The Hop Bomb Nightmare Brew

Well, as previously posted, this brew was not all that enjoyable. I had several problems in getting it completed, and I hope that in the end it is worth all the effort.

I organized all the equipment and got the initial mash water warming to temp. At temp, I added to the mash tun and stirred in the grain. All going well. While warming the sparge water I ran out of propane and had to go ask my neighbor to borrow their tank. Lesson number one.... make sure you have enough propane for the brew!

I decided I wanted to do a little larger brew, so I planned to do 7 gallons. I ran the numbers in ProMash to determine how much water was needed for the mash. After the mash and sparge were complete, I had a full boil kettle, PLUS another 2.5 gallons of wort. Lesson number two.... get the new brew keggles completed so you have plenty of room to boil!

OK, so I decided to do a 90 minute boil, to boil down some of the volume before adding hops. That was going great until it boiled over on me, putting out the flame of my burner and subsequently gumming it up. I then had to remove the burner from the stand and clean it before I could proceed. Lesson number three.... avoid boil overs at all costs!

So, I got that cleaned up and got the kettle back on the burner and up to a boil. At the same time, I had the 'extra' wort boiling in smaller pots on the stove in the house. Gotta boil it for at least 60 minutes to get rid of DMS...I think it's DMS. It's for something! One of the pots boiled over on the stove making a mess! Lesson number four.... avoid brewing on the stove. Refer to lesson number two, gotta get the keggles done!

The rest of the boil went fine and I felt the trials were over. Wrong! When turning the water on for the wort chiller, I noticed that the line into the copper coil was leaking, and into the brew! A quick grab of the screw driver (still on the porch from the burner cleaning) to tighten the hose clamp fixed the problem. Lesson number five.... test the wort chiller during the brew to ensure it isn't going to leak!

OK, so the rest of the night went fine. After chilling, I whirlpooled to get the hop matter to the bottom of the kettle, then racked to the fermenter. I missed my target gravity by .02, so all in all not bad. Although, my target was only 70% efficiency. I think I'm going to see if adjusting the grain crush will help that.

The IPA is now happily fermenting. I used glass for my primary fermenter for the first time, and it has been very interesting to watch the fermentation. I never realized how much churning the wort did during fermentation, pretty freaking cool! It will ferment for another few days and then I will rack to the secondary and add dry hops.

Below are pictures from the brew:





Chek out the Arnie's Bar cup I used instead of the arilock. That will be replaced with an airlock after the initial fermentation slows.

American Citrus IPA - The Hop Bomb

Well, I finally did it, I brewed with some of my homegrown hops. I've included the recipe below if you are interested. In another post, I'll go in detail about the nightmare that was this brew.

American Citrus IPA - The Hop Bomb

Grain Bill
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14.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
1.50 lbs. Wheat Malt
0.75 lbs. Crystal 60L
0.50 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt
0.50 lbs. Crystal 20L
0.50 lbs. Flaked Soft White Wheat
0.19 lbs. Chocolate Malt

Mash @ 154 for 60 minutes
Sparge @ 170 for 30 minutes

90 Minute Boil

Hop Schedule
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60 Minutes:
1.50 oz. Amarillo Gold

20 Minutes:
0.75 oz. Amarillo Gold
1.00 oz. Cascade
0.50 oz. Centennial

5 Minutes:
1.00 oz. Cascade
0.75 oz. Amarillo Gold
0.50 oz. Centennial

Flame Out:
1.00 oz. Cascade

Dry Hop:
1.00 oz. Cascade
0.50 oz. Amarillo Gold

Yeast: Muntons Gold Dry

2008 Harvest Totals

After drying and packaging, the final harvest yielded and additional 2.65 oz of cascade and 0.65 oz of centennial. When making the hop plugs (right), I did things a little differently this go round. I took a piece of cling wrap and placed over the end cap (lower left) of the plug chamber. I then with the cling wrap in place, inserted the tubing for the chamber (lower right). That way, when pushing the plug out of the chamber, it was already partially wrapped.








All in all, not bad for the first year.

2008 Harvest Totals
Wet Harvest:
37.30 oz Cascade
13.05 oz Centennial

Dry Packaged:
9.55 oz Cascade
3.20 oz Centennial

Final Hop Harvest - October 2

Well, the final cones have been harvested from the bines for my first year of growing. The last picking yielded in wet amounts: 2.80 oz of centennial and 11.40 oz of cascade. All in all, not a bad year considering most I've read says not to expect any hops the first year. I'll be doing a batch of pale ale or an IPA soon to try out my hops. Probably the IPA first, combining the homegrown cascade and centennial with amarillo. Yum!

My next post I'll have the total dry hop amounts for the year, and hopefully some pictures of hop plugs made with my new plugger!

Third Hop Cone Harvest!

After looking at the plants, I decided that I had more cones ready to pick, and again had one or two that had already fallen off the bines. After picking I had 6.9 oz of wet cascades and 2.1 oz of wet centennial cones. After drying, I netted 2.0 oz of cascades and 0.5 oz of centennials.

I also endeavored to build a Hop Plugger (right) after reading some posts on the Grow Hops forum. I have posted instructions and pictures of my Hop Plugger Project on my BrewTech blog. It worked pretty well and I will probably use it again if I get the chance to pick cones one more time this season.

No Impacts from Hurricane Gustav

We did get some wind, rain and cooler temperatures but nothing near what I was expecting for storms. Watching the radar for 2 days, for the most part Gustav fell apart right as it hit the Tulsa area. The cascade cones I picked Tuesday are dry and in the freezer, only 0.35 oz, but at least I didn't loose them to the storm.

It's been quite a while since I've fertilized, so I plan on mixing up some Miracle Grow all purpose 15-30-15 and dispensing across the plants this afternoon. We'll see if I can get a last push of energy with the plants to get some more cones before the weather starts to turn cold. Still haven't gotten to High Gravity to purchase ingredients for a brew so I can try out some of the cones I've already harvested.....GOTTA GET THAT DONE!

Hurricane Gustav - Heading This Way

Well, now it's just a Tropical Depression, but it's still heading toward Tulsa at this point. My hop plants have done well with the recent heat and I'm hoping that this storm doesn't damage them too much. I've already harvested some cones, but there are much more to harvest and I'd hate to loose them to the storm! I took some time this morning to go pick the most ripe cones, only picking 1.55 oz of cascade. I was going to wait a while longer until more were ready to pick, but I bet a good hard rain will knock some of the ripe cones off the bine as I've already noticed a few have fallen off on their own. Not a lot picked I know, but the 15 minutes of effort are better than loosing them in the storm.

Bring on the rain!