I have a _few_ _almost_ ready to pick tomatoes. If it weren't for the frost that killed my earlier plants, we'd already be eating them -- probably a week or two ago. I'm still learning how to determine when the hops are ready to pick. Some hops get much bigger than others, and when trying to judge by the size of what are on my bines, I'm comparing them to many of the cones that I've used from commercial vendors of various types. Of course, dehyrdating them probably causes them to shrink a bit, so that's probably not a good way to judge.

I just picked a couple off the bines and measured them; they are a little bit larger than most that I have right now, and they measure about 1&1/8" long and about 3/4" wide. I cut them open down the center, and although I can see the lupulin glands forming, they don't appear to be particularly large or very yellow (but as a newbie grower, what do I know?). I'll probably wait until next week, and maybe perhaps longer if they don't seem to be ready yet. I just crushed one-half up in my fingers, and it doesn't have a particularly 'hoppy' odor, so it's probably too early. I've seen hop cones at probably close to 2" long, so maybe that's what I need to wait for. Anyone here know what size 'Fuggles' typically grow to? Probably not; I'll ask in my 'Grow-Hops' group.

Am having a homebrew right now that I screwed up somehow because it is very over-carbonated. Tasty, though. So after I decant it, I'm stirring it with a spoon to release the excess CO2. Ohhh, what a chore.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Have never had a 'Harpoon', and I'm not sure they're available here, but I'll make it a point to check. Sorry to hear about your health problems, but it's good to see that you're getting better.

I read your post in MyOnlineTeam. Why did Berghoffs close, after four generations? Ubran blight? ... or just no one in the family interested in the business?

Cheers.

Hi tyrone26,

I have not heard of that one, but might look for it sometime. We don't get many beers from Australia up in Minnesota. There are a couple of stores with larger import selections that I have been meaning to check out.

I'm glad you dropped by the forum, since a while ago I noticed that your system has not been sending back any results to WCG for a long time (since late March). Did you know that? Were you having problems with BOINC or the UD Agent (which one are you running? we recommend BOINC) or did you just have to shut it down? If you had a specific problem one of us might be able to point you to a post in the other forums to help you out.

Dave

Bill --

From what I understand, no one in the family wanted to step into it. I guess a daughter has a catering business that has taken over the building, but only for her catering -- no restaurant.

-- Dave

Dave, thanks for the link. I have it posted on our Grow-Hops links page.

Tyrone, it has been many years ago so I don't have the faintest idea now of my source, but I started buying LME in bulk 60 pound buckets (5 gallons). That gives you some of the advantage of a kit, as far as time and equipment go, but you still have a lot of flexibility in designing your beers. It's sort of a compromise; instead of boiling a kit for 5 minutes or so, you do need to boil for a full 60 minutes to get proper hop utilization, etc., but at least you don't need to do a mash and vorlauf. But it's a slippery slope, expecially when you read about how simple it is to make a mashtun from an ice chest, and realize that doing a mash gives you much more flexibility than bulk LME. Anyway, the bulk LME and bulk hops turned out to be a LOT cheaper than kits, if you can find them.

Cheers.

Bill Velek