2011 Hop Harvest

2011 Fuggles

Not a great year for my hops.

Fuggles:  18 oz wet,  5.25 oz dry.
Tettnang:  6.25 oz wet, 2.625 dry.
Saaz:  4 oz wet, 1.75 dry.

One positive note on this is that my Fuggles came out pretty good this year.  Highest numbers so far for them and they were very green.  The others kind of tanked.

Here's a little graph of what I've kept track of over the last couple of years, apparently I don't have any data for the first few years.  Kind of strange.

The chart is a little difficult to read, I'll need to improve on my excel skills... but there are two numbers for each year, one for wet and one for dry.  The three different lines are the hop types. 

Tettnang took a huge hit this year.  I know one reason was that I accidentally clipped one of the vines, and the top of another one broke off early on.  Not sure those two could account for that much of a loss, but I'm sure it was a significant loss.

Funky Monkey

A year or so ago I brewed a bavarian weizen and added six pounds of banana to it, I also hopped it with Citra hops, and unbelievably, it was pretty balanced, almost tipped towards the citra.  I've been wanting to brew that again, but chillax on the hops so that more banana comes out, but I also wanted to do it without and bananas this time.  So, with my joint homebrew club picnic a week away, I'm going to try to crank this batch out.  I am also fiddling with the idea to do a decoction, and possibly a sour mash in order to get a little more complexity out of it.  But, I'm also leaning towards doing this one as a single infusion batch sparge and foregoing the sour mash, then maybe doing the former of the two ideas when I have some more time.

RECIPE:
Batch #38
6 Gallon batch
5.5# Weyerman Pilsner
5.5# Weyerman Light Wheat Malt
1 oz. Hallertauer (60)
1/2 oz Hallertauer (1)
Wyeast 3068, 1L starter, pitched at high krausen.

8/5 BREWDAY

Jenny's Cream Ale

A preliminary label idea...

Thought I'd try doing a cream ale for the picnic I'm hosting in August, in addition to the second batch of watermelon wheat I'm hoping to do as well.  And if I'm going a cream ale, why not name it after Jen.  This should be a fun, easy, and quick rendered batch.  Here's to summer and it's lawnmower beers!

THE RECIPE:
Batch #37
This is based off of a Jamil recipe, but he likes to use rice, I've chosen to use corn.
4# Pale Malt
4# Pilsner
1.75# flaked maize
.75# Honey Malt
.25# Biscuit Malt
1oz Cluster (60)
Wyeast 1056

7/30 BREWDAY: