I have 3 hop plants going hammer and tongs in my garden. I planted them to scorn and derision from gardening relatives - hops are grown in the sunny southeast of the UK, and I live in the rainy northwest. They took a year or so to establish, but now it’s game on, growing no problem at all.
I didn’t quite grasp the drying requirements, I have to say - so just threw on a wet brew with them last year. I’ll try and get organised this time round and dry them out.
I’ll take your Cascade hops if you don’t want them!
Believe it or not, I’ve got hops growing (about 4 years now!) in the high, dry deserts of Nevada. All I do is water 'em. You will have a Metric Ass Ton of them in Seattle.
I’ll take your excess! 
[quote=“Busy_Scissors, post:21, topic:755264”]
I have 3 hop plants going hammer and tongs in my garden. I planted them to scorn and derision from gardening relatives - hops are grown in the sunny southeast of the UK, and I live in the rainy northwest. They took a year or so to establish, but now it’s game on, growing no problem at all.
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Busy Sicissors, do you have any good recipes for authentic Milds or Brown Ales? Actually, should ask if you even drink these? They seem to be an endangered specie these days. The Dog seems to be the only readily internationally available sample available. How would you rate The Dog versus something you can get in the local pub?
I was kidding about the Seattle area. Yes, I know this is good hop country. My previous link on hop growing has prime areas up to the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. So, Seattle is in the middle between Yakima/Willamette Valley’s. Hopefully tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and the those bines will have shoots coming up. That said, my wife is a little skeptical that these will be an attractive addition to the decorative trellises we have in front of the house.
Don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m enjoying just *thinking *about getting back into brewing and appreciate all the replies and suggestions of this thread. Maybe Saturday I can get to the local homebrew store and get the ball rolling.
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[quote=“Busy_Scissors, post:21, topic:755264”]
I have 3 hop plants going hammer and tongs in my garden. I planted them to scorn and derision from gardening relatives - hops are grown in the sunny southeast of the UK, and I live in the rainy northwest. They took a year or so to establish, but now it’s game on, growing no problem at all.
Mild and bottles of brown are really out of fashion here - that sweet, low alcohol style is diametrically opposed to modern trends I guess. 30 years ago they were the staple of the UK pub, but the rise of lager (initially), and proper beer (latterly) seems to have killed them off. You’ll get some pushback against this from the independents, so it wouldn’t be unusual to see a craft mild in a big, real ale specialist pub. But I don’t think I’ve seen just a normal mass-produced mild on tap for a while.
I admire the heritage of mild, in fact it reminds me of first going drinking with my Dad, who drank brown milds, but have to say it’s not the beer for me - I’ve never homebrewed it. So I’m definitely not one to ask about Newcastle brown, as I can’t stand it! But even amongst brown ale drinkers I don’t think it’s held in esteem.
Thanks Busy Scissors. Your comments mirror what many others have said.
And I’m hoping that Newcastle Brown Ale is a poor example of the breed as I don’t find it very good. One could occaisionally find a bottled brown ale in Hong Kong 25 years ago that were a lot better but that was ages ago.
Dang brewstore was out of the Speidel fermenter and won’t get new stock for 2-4 weeks. . BUT, I have an old 5 gallon carboy that I’ll press into service. I also forgot to buy any hops, so I’ll just do the ol’ dump and stir with my 6 year old can of Coopers Stout.
There’s a different homebrew supply store south of me that I want to check out.
Q: for the BIAB, how big a brewpot does one need for ~6 gallons of end product?
Need answer fast (well, by tomorrow morning). Do I need to boil and/or Starsan water out of the tap to fill up my fermenter. What I mean is, I’ll do a dump and stir with the Coopers Stout kit, and then pour it into 4 gallons of water in the fermenter. For that 4 gallons in the fermenter, am I okay just straight from the tap? Or does it make sense to add some Starsan (I’ve never used this before) to make sure there are no bacteria in the water? I certainly feel like boiling and cooling the 4 gallons to make sure its good.
BTW, my local tap water is definitely drinkable although I have no idea on the mineral content.
Let me see if I understand- you’re doing some sort of partial-boil process where you boil 2 gallons of water, your diluted extract and your hops, and then mixing that with 4 gallons of water in the fermenter?
I’d personally boil the 4 gallons, but that’s just me. Otherwise you’re taking the chance that your tap water is microbiologically sound enough such that there are no beer spoiling organisms in it out of the tap.
And… someone will probably pillory me for saying this, but water doesn’t matter nearly so much if you’re brewing with extract. Most of the concern there is about flavor- if it’s not overly chlorinated and doesn’t taste like river/lake bottom ooze, you should be fine. The big concern with water otherwise revolves around pH and mashing- your water somewhat limits what you can mash effectively, in that generally speaking, the more alkaline the water, the darker beer you can (have to) mash. This is because there’s a fairly narrow pH range for effective mashing, and darker malts are more acidic. Not coincidentally, it’s why the Pilsner style developed where it did- the water is extraordinarily soft in Plzen, allowing for very light colored beers to be brewed. Similarly, Dublin has very alkaline water, and as a result, their classic beer is extremely dark.
Probably the biggest four things you can do to improve your extract brewing are to use the palest dry extract you can find, use specialty malts of your choosing in a bag, drop your post-boil temps as fast as possible, and pitch a LOT of yeast.
Thanks Bump for the confirmation.
As for pitching yeast, what I have done to good results is pitch the dry yeast a day early in with some malt and an airlock (usually use just a beer bottle). That way, you can see the yeast is really going well before starting the brew. This works a lot better than just dumping the yeast in the fermenter once the temperature has dropped.
Here’s a nifty calculator (Jamil Zainasheff’s bona-fide):
Y’all will probably find this amusing. So, last night I started my yeast. Boiled some honey, cooled it off, put it in a star san sanitized beer bottle, bunged in the airlock. This morning nada.
I double checked the expiration on the yeast. 2003. No wonder that sucker didn’t start.
Went by the local homebrew supply store. Bought some ale yeast and tried again. 
When did hop pellets change over to 1oz bags? I remember them being 2 oz back in the 90’s. And did hop plugs fall out of favor? I can only find pellets and whole (loose) hops in my local store.
And my own rhizomes have not yet sent up a shoot yet after a week (but they might have been too dried out after planting about 2 weeks after the ship date at the end of the season). Dunno if that’s a lost cause yet or not. I’ve keep the soil moist. At the current hop cost/ounce I sure hop these organic hops go like gangbusters.
I saw the Picobrew in action this weekend. Looked cool. Talked to the guys. They said it made good beer. Downside is that it takes all the “art” out of brewing, and 2.5 gallons (wtf?). Given the price tag, it’s not something I’m going to invest in anytime soon.
It’s been a good long time that hop pellets have come in 1 oz vacuum-sealed foil bags. I’d say 10 years, but it could be closer to twice that. I think that somewhere along the line technology got better, and whole hops got better, and so did pelletized ones, and both encroached on what made plug hops useful. I haven’t seen plugs in a long time either.
I wouldn’t worry about the old yeast- it’s effectively yeast nutrient at this point.
Well, I do have 4 gallons fermenting away.
Went by the homebrew shop about 20 miles away, and they are pretty well stocked at a decent price (at least compared with the shop that is closer to me). Picked up 24 1 liter brown swing top bottles, 10 pounds of crystal malt, hop bags, some pellets and English ale yeast.
Asked about hop rhizomes. They said it’s the end of the season, had some left and I could take what I want for free! Showed me the ones that were viable with bines that had started to grow. So I grabbed two cascade and two northern brewers. Of the rhizomes I had mail ordered and planted 2 weeks ago, one had started to grow bines but hadn’t poked thru the soil yet, and the other two were sticks. So, planted in these end of season rhizomes, and hopefully will get some that actually flower this year even though it is very late in the planting season.
I keep researching BIAB method…and will first use up the 5 or so batches of extract I have now, make sure I still enjoy brewing, before getting the big ass brew kettle and all grain.
Anyhoo, I’m having fun so far and thanks for all the tips
Updates and a question.
) and it seems like some Milds can be drunk in ~10 days from pitching the yeast. I won’t try that yet but I’m intrigued.Question: how to hack Marris Otter malt? I have about 15 pounds of light LME 2 row American that I need to use up. My LHBS doesn’t have Marris Otter LME nor Gambrinus ESB malt. Yet I’m working on Milds and English bitters for some decent and interesting 3-4% ABV brewskis. On line resources suggest victory (or biscuit) malt, but pretty light on details and amounts. Any input is welcome.
I enjoy seeing this thread at SDMB, and hope you continue with it, but thought I’d point you to a wonderful homebrewing resource, HomeBrewTalk.com.
It’s a great community, with many members of every skill level, from beginner to professional. You’ll find recipes, DIY projects, How-To’s, everything you’ll ever want to know, and more.
Thanks Satellite Guy, I found homebrewtalk.com weeks ago and it is a wealth of resources. 
On line resources have gotten so much better than before. My first ever web search in 1996 when I worked at Lehman Bros turned up the Cat’s Meow, which was great and hooked me on the wonders of the web, but today’s sites are light years more advanced.
I am very pleasantly surprised by Starsan, which makes homebrewing so much easier. Ditto those 1 liter swing top bottles. I bottled yesterday and it was a breeze.
On deck for this weekend is Rye Wit, a 2.6% ABV from John Spencer of Basic Brewing.
As soon as I get a couple of keepers, I’m going straight to my new 7.9 gallon fermenter and doing a real batch. Then I’ll start a homebrewing thread on lower octane beers.