Freak

http://www.freakbrothershomebrew.blogspot.com

TEACH A MAN TO FISH AND HE WILL BE DRUNK EVERY DAY!

THAT’S WHAT I SAY!

HE! HE!

FREAK

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a life.

There are some pretty good outlines on how to brew on here (and many of the people that comment on this blog), read up and start brewing, it’s cheaper than buying beer!

With the hops that I am growing, I know what kind they are and that’s really all that matters to me. My plan is to make a brew using organic malt and my homegrown hops. Maybe I’ll call it hippy juice or something, who knows. Anyway, I am certainly throwing caution into the wind on the IBUs, but I figure that it should be close enough.

With the wild hops, I just found out that the land where my parents live used to be a hops field way back when in the middle of hops farms everywhere (CNY Rules!). My dad claims that there everywhere so I am planning a pilgrimage back home to harvest. Now my plan with these was to make a little hop tea and maybe a 5 gallon batch that I can split into a series of 1 gallon experiments.

Nick says that he will find a way to get the Alpha Acids for them. I am not sure how, but in his mad scientist way, he thinks he can.

All that said, I think the great thing about this if you experiment with them one year, you are likely to be able to know what you are getting into on the following years. Thats my thought anyway.

I have a few questions though. I have been wanting to grow hops for years and “E” already has Mt. Hoods that he has been growing for about 10 or 12 years. They are all over his back yard and out of control. In addition, I know of several places that I can harvest pounds upon pounds of wild hops. The stuff just grows like crazy in Iowa. The only reason we never use them, or grow more of them, is because we have no way of knowing the alpha acid % of them. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure this?
As for the wild hops, we have no way of knowing what kind they are. Do you know what type would be growing wild in Iowa? Or, do you know of some one that could help me with the answers to my questions? We should probably just use the dang stuff and see what happens. The problem I have is that I would hate to toss out 18 gallons of beer on an experiment. Nor do I want to start messing around with small batches. Just looking for some suggestions.

Freak

P.S. You should check out our blog again. We just won “Best of Show” (out of 177 beers), at the Iowa State Fair, last week. The Freak Brothers make the Best Freakin’ Beer in Iowa!