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12 October 2015

After a busy school holidays and not being around heaps I finally managed to find a couple of spare hours last week to bottle the Golden Ale. It could have been done 2 weeks ago, but time just got away. Again. And yesterday I put the Golden Ale into the fermenter. Used up the last of the Cascade hops there as well. Probably about 30-40g worth. No photos of it all seeing as it pretty much looks just like all the others. I have also finished stringing up the hop bine trellis. The plants are coming up out of the ground, and the Chinook one has even started reaching for the sky. Denis was also over in SA for a break, so I asked him to do me a big favour and grab some Pirate Life IIPA that I'd read great things about. You can't get it in NSW yet, so he's brought some back in his carry-on. Just need to get it down from Canberra now!

23 October 2015

The beer fairy has been! Matt's mate from Adelaide came through with the goods and posted 3 cartons of Pirate Life over to us. Dead set champion! So I got to sample the fine wares that is contained in those awesome looking cans. Love the IIPA, its a big beer. And the Throwback IPA is really good too. So is the Pale Ale for that matter. Just have to go steady on them so I don't drink them all at once. Visited Tim down at Hop Dog today too, filled a growler with Horns Up, and grabbed a couple of bottles of his IIPA. So the fridge is looking beautiful at the moment. And the Galaxy Pale Ale in the fermenter is ready to bottle now too. The Golden Ale should be right for a first taste this weekend as well, so I'll have to put a couple of those in the fridge too.

10 November 2015

I finally managed to get around to bottling the Galaxy Pale Ale back on the 2nd, only a couple of weeks late. All good though. Its smelled pretty good going in, am looking forward to tasting that one. Then today I chucked the Five Malts Amber Ale into the fermenter. No added hops, just the USO-4 yeast. We'll see if it comes out as a more malty brew and not so hoppy. The hop plants are finally taking off. Not sure why, but they're a month slower than last year. Still all this wet weather plus some hot days in between has seen them go a bit nuts.

1 December 2015

Took some more pics of the hops. Most are still going great guns up the twine. A couple have reached the top and are spilling over. Not sure what I'm meant to be doing with them once they get up there. Trim them off, or just keep wrapping them around. Fingers crossed they give us some goods in a few months time. Today I managed to bottle the Five Malts Amber Ale too. It smelled pretty damn good too. It'll be good for a tasting just before Christmas. I've also been sampling a few of the Galaxy Pale Ales. They a damn fine beer, so nice and tasty. So along with the Anzac IPA and Golden Ale I've got some beaut beers on the go at the moment.

30 January 2016

Over the xmas break I got a bit slack with the beer making. We did do a lot of running about the place, but I should have put a brew down while we were away at least. But it wasn't to be. I sampled the last of my HogDog Shizzam. All the hops are out in flowers, or all that started flowering. 2 have got nothing on them. About a month earlier than last year, they'll probably be ready to start picking soon. And a sad day today, I drank the last of my Pirate Life IIPA. Damn that is a tasty beer. Must work out how to get more.

12 February 2016

Hops are getting bigger and bigger. Mostly. Not sure if I should have watered them more, or fertilised them more. They're pretty good, but I was kinda expecting more seeing as its the 2nd year. Still, they look nice on the close ups. And come the 10th, the Hallertau Hersbrucker cones looked ready. They actually looked more than ready, but we'd gone away for the weekend so they might have been a bit overdue. But I picked them, got a bucket full. Dried and bagged I had one at 78g and one at 74g. Into the freezer with them till I work out what to do with them.

22 February 2016

And hop season is officially closed. Picked the last of them today. Got a bucket load of the Cascade (650g wet). Picked the Nugget (114g) and Chinook (132g) ones too, only got a very small batch of each of them. And the Pride of Ringwood cones were fairly small, but some were nice and long. Got 368g of them. So they're all into the drier, all 3 racks are on the go. I had to stick a divider in one. The weather is nice and hot, but also bloody humid, 30 degrees and 60% humidity, so hopefully they dry OK. We'll see in a couple of days I guess.

24 February 2016

After a couple of days in the drier it was time (I think) to bag up the rest of the hops. The Chinook and Nugget gave me a little bag of each, 55g and 48g respectively. Got 2 70g bags of Pride of Ringwood. And I divided the Cascade into 3 lots and got 72g, 87g and 80g bags. I put down one of Tim's Anzac IPA wort kits last Sunday (the 21st). When its done I'll stick the Chinook PA kit in and chuck in my bag of Chinook hops to that. I'm trying to find a recipe I can use the other hops in, probably using Matt's all grain setup. Once I was done I swept the floor, and there was all this yellow hop dust on the floor. Seems a shame that all that flavour has fallen out of the hops.

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