Hop Victory!

Just found a place today from where I could still order hop rhizomes! I ordered a Nugget rhizome, a high alpha hop, and Sterling, a Saaz hybrid. I am so excited to get my hop garden going. Peter the horticulturist will be the perfect mentor in this process. Now I just need to get some plans going for some sort of trellis system on which the hops can grow. Come early April, I'll be planting my first rhizomes, and they should be ready to harvest in August. This way, I should have a couple of pounds of fresh hop flowers to use for the winter months. In addition to the Fuggles, Goldings, and Cascade from Peter, I'll have these types as well. I am really excited to add this step and have another hand in the process!

Can't wait to free up my primary fermenter

Fermentation is slowing, haze is clearing, and the brew is nearing completion of its primary fermentation. I can't wait to get this thing into secondary, and that will hopefully happen by the end of this week. At that point, I will brew an earth-shattering, all original recipe for Belgian witbier! I am really excited about it...should be a great brew for late spring/early summer! I may even have to do another one mid summer if it goes well.

In other exciting news, I have been in touch with a fellow homebrewer in Andover who is a horticulturist by trade and grows five different kinds of hops in his garden! He has generously offered to split off his rhizomes so that I might start growing some of my own hops, so hopefully I will have some fresh buds of homegrown Cascade, Kent Goldings, Fuggles, Mt. Hood, and Willamette in my yard that I can use throughout the winter! This would make me BEYOND happy.

A shoutout to Dave and Brenda Bryan for putting me in touch, and a shoutout to Peter Konjoian for just being generally awesome!

Mmmm...hops!