking through the ground.  By the end of May the hop vines had already matched last year’s entire growth.  Over the weekend we went over to their place for a cookout and to enjoy the great weather.  WOW!  Look at those hops!  The vine growth is tremendous and there lots of little hop buds all over the place.  We’re hoping to have enough to completely hop a batch with our own hops, which by the looks of it should be very doable.  I hope to take some pictures and share sometime soon.  Do you grow your own hops?  How is the growing season treating them where you live?