this year bake and i got it together to grow some hops. i picked up this starter kit from northwest hops which came with 5 cascade rhizomes and a length of hop-twine-for-vine-climbin'. bake ordered a couple cascade rhizomes from northern brewer, not sure if he's gotten his yet...we'll see how he plants his in the near future. i decided to start mine in containers (5gal home depot buckets) so i could move them around my yard and decide where they will grow best, plus in utah, we never know when we'll get some late season frost...this way i can bring them in if need be. so, here's what i did:

i started by drilling some drainage holes in the bottom of the buckets- hops like to be moist, but not soaked.

i used 1 bag of river pebbles (about $3.50/bag @home depot) to line the bottom of the buckets ($2.50/ea @home depot) to promote good drainage and weigh down the buckets a bit.

i used this kellogg garden soil (about $7/3cu.ft. @home depot) because it specifically stated that it promoted strong roots. it was mulchy enough, so the bags of mulch on the left there are going in the yard. i only used 1.25/2 of the bags i bought...it really goes a long way.

northwest actually sent me 6 rhizomes, but 2 were kinda small, so i potted those ones together.

i filled the buckets up to 2-3" below the bucket rim, planted the rhizome, and topped up with soil.

i gave the potted rhizomes a good watering, which helped compact the soil...they all drained nicely and stayed appropriately moist. i'm going to leave them here on the deck, where they get a good amount of sun, until they sprout.

so, total cost for rhizomes, buckets, rocks, soil came to about $52. hopefully, i'll get some strong vines started this year...they say you can actually get a small crop of cones the first year, but year 2-3 is where they start yielding anything significant. we might have a wet hopped ipa in the fall this year.

also this week, my friend roberta brought me back a cache of awesome beers from her vegas trip...thanks slacker!

[left to right] stone ruination ipa, stone sublimely self-righteous ale, lagunitas a little sumpin' sumpin', dogfishhead 90min ipa, lakefront fixed gear and bridge burner. nice.

-kris

had a chance to use my fully functioning stir plate to make a starter out of some wy1272 that I've been propagating (this was it's 3rd batch and still kicking). bake and I moved the notty out of primary- his to a keg to be consumed in the near future, mine went into my old ale pale with a 3# can of cherry puree and a pack of wy3763 roeselare blend (A blend of lambic cultures including lactic bacteria. Produces beers with a complex, earthy profile and distinct pie cherry sourness from a Brettanomyces culture) it's going to be a sour cherry red in a year. smart. had the first taste of my first brew-in-a-bag beer I made (the patersbier) it's damn good. bottled off the second biab batch (the amber). moved the third batch (citra ipa) to secondary and dry hopped with another oz of whole citra. and finally, brewed up the fourth batch (american red). I think next up will be a cda for that wy1272 cake's fourth round.

-kris