Alternative sources of hops?

I just read Phil's thread for alternatives to using hops. I knew aboout the
shortage, but really had no idea the whole US industry was going this sour.
Just wondering if there was anywhere else in the world that sells bulk hops
and if shipping costs would make ordering infeasible for the average
homebrewer...

I will definitely plant as many rhizomes as possible next spring.

Buck wrote:

Actually, IIRC, I've both read and been advised that hops imported to
the U.S. are actually going to be in more critical supply than U.S.
grown varieties, which is part of the reason why U.S. grown hops are
going to increase in price. ... but if you find a good source, shipping
doesn't kill you, and there are no paperwork entanglements when trying
to import, please be sure to let us know.

I'm planning to plant some additions next year, as well. A few words of
advice in case you are new at growing; start preparing your bed NOW
rather than waiting until just before planting, and also start giving
some thought to what sort of a support structure you are going to build.
If you are not already a member of my Grow-Hops group, I think you
will find it very useful: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops/

Cheers.

Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites = www.velek.com & www.2plus2is4.com
750+ homebrewer group just for Equipment: www.tinyurl.com/axuol
390+ just for Growing Hops/Herbs/Grains: www.tinyurl.com/3au2uv
NEW group just for Homebrewing Supplies: www.tinyurl.com/2wnang
Join 'Homebrewers' to Help Cure Disease: www.tinyurl.com/yjlnyv

So if I were to start growing hops...

How much would I have to grow to brew a batch a week, a batch a month,
etc?

I'm just thinking that I don't have the real estate to grow hops in
near sufficient quantity.

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:47:36 -0600, Bill Velek <bill...@alltel.net>
wrote:

the phelper wrote:

Well, even if you can't grow all of your hops, every little bit helps.
Depending upon your latitude (see my other post or my Grow-Hops group
for more info), local climate, your green thumb, etc., a mature plant is
supposed to produce from one to two pounds of dried hop cones per year.
Let's assume the lower range of one pound; in terms of dollar value,
that is over thirty bucks at the current price at my LHBS, which I'm
afraid is going to increase. But in terms of how much beer you can
brew, it depends upon how much you usually hop your beer; most 5-gallon
recipes call for a total of three ounces -- one each for bittering,
flavor, and aroma. I buy my bittering hops because there is no cheap
and easy way to determine the AA% of homegrown hops; I therefore use two
ounces of my own hops per 5-gallon batch, and I've been happy with the
results. You can do the rest of the math from there: if you put in two
plants, you should eventually grow enough for at least 16 batches
(5-gallon) per year, and possibly as much as needed for 32 batches.

Now, how much real estate does it take? It depends on how you grow
them. Some folks have a two story house with a south facing wall where
they can locate a trellis between the windows or whatever; hop vines can
grow to a height of 25 feet so that is ideal as long as you have a way
to cut them down or lower them (unless you like getting on a ladder to
harvest). If you're not against a tall building, then you need to build
either a trellis or arbor or run a rope/ropes up to the top of a tall
pole. I built an arbor from two trellises that are 8' tall and 12'
apart; they are 36' long for 12 plants because your plants need to be at
least 3' apart. I cut the string and bines from the arbor and stuffed
an entire plant into my ice-chest mash tun (any large bin will work),
and carried them into the air conditioned house to pick the cones from
the bines at harvest time. Worked great.

Obviously, growing hops is not something that everyone will be able to
do precisely because of the room that they take. On the other hand,
there have been some discussion threads about people using large pots
and shorter trellises, or running the bines (vines) horizontally along a
fence that can be a more normal height (just takes more work to keep the
bines on the fence), so there are all sorts of possibilities.

I hope you find this info helpful. Cheers.

Very interesting stuff, but I don't think my 5000sq ft lot has room.
Sounds interesting though, thanks for the info.

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:11:49 -0600, Bill Velek <bill...@alltel.net>
wrote:

>the phelper wrote:

In article <2038d$4737a8a9$471d46a7$30...@ALLTEL.NET>,

I have about 1/3 of an acre 10 miles from the PA border in Carroll Co MD.

Do you dry the hops on screens once harvested?....that seems reasonable
to my uneducated guess.

--
Reality is a picture perfected and never looking back.

____ wrote:

snip

There are a number of ways to dry, and the best will depend on the size
of your harvest. I've heard of some people who have had pretty meager
crops producing perhaps 10 dry ounces or less, especially when they have
only one or two plants; however, you should understand that some growers
have harvested two pounds or more (dried) from just one plant, so it is
possible to literally have 'bushels' of undried hops. Last year (my
first year) I harvested enough to net 42 dried ounces, and based on my
experience and posts in our Grow-Hops group, let me mention a few ways
of drying.

You are correct that hops can be spread out on screen to dry; some folks
just set the screens on saw horses in the garage or carport, others
raise them up toward the ceiling with a pulley system, and some have
spread their hops on screens up in the hot attic. Speaking of the
attic, I've heard of people filling paper bags loosely with hops and
putting the bags in the hot attic, too. Personally, I'd think that some
sort of 'netting', such as those used for bundles of onions and
suspended from the rafters, _might_ work better so long as they are
loosely packed; on the other hand, a paper bag that is 'bulged out' but
only partially filled, could be shook to mix up the hops to spread them
around for better drying.

With a very small harvest, a food dehydrator will probably work if you
already have one; but I would not recommend running out to buy one just
to dry hops because it will probably be inadequate for your harvest
(eventually), ... or so you _HOPE_. My harvest filled several very
large basins, and the volume probably would have overwhelmed a typical
food dehydrator; instead, because I harvested in early August because
that's just when my hops were ready (you have no control over that), I
just put the basins in the back of my car, parked it in the sun, and
stirred them occasionally; they were sufficiently dry (determined when
the 'sprig' snaps when bent) in two days. If done in batches in the
food dehydrator, I suspect that many of them would develope mold before
their turn in the dryer. Same goes for using trays in an oven set on
low with the door left ajar; it probably works, but you can't put very
many in there at a time, so it wouldn't be viable for a large quantity
of hops.

I expect a much larger harvest next year, so I'm planning to try to
build an 'oast'; one design that I like involves purchasing an old chest
of drawers from salvage, 'Good Will', a yard sale, or some other place
like that, and then cutting most of the bottom out of each _drawer_,
leaving just a frame of sorts, and then fitting the bottom of each with
heavy screen; each drawer is filled with hops, and an electric hair
dryer is then used to force hot air into bottom of the chest, and it
flows up through the damp hops and is vented out the top. The advantage
of an old chest -- even if it's in beat up condtion -- is that it should
be cheaper than buying new wood, and is already substantially built.

I'm sure there are a lot more ideas available through members of our
Grow-Hops group, either in the searchable message threads, or photos.

Cheers.

850+ members Grow-Hops, Barley or Herbs: www.tinyurl.com/3au2uv
820+ homebrewer group just for Equipment: www.tinyurl.com/axuol

I bet the inside of the car smelled good a few days afterwards to a
hop head like me...

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:45:44 -0600, Bill Velek <bill...@alltel.net>
wrote:

>With a very small harvest, a food dehydrator will probably work if you

the phelper wrote:

Absolute HEAVEN!!! :-)

I've also made beef jerky inside my car in the summer; that smells
pretty good, too.

I have a very large smoker (holds 4 hogs) that holds most of my
harvest on screens. It's flat black and has vents on the top so
sitting out in the Virginia sun, it dries quite nicely.

As an alternative, you could take a used 55gal drum, clean the crap
out of it, paint it black and cut the bottom off. Build inexpensive
drying racks using cheap lumber and screen, spacing your individual
racks about 1.5" apart and load them up with hops. Set the drum
upside down over the top with one of the bungs removed and let it sit
in the sun for a day or so. I'd bet you hit 140F easily on the inside
and your hops would dry quickly.

If you're growing hops to save / make money, I think you'd best check
your math. It is a fair amount of effort and when you factor in how
much you would spend buying them, you hourly wage is just below those
fellows hanging out behind the Home Depot.

If you're growing hops to ensure consistent supply / quality, that's
another story. They are attractive and aromatic plants that
compliment your yard, they are kind of fun to watch grow (and explain
to the neighbor that it's really not marijuana) and it does offer that
added feeling of self-reliance.

As far as measuring the acid content, once dried boil a fixed quantity
of hops for an hour or so, remove the cone, and continue to reduce to
a fixed quantity of liquid. Titrate the "tea" do some very basic
math, and you have your acid content. FWIW, I've found my hops to be
very consistent year-to-year and am considering not bothering with
measuring this year. (I'll probably continue, I tend to get a bit
anal about things...)

Bill

wpol...@gimail.af.mil wrote:

Bill, since I'm growing my own hops now and am planning to expand my hop
yard, and also for the good of the other 875 members of our Grow-Hops
group, it would be invaluable if you ... or anyone else who can provide
us with some guidance ... will answer a few questions about your
titration procedure. It's been about 30 years since I had chemistry and
I still remember at least a little bit about titration, but for those of
us growers who have never had chemistry or had it so long ago that we've
forgotten the procedures, can you provide us with any guidelines and any
formulas that you use?

Specifically, what do you typically use as a standard for the hop tea to
be tested? I assume you recommend _distilled_ water, but what would be
an appropriate ratio? Would something like a half ounce of hops in a
couple of liters of water allow enough extraction to be representive of
something like 25% utilization? And how much should that amount of tea
be concentrated for the titration?

Also, what chemical are your using for a titration reagent, and is it
available in a predetermined concentration? ... because one big problem
most of us probably would face is the lack of access to a scale that is
precise enough to mix our own concentrations.

Does the reagent you use react just to the alpha-acids, or to the pH in
general, which I presume would also include the beta-acids, wouldn't it?

Any source that sells the reagent, if it happens to be difficult to
locate, would also be appreciated.

Also, would a simple graduated cylinder, beaker, or flask be sufficient
equipment, and would it be okay to then count drops from an eyedropper?
... or is a burette actually necessary? How about a pipette? I'd
just like to be able to buy only the absolute essentials -- maybe even
use an erlenmeyer flask that is otherwise used to make starters on a
stir plate -- and have a step by step procedure to test my own hops.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bill Velek

I have all the specifics at home, but the titration procedure is
rather basic and you can set yourself up for almost nothing. (Among
other things, I homebrew biodiesel and need to titrate the acid
content of my waste oil...)

I use phenolphthalein as an indicator. Phenol Red (available at any
pool supply store) will work as well, just that the phenolphthalein
indicates at a bit lower pH. Household lye (NaOH or KOH) is used as
your reagent and baby medicine droppers to measure your titrant.

Dilute your reagent with distilled water to 1% solution. (10g/L) and
store it with the lid on tight. (This should last you a long time)

I boiled 1g of hops into 250ml of water for about 1 hour, strained the
cones out and further reduced to 100ml. If you go too far, just add
distilled water to get back to 100ml. That became my sample batch.

At this point you're ready to titrate.

Place 10ml of your sample into a clean container. I use Dixie cups
since their color (plain white) makes seeing the break very easy. Add
5 or 6 drops of your indicator and swirl around to mix thoroughly.
Slowly drip your reagent into the cup while swirling it around. When
the acid has been neutralized, your indicator will turn pink in
color. Continue SLOWLY dripping reagent in until the solution remains
pink for 20 or 30 seconds. Record the amount of reagent used (in
ml.) This corresponds to grams/liter of acid in your solution.

This is where I stop. I'm not sure what the hops industry uses for
their %Acid standard, but I took some hops of a known acid content and
performed the same process and use that as my standard. Like I said,
I have a spreadsheet at home with a little more detail on it, but
that's all you really need to do. If you're looking for more
specifics on home titration stations or if you want to go beyond Dixie
cups and baby medicine droppers, most biodiesel web sites have all
sorts of cool plans, better descriptions of the process, etc.

It's basic, almost crude, but it is repeatable and realistically
that's all need for my home-grown hops.

I hope this helps,

Bill P

wpol...@gimail.af.mil wrote:

snip

Thanks, Bill. Is it okay if I forward this post to my Grow-Hops group
so others can benefit? I know I can basically just post all the same
info, but you ought to get credit for this. This is going to be
EXCELLENT news for most folks there; everyone basically is stuck with
either paying for a lab test, or relying on a taste comparison, or else
not relying on their hops for bittering.

Any chance that you would share your spreadsheet? ... or am I crossing
the line to be asking for so much? If I am, I understand, and I'm very
grateful for what you've already supplied. If you are willing to share
your spead sheet, you can send it as an attachment to my personal email
addy -- billvelek_AT_alltel.net -- which I'm sure you can see how to
un-munge. Also, you ought to check out our group, if you haven't done
so already. Thanks again.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Feel free to post to the Grow Hops group. I periodically surf it but
can't post to it from the ship. (I don't understand why I can log on
to google groups but not yahoo, but I'm not an IT weenie...)

I don't have access to my spreadsheet as it's at home and I'm
currently deployed to the Persian Gulf, but if you're still
interested, I'll send it when I get back.

The thing to remember is that you don't get % acid content, but g/L of
your "tea" which is directly proportional to % acid. You also have to
use the same amount of hops and the same amount of water every time
you make a sample batch of tea.

My spreadsheet lists the "acid content" of my home-grown hops as well
as the test batch I did using Magnum and Saaz hops pellets the first
time around. When I'm using home grown hops (which is most of the
time) I'm thinking g/L as opposed to % acid. (I usually get screwed
up when buying hops for a new brew and find myself going back and
forth to the recipe several times...)

Bill P.

On Feb 5, 3:28 am, Bill Velek <billve...@alltel.net> wrote: