Wednesday, October 1, 2008

2008 Hops Harvest

Well, the 2008 Carmel Drive Hops Harvest is in! All in all I'm pretty happy with the harvest, especially considering it's the first year and all of the books I've read say that any cones at all are a plus since most of the plants energy goes into strengthening the newly established root system. 5 of the 6 hop varieties we planted produced cones and all generated vines! The biggest producer was the Nugget variety which amounted to about 1oz of dried hops with the others at a bout 1/4oz. again not really enough to a lot with, but a good start. I actually used the Tettnanger variety as a aroma addition in a Kolsch style ale and will use the 1oz of Nugget to bitter a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout for the autumn months.


Here's a closeup of a Chinook cone. Used for High alpha bittering in IPA's

Cascade Hops cone. A great American hop variety with Citrusy flavor/aroma for American ales and IPA's


The Nugget hop cone. good for all around bittering




1 comment:

lindsalita said...

Great closeups of the cones, perhaps with all of my knowledge of the brewing process I will aquire a taste for beer! Thanks for the blog love!!!