Growing hops

[fever31]

Hello All...I am thinking of getting into growing some hops this year and I am looking for the experts to answer what I want to know...
1--Might be able to grow 4 different types which ones would you grow?

2--Which are best for growing or you have had the best luck growing in the halifax area?

3--where is the best place to get them?

Thanks in advance for your answers

[mr x]

Don't grow hops for bittering, it's a crapshoot. I've pretty much given up on using my hops for production, and are converting them into decorative vines. Too much work.

[amartin]

Put them someplace where they'll get plenty of sun, have room to grow up, and that's easy to access. Remember that they'll get really big. The side of a house is good, mine grow up the side of my deck and then up some 2x4s and back to the gutters (see pic to the right). I've had good luck with my cascades, and my golding and nuggets less so. My first year eroicas did well for first years last year, so I'm excited to see how they'll turn out.

[akr71]

As X said, hops are very labor intensive to harvest, plus you need to build a good strong trellis.
1. Go for hop varieties you already enjoy for their flavor and aroma attributes. Using home grown hops for bittering is unreliable at best.
2. My Zeus grew quite vigorously. Apparently they are susceptible to mildew, but I never had that problem.
3. You might be too late for this year. Hop growers harvest the rhizomes in early spring, but usually take orders for them late winter. Check Left Fields or Prarie Gem Hops

[adams81]

When you say it's a crapshoot, what kind of difficulties are you running into?

[mr x]

You have no idea what the AA% is, so bittering is pure guesswork. Not the best way to start your boiloff.

[akr71]

^ +1
Also, our growing season is short enough that harvest time is at the tail end of hurricane season and we always get the remains of one passing over. I've ended up harvesting a few days early, rather than risk them being scattered on the wind. Use your home grown hops for late additions and you will be much happier.

[Jayme]

What I've done in the past is brewed a beer with almost 3kg of wet hops and then wait for the bitterness to drop down to the point where I like to drink it

Crap shoot yes, but it works!

[derek]

You have no idea what the AA% is, so bittering is pure guesswork. Not the best way to start your boiloff.

I found this interesting method to get an idea of the AA: A Gardener's Guide to Homegrown Hops (see the section titled Estimating Hop Bitterness). But still, you'll only have an idea. (In deference to Robert's sensibilities, I won't say where I originally found that link).

In my case (I've only had one season, with about 1 lb of hops), I made a 40 l batch of beer to a normal recipe, and dumped the whole lb of mixed hops in with about 15 minutes left in the boil. My wife's finally happy with the hopping levels.

[amartin]

I use my nuggets for bittering, and I'll be using the eroica for bittering as well. I usually make a guess, and then start using them for only half of my bittering hops until I get an idea of how much to use, then use more. Mind you, my nugget harvest was lousy this year, so I haven't had enough of them to cover more than a few whole batches, so I just used them as a portion of all my batches until they ran out this weekend.

[adams81]

Hmmm, I work in a lab and have access to all sorts of things... wonder if this is something that could be figured out.

Edit: From what I can find online you can do a quick titration which would give you an idea about overall acid quality, or if you had a UV/Vis spec you can do % alpha, % beta, and some hop index thing. A UV/Vis spec is going to be tough to find, but the titration would be cheap as dirt. Here's the process: http://www.uvm.edu/~pass/perry/hopsanalysis.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The best bet with titrations would be to start with some commercial hops and see if you can make a calibration curve for "overall acid character", or whatever you want to call it. Then see if you can get it to match up with the alpha and beta for the variety

[Anathema]

I happily grew a few hops last year. Cascade was a monster in its first year, Nugget and Sterling second best, Brewers Gold and Goldings I tried cutting back to focus on root systems since they dont seem to grow well here. Got 2 lbs off my first year Cascade and the vines were beefy. I broke off the end of my Nugget by accident....it didnt fruit up much. Basically I would say build a nice trellis with 20 to 30 feet of run, I made mine 9 ft high, and the lines run 20 ft. They will also be able to creep onto the roof if they want. I recommend not using chem fertillizers of possible I got nitro burn. Me and a buddy have been composting all of our mash waste and its like black gold. Yes it is labour intensive, dicey at times but very rewarding. Picking them by hand is fun, especially when your hands get saturated yellow and sticky. One note of safety, dont allow animals to eat cones or lupulin, it casues them to overheat and die. No joke, alwasy wash you hands and keep em away from animals. So I say Go for it.