Pantsville Brewing Company » Hops http://www.pantsville.com After ensuring a steady supply of pants, Steve’s thoughts turned toward beer. Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:29:25 +0000 en hourly 1 Revenge of Mt. Hood http://www.pantsville.com/2009/05/09/revenge-of-mt-hood/ http://www.pantsville.com/2009/05/09/revenge-of-mt-hood/#comments Sat, 09 May 2009 17:44:36 +0000 Brian Glenn http://www.pantsville.com/?p=58 While getting the rest of some gardening ready this year, my wife noticed that the Mt. Hood hops that failed so miserably last year actually started growing again! They are taking off quite aggressively up the twine this year, so hopefully with a little luck and a lot of water, they will actually give me a few cones. My real goal with them was to have just enough to make a good harvest ale of some kind, so any extra will be considered gravy.

Once I get the yard cleaned up a little better, I will actually put some pictures up.

]]> http://www.pantsville.com/2009/05/09/revenge-of-mt-hood/feed/ 0 Adventures in Blow-Off Tubes http://www.pantsville.com/2008/06/30/adventures-in-blow-off-tubes/ http://www.pantsville.com/2008/06/30/adventures-in-blow-off-tubes/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:26:44 +0000 Brian Glenn http://www.pantsville.com/?p=12 I’ve never actually made a beer that required a blow-off tube, but I recently received some German hefeweizen yeast from Allen in the Lakeside Brewers’ Guild, which he said would easily clog up a traditional airlock. Because the beer my wife made was still in my plastic primary fermenter, I decided to get really crazy and put this one directly into a carboy. After some logistical errors, spilling some of the wort on the kitchen floor, and a healthy amount of swearing at the cat, I finally got the Dungaree Dunkel in the carboy with Allen’s yeast pitched on top. He was not kidding at all. While I did not get spillage into the water trap, the kräusen definitely hit the blow-off tube, which tells me an airlock would have been a bad idea on this one. Here are a couple of the prettier pictures of the set-up and the kräusen:

Surprisingly, the tea kettle worked out well for a water trap. The lid on the spout made a perfect clamp for the tube that was not too tight to pinch it off, but keeps it firmly in place even with some accidental kicking.

As for the hops, which I have not mentioned in a while, the right side is growing like mad finally, but leftv2 is still a split stem and is not doing much of anything. My third rhizome in the big pink bucket has also neglected to send up any shoots. We have been getting some good rain, so I will snap a few more pictures in the days to come to post my progress.

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