Hop Growing 2014 season (Part 3)

Well it's been a while since I blogged about how my Hops are getting on, there is so much weight on the flagpoles that they are bending in towards each other so I've lost a fair bit of height. 

The other issue is that due to the fact I scrimped on the supporting string, the hops have slid into each other, so the Target and Goldings are now all wrapped up in each other. 

On the up side, it looks as though I'll get a good size harvest from all the plants, as there are loads of flower buds on them all.

I've learnt a lot from this years growing and intend to move the plants so they can grow up a pole wigwam fashion so hopefully the plants wieght will counteract each other as they grow.

Beans Beans, are good for your heart, the more you eat the more you F**T

Well we certainly seem to be doing okay for beans this year. 4kg of beans harvested today. The freezer is now getting a little full with beany goodness.

Pulled a couple of radishes to go into a allotment salad for lunch, as I hate to compost stuff that I have had to thin out, in this case is was a row of Little Gem lettuce.



Got some more raspberries, I'm slowly collecting them as they fruit, not sure what is going on with them as they are Autumn fruiting and I have already had a good size harvest (enough to make a raspberry wine)



More courgettes, well only three, but we have quite a few already in the fridge. A Patti Pan, Four more Cucumbers and Ten more Crystal Lemon Cucumbers as well. I love these apple size cucumbers, they are far better than a standard Cucumber, word of warning though, they are spiky little buggers.



The Invincible Pumpkins are doing great, can't wait for these to be ready as they will be used in a Beer.

This grey skinned variety looks rather unusual but is one of the best for culinary use.  The bright orange flesh is full of flavour and is excellent roasted. 

Yummy. I have three growing nicely on two plants so far. Gave them a good old drink today as it's been dry for weeks.



Left one of the Courgettes to grow on into a Marrow so the Other Half can make her Marrow Jam. The Coke can is there just for scale.

WARNING ADULT VIEWERS ONLY



It's a butternut Squash!!!! Tut Tut you naughty gardeners.

Two plants and a fruit on each, I've never grown them before so I'm happy to see we may get at least two butternut squashes.



My hop plants are getting so heavy they are bending the flagpoles, and they have only just started flowering so there will be even more weight on the poles in the coming months.

I'll be moving the hop plants into a new location for next season so the four plants grow up a central pole (or poles) in a wigwam fashion in the hope they will counteract each other as they grow up the pole.

Another Nice Harvest.

So much going on this week again, but had a chance to head down the Allotment for a quick check over, weed and harvest the produce.

Few more beetroots for Jane to pickle, all four types of beans, French and Runners, Three lovely Pati Pan's, couple more of the ever producing Courgettes,and the first two Chilies, a cucumber and a few more lovely Crystal Lemon Cucumbers.   Even a few raspberries that are continuing to fruit even though they are autumn varieties.

I've left a single courgette to grow into a Marrow as it's the Green Bush variety so we can make up a Marrow Jam again.

The pumpkins are doing okay as well, So far I have three fruits forming. Pumpkin Beer here we come.

 

Whew.. beans, beans and more beans... and courgettes

The hot weather and heavy rain showers are certainly doing the plot some good (and making the weeds grow as well unfortunately).  The courgettes almost grow before your very eyes and eating them with almost every meal.  Good job we like them.  Have had some more patty pan squashes too and they are really yummy fried in a little butter, garlic and thyme.  The broad beans are coming to an end now but have some to put in the freezer, will be blanched and frozen tomorrow.  And the climbing and dwarf beans are just amazing, so many of them, again, will have to freeze some I think.



A new addition for the garden at home is our grape vine, loaded with grapes and hopefully will take over the new fence and provide us with enough grapes next year for a few bottles of wine.



And to finish today, a selection of cut flowers from the garden, nice to bring a little of outdoors into the house, both vegetable and prettiness!



 

 

 

 

Brewday : Turbo Cider (Batch #2)

Made another batch of Cider, I won't do a big blog post as it's the same way as I did it in this post. Using the last of the youngs Cider yeast.

I might be adding fresh cherries to this cider, but I don't know yet.

Quick and Easy HOT SAUCE!!!

Last year I grew quite a few hot chilli peppers one of which was a chili called Anaheim. To free up a bit of freezer space for this years produce I have made up another Hot Sauce. It's a really easy way to make a cracking Louisiana style hot sauce so I thought I would share it here.

This makes about 150 ml of yummy thick sauce.

Ingredients:

• 110g of any type of hot chilli, if they are dried soak for 30 mins in hot water.
• 250 ml White Wine Vinegar
• 1 tsp Salt

Method:

• Roughly chop the Chillies and put in a pan with the Vinegar and Salt.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins or until very soft.
• Tip the contents into a food processor and blitz until smooth.
• Strain the blended contents into sterile bottles via a sieve.
• Leave to mature for 2 weeks.

Easy as that. This sauce should keep for a month or so, but mine is normally gone way before that.

Recipe : Quick and Easy HOT SAUCE!!!

Last year I grew quite a few hot chilli peppers one of which was a chili called Anaheim. To free up a bit of freezer space for this years produce I have made up another Hot Sauce. It's a really easy way to make a cracking Louisiana style hot sauce so I thought I would share it here.

This makes about 150 ml of yummy thick sauce.

Ingredients:

• 110g of any type of hot chilli, if they are dried soak for 30 mins in hot water.


• 250 ml White Wine Vinegar


• 1 tsp Salt

Method:

• Roughly chop the Chillies and put in a pan with the Vinegar and Salt.


• Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins or until very soft.


• Tip the contents into a food processor and blitz until smooth.


• Strain the blended contents into sterile bottles via a sieve.


• Leave to mature for 2 weeks.

Easy as that. This sauce should keep for a month or so, but mine is normally gone way before that.

Nice harvest from the Allotment

Popped down the Allotment yesterday to have a check around, by heck courgettes grow quick don't they. Didn't have much time to weed and tidy up so it was just a case of harvest a quick water in the polytunnel and green house  then home.

I was very pleased to see the Dwarf french beans are doing well after the Rabbit attack earlier in the year. So on hands and knees picked lots of lovely dark purple, almost black beans. These beans are Purple King and when you cook them they turn green. They are a very nice French bean to eat as well, and so far a very good cropper.

The  Climbing French beans are also making a come back, I'm not sure which type of bean I harvested as Jane planted 2 different types of climbing bean. Cobra and Hunter, both from vegetableseeds.net.

The Broad beans continue to do well, we have had loads of these and I really like them fresh from the pods for dinner.

Took a couple of the Sweet Peppers (Green) from the greenhouse to promote new flowers and fruit on the plants as the two plants these came from only had a single pepper on each and no flowers. The plants energy should now go into producing new fruit and hopefully more fruit on each plant.

I can hardly get into the polytunnel for cucumber plants, but managed to get a nice ripe Tomatoberry and another cucumber for the fridge.

Got a lovely nice big Pattypan squash as well, we had a small one last week which we cooked up with some courgettes and it was very nice. so I'm looking forward to chomping on this one.

Them there courgettes are heavy croppers, these are Green bush, and I picked 11 today alone, and we have already had 6 or 7 last week all from 5 plants, and still more to come. Good job we quite like them.

The only other thing I really did down the 'lottie was save some pea seed for next year and dead head and distribute some big pink poppy seeds and calendula seed to next years flower bed.

Racked : Peach Wine

Racked the Peach Wine as well, this might even be the last racking for this one, it's stopped fermenting so it just needs to clear now.

Racked : Gooseberry Wine

Phew! A afternoon of racking Wine. Did the Gooseberry wine as well today.

Tastes great, tangy gooseberries. Cool colour as well.

Racked : Peapod Wine

The Pea Pod wine has now been Racked off the fruit and into a Demijohn. Had a quick taste and it's pretty strong already, and nice as well.

This may turn out to be a great wine.

Racked : Jostaberry Wine

The Jostaberry wine has been fermenting on the fruit now for 5 days, So today I racked the Must onto 1kg of Sugar, then topped the demijohn up with bottled water.

It's a great colour, I hope this is a good wine as I grew the Jostaberries myself. It certainly smells good.

Summer is Speeding By...

Cant believe how quickly everything is growing and how much we are already harvesting.  Long hours at work have prevented me from spending too much time down the plot but fortunately Simon has everything under control and in good order.  Last weekend we picked lots of soft fruit, gooseberries, jostaberries, raspberries and currants, plenty to make into wine and perhaps some jam if I ever get 5 minutes.  The peas have all been harvested, not bad for old seed, had a couple of decent meals from them.  The broad beans just keep coming and keep coming.  So expensive to buy in the shops too, just the broad beans alone pay for the plot really.  The courgettes have started appearing in the kitchen too which saves a few pounds. The polytunnel is looking full to brimming, the cucumbers and tomatoes have quite gone mad.  Not sure how Simon is going to get to the back of the tunnel... with a machete perhaps.  The hops are continuing to grow and take over the path, little flowers appearing now so looks like a good harvest coming.



 

And really pleased with the array of pretties that have come up, particularly the peaches and cream nasturtiums, so pretty, hoping to grab some seed for home after they've flowered.



The poppies are popping up all over the place too, love the big pink showy ones.  More seeds to gather and spread!





 

So, with the onions and garlic all up, Simon has been planting some summer salad veg and cabbages, making some of the large plot sections into smaller beds to make them a bit more manageable.  Next bed to partition will be the broad bean and beetroot bed when they are all finished.  Picked some beets today for pickling... a job for tomorrow!

Bottled : Boddingtons Mild (clone)

Ten days in the primary the Boddingtons Mild clone is now all packaged up.

Filled my 5 litre mini keg again primed with 11g of sugar (10 pints) and got 36 500ml bottles which were primed with a 1/2 tsp of sugar (3g), so all in all 46 pints of Mild Ale all packaged up.

This will be left now for at least three weeks to condition.





With the fermentation fridge, BIABacus Spreadsheet, and my new 40 ltr Boiler, it all went very well, the only thing that I ended up doing is making too much beer, but hey when is that ever a bad thing.

All my bottles are all filled up again, I still have a pressure barrel empty, so soon it will be time to try it all again, this time a IPA or something that I will use the 1 kilo of Weyermann®Abbey Malt® in.

Brewday: Jostaberry Wine

Another wine on the go, and again all homegrown fruit. This time the fruit is a mix of Jostaberries, white, red and blackcurrants. The bulk of the 1.75kg of fruit is mainly Jostaberries.

The Jostaberry is a cross of the black currant, the North American coastal black gooseberry and the European gooseberry. So mixed with the standard currants it should make a very nice wine.




I have so far put all the soft fruit into my 5 litre plastic fermenting bucket and crushed the fruit with a potato masher. Then poured boiling water over the top, about 2 litres and crushed and mashed again.

Added 1 tsp of Pectolase (Must get some more as I'm all out now) and then left to cool before I add the yeast. Then I'll leave this to ferment on the fruit for a week before I rack it into a clean demijohn on top some sugar. Not sure the amount of sugar I'll use this time and I might even take a specific gravity reading for once and find out the ABV of this wine.

Racked : Raspberry Wine

The Raspberry Wine has now been moved from the plastic fermenting bucket into a demijohn. I left it fermenting on the fruit pulp for 5 days to try and extract as much colour and flavour from the berries. It seems to have worked out great as this wine is a great colour and having the mandatory taste while doing the transfer it's has a wonderful raspberry flavour.

All home grown fruit as well, so a homebrew in every sense of the word.

Brewday: Gooseberry Wine.

With 1.8kg of Gooseberries collected from the allotment. Time to make up a Gooseberry Wine.

We made this Wine a couple of years ago with Pick Your Own Gooseberries (£7.00), but I couldn't  find my notes of how I did it.

Now after making up the Must, I have now located my notes from back in 2011, and I have made it wrong this time. Ah well, I'm sure it will make some sort of wine.

• Added the Gooseberries to a fermenting bucket and crushed with a potato masher.
• Added 1.3kg of sugar (this is where I went wrong)
• Topped up to 5 litres with water.
• Stirred until dissolved.
• 1 tsp of Pectolase added to the Must
• Then added the yeast.

Where I went wrong with this batch was to add the sugar to early. Last time I made it, the sugar was added after the gooseberries had fermented for 4 days and it was Racked onto the sugar. 

I am not sure what the outcome of this Gooseberry Wine will be, maybe if I left the fruit in fermenting for a lot longer before racking into a demijohn it might help. I'll just have to see. At least the gooseberries where home grown this year so I haven't wasted money on the fruit if it goes a bit wrong.

Brewday: Raspberry (& other mixed soft fruit) Wine

Over the last few weeks I have been collecting soft fruit from down the Allotment and putting them into a old Ice Cream tub in the freezer until I had enough to make up a wine.

I should have collected the fruit in separate containers really so I could maybe make up a wine for each fruit. Maybe next time I'll do it that way.

Most of the fruit in the tub was raspberries, I would say about 80%. The rest was a mixture of black, white and red currants, a few Jostaberries, and a couple of strawberries, I think even a gooseberry snuck in as well. A total of 1.2kg of soft fruit all grown by me is going into this wine.

• The fruit was all defrosted in the fridge then put into a 5 litre fermenting bucket.
• Boiling hot water was poured over the fruit so it was just covering the fruit.
• The fruit was then mashed with a potato masher.
• 1.2 kg of Sugar was then added to the bucket and stirred until it was all dissolved.
• 1 tsp of Pectolase added just in case.
• The bucket was then topped up to the 5 litre mark.

It is now cooling in The Cabin Brewery until it is cool enough to add the Yeast. Most likely tomorrow after work I'll add the Yeast and I'll leave this to ferment on the fruit for a good week to ten days before racking into a Demijohn.

Brewday: Pea Pod & Raisin Wine

Brought back quite a few peas from down the Allotment and sat and shelled them all in the sunshine. Got 500g of shelled peas. Bagged up 250g for the freezer, and the rest we had for dinner. Lovely they were as well with a few sprigs of Mint from the garden.

So I was left with 658g of pea pods and not that I have ever tried Pea Pod wine, it is supposed to be quite nice so I thought I would give it a go.

• Simmered the Pea Pods in my big pan for 20 minutes with enough water to cover them. (lid on) 
• Added 450g of Raisins and 1 kg of Sugar to my 5 litre fermenting bucket.
• Poured over the hot liquid from the boiled Pea Pods
• Stirred until the Sugar was dissolved
• Topped up to the 5 litre mark on the bucket with boiling water.
• Left it all to cool 
• Added 1 tsp of Pectolase
• Then added 1 tsp of Yeast

So it's now fermenting away quite happy. I'll leave this to ferment in the bucket now for a week or so then transfer to a Demijohn.

Fermenting: Boddingtons Mild aka (House Mild)

Well I did have to much Wort after all, about a litre to much to fit into the 25 ltr fermenting bin, I filled the bucket up as much as I dare quite a bit over the 23 litre mark on the side, I know this is going to make a right old mess in the fermentation fridge once it starts fermenting.

I've used Danstar Nottingham ale yeast for this brew as I had a packet handy that needed to be used. This yeast needs to be hydrated before use in 100ml of water at 30-35'C for 15 minutes.

This gave me time to transfer the Wort from the No-Chill cube into the fermenting bucket, via a sieve to catch the Cube Hops that might escape. (Fuggle Flowers (4%AA) @ 10 grams and 13 days in the No-Cube)

The SG of the wort is at 1032, and the Nottingham ale yeast should bring it down to around 1008 giving a nice lighter ABV of 3%, ideal for a session beer. A English Mild should be around the 3-3.6% ABV anyway so it hits the Beer profile just nice.

The  Boddingtons Mild  is now in the Fermentation fridge,  I have set the Temperature on the controler for 21'C to give the Yeast a good start and then after 24 hours I'll reduce this to 18'C for the rest of the fermentation.

This is the first time I have used the Fermentation fridge so I have a second temperature sensor measuring the values of the air in the fridge, and the temperature controller temperature sensor is strapped the the side of the bucket at it's half way point,under a polystyrene disk. At the moment there is a 1'C difference between the two readings.

According to the website for this yeast it's happy with temperatures between 14° to 21°C (57° to 70°F)

And just checking the temp readings now, the Fermenting bucket sensor is at 21°C and the Fridge sensor is at 22°C so I am quite happy with that for the moment.

So thus far, things I need to do for the next brewday is reduce the settings in the Brew Software so I don't make quite as much Sweet Wort. So not too much to change to get things almost bang on. Happy Days!!