The Patch

2012-01-08T19:03:00.000+11:00

Community tank update

2012-01-04T17:23:00.002+11:00

Greenhouse update that is being powered by 16 small Jade Perch. Tomatoes, rockmelons, capsicums and onions all growing really well, as are the fish. :)

Aquaponics

2011-12-14T18:02:00.002+11:00

Fish are feeding well in all systems and growing well. Plants are also growing well with the added nutrients from the extra fish food.
Noticed one of the big Silver Perch flashing yesterday, so mixed up 9kg of pool salt and added it to the system
This should take it to 3ppt salt which should help the sick fish

Tomato update

2011-12-14T17:59:00.004+11:00

Tomatoes are colouring up big time now. Here is my Azoychka X Juanne Flammee F1 cross.
This tomato is a winner and I will be growing out the F1 seeds next year to start to stabilize it

The tomatoes on the bench are one big Grubs Mystery Green, lots of the AZ x JF F1 and a nearly ripe Brandywine

Fishy things

2011-10-09T14:58:00.003+11:00

Jade perch are feeding well now after sooking for a day

Also this rainbow trout that I caught the other day at Natimuk lake got some treatment in the smoker box

Overwintered Jades moving out

2011-10-07T11:45:00.004+11:00

Well half of them anyway. 11 of the jades from the aquarium in the shed went into the greenhouse system today with their goldfish mate who thinks he is a jade :)\
Will get some pics of them feeding in a few days once they have settled down

Fishing at Natimuk Lake

2011-10-06T23:36:00.003+11:00

Went for a fish at Natimuk lake today and caught one rainbow trout with a scrub worm dug from the lake shore, and it dont get much better than that, Bait and fish in the same place :)

The asparagus I picked from the river bed on the way home , life is good

2011-10-06T23:33:00.001+11:00

Took out the old blue barrel bed from the greenhouse as it was moving the supports due to its rounded bottom. Replaced it with another black tub, and jacked up and rejigged the bessa block supports.

Had a left over bit of an ibc container , so made it into a bed feeding off the fish pond. The fish are happier already, with the water movement and added aeration. The goldies were chasing each other around today mating :)

Have since planted a lot of herbs in this bed as it will be shaded by the tree in summer

Aquaponics update

2011-09-21T21:03:00.000+10:00

A bit of a walk around after leaving the top up hose running in the sump hehe

New system update

2011-09-05T18:20:00.000+10:00

Plants are coming along nicely with the peeponics and some Charlie carp as the ammonia sources

Dwarf pear tree is coming into leaf and the blueberry is flowering

Pond growbed

2011-09-05T18:06:00.000+10:00

Had a left over end of an IBC so decided to put it on the fish pond too both give some vegies/herbs from the fish waste and also clean up the pond, which is full of years of gunk. I will pretty it up a bit with some timber in the future

Greenhouse

2011-09-05T18:04:00.000+10:00

Took the pressure washer to the greenhouse roof and walls and cleaned up a few years of gunk. Also took down some bunched up shadecloth off the end of the hoophouse that was blocking sun from the gh. Its much warmer in there now and the tommys are looking better already.

Tomato season is starting

2011-08-31T21:45:00.000+10:00

Planted my tiny seedlings into the tubs in the greenhouse on the weekend, and my god they look small. I hope they come good. If not it might be a season of Grosse Lisse and Apollos

2011-08-23T11:49:00.000+10:00

System has cycled now and adding Charlie Carp and getting the ammonia to 2 only takes two days and its back to 0. So its ready for fish but its still too cold for the Jade Perch to go in there. Maybe by the end of next month it might be safe for them.

Fishless Cycling

2011-07-25T11:16:00.001+10:00

Been cycling this new system for the last three weeks fishlessly using charlie carp and humonia

Date	PH	Ammonia	Nitrite	Nitrate	Water Temp

3/07/2011	6.8	1	0	0
4/07/2011	6.8	1	0	5	11.7
5/07/2011	6.8	0.5	0	0	10
6/07/2011	6.8	0.5	0	0	9
7/07/2011	6.8	1	0	10	9.4
8/07/2011	6.8	1	0	0	9
9/07/2011	6.8	1	0	0	9
10/07/2011	6.8	1	0	0	8
11/07/2011	6.8	1	0	20	9
12/07/2011	6.8	1	0	0	9
13/07/2011
14/07/2011		Holidays
15/07/2011
16/07/2011
17/07/2011	7	1	0	5	9
18/07/2011	6.8	1	0	5	9
19/07/2011	6.6	1	0	5	9
20/07/2011	6.6	0	0	10	10
21/07/2011	6	2	0	7	10
22/07/2011	7	2	0.3	5	9
23/07/2011	7	2	0	10	8
24/07/2011	7	2	0	10	9

Brocolli is starting to take off and experimenting with a dwarf pear and blueberry plant.

This bed has lettuce, just planted silver beet, parsley and spring onions

Start of tomato/pepper season

2011-06-16T14:08:00.000+10:00

Sowed tomatoes and peppers 13th June as it was a good time by the moon and winter solstice this weekend
Varieties :

Kellogs Breakfast
Brandywine Suddeths
Brandywine Red
Grubs Mystery Green
Pink Ping Pong
Cherokee Purple
Azoychka X Juanne Flammee F1
Toms Yellow Wonder
Faux Box Car Willie
Flathead Monster

2011-06-14T13:27:00.000+10:00

Got two of the three beds running with all pipework glued
20 odd small goldfish in the fish tank

New system update

2011-05-25T19:54:00.000+10:00

System is starting to come along with fish tank, one grow bed and sump in place. Plumbing from the sump pump to fish tank hooked up for testing.
Fish tank is filled to let it sit for a while to see if it sinks in the freshly placed dirt under it.
This coming Sunday will be gravel washing/carting day and not looking forward to it eh

New system update

2011-05-01T18:22:00.000+10:00

Not much to add here but did some work on it today. Sump hole is still not deep enough and is hard work.
Got tops cut out of sump and fish tank ibcs and cleaned them out. Gave the fish tank cage and growbed cage a coat of kill rust and painted the growbed ibc. This needs to be done to protect the plastic from sun damage
When I get the sump hole deep enough the real work can start and I can start cycling the system with some charlie carp and pee

.

New system in the making

2011-04-25T13:30:00.000+10:00

Digging the hole for the sump is hard work.

IBC's in waiting, one for the sump and the other the fish tank

Fish harvest

2011-04-12T18:17:00.000+10:00

Harvest of Jade Perch today. 6 small ones are soaking in brine and I will smoke them later

Autumn update

2011-04-05T13:26:00.000+10:00

Autumn is here and the weather is cooling so the jade perch will have to be harvested soon. I will get 20 trout to replace them in the small greenhouse system.
One tomato is struggling on in the outside AP system but I have all winter veg in the beds now including, broad beans, silver beet, lettuce, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and celery

Community tank

2011-03-17T22:07:00.000+11:00

Jade Perch feeding now

2011-03-03T22:30:00.000+11:00

They have grown heaps, and I hope I can keep them alive over the coming cooler months

Jade Perch now

2011-03-03T22:21:00.001+11:00

Jade perch now undr

2011-02-08T14:58:00.000+11:00

My Jade Perch feeding. Hard to imagine that these were little 50mm fingerlings 3 months ago. They also eat lettuce, duckweed etc as well as the fish pellets.

2011-01-29T22:27:00.000+11:00

Went on a long road trip to Glenwaters native fish hatchery at Glenburn today with a mate Jamey who is also into aquaponics.
Came home with 50 new babies. 20 Silver Perch, 20 Catfish and 10 Bass
Hope they all survive

2011-01-27T19:53:00.000+11:00

Went to a local lake and we got lucky and came home with this haul of yabbies. Very happy we were

Aquaponics update

2011-01-08T10:15:00.000+11:00

Added a strawberry tube to the big aquaponics system and a new 200L bed to the small greenhouse system.

Both systems running well with plant growth that is amazing. A few pics

2011-01-08T10:09:00.000+11:00

Tomatoes coming in regularly now. Made one batch of tomato sauce (ketchup) and the bench is covered with them again. Some whoppers as well with one Aunt Ginny at 580g and just then picked my first Coustralee at 590g

Tomato Progress

2010-11-14T11:45:00.000+11:00

Andrew Raharts Jumbo Reds

My unknown cross that I have named BrandywineNot because the seed save was from Brandywine but all the seedlings are regular leaf, and not potato leaf like brandywine. So it must have crossed with a regular leafed something

2010-11-13T14:49:00.000+11:00

This is the brewery. Ice Cool esky is the mash tun, 50L stainless kettle and fowlers boiler in the background to h
eat sparge water and topup water.

9kg of grain is mixed with 68C water to result in a 64C mixture called the Mash. Esky is sealed and left for 90mins and this draws all the sugars out of the malted grain. Then the Wort (sugary water) is drawn off through a stainless screen that is in the bottom of the esky and connected to the tap on the end

The Wort is then boiled for 75mins with hop additions at 45min left, 10min and at flameout. These are the bittering, flavouring and aroma additions.

One of the hop additions weighed out and waiting

It is then fermented in this old freezer. The fermenters are sitting on a heat mat, and the freezer has a temp controlled and probe so I can ferment at 16C all year round.

Tempmate temperature controller

It then ends up in here

And comes out here

2010-11-02T14:36:00.000+11:00

A view around the aquaponics and garden

Asparagus

2010-10-21T22:29:00.000+11:00

Took a small deture today coming home and went via the local river. A 10 min walk around and I had two huge handfulls of asparagus. It grows wild along the river downstream from Quantong, which used to be a market garden area. Sooooo, thinking the asparagus bed I have at home (which is doing very well this year), may as well become a new aquaponic growbed area.
I could dig the asparagus rhizomes at the end of there season and relocate them

2010-10-09T18:25:00.000+11:00

Got two new growbeds up and running and all syphons working as they should and then noticed bad leakage from the bottoms of the tubs. Got underneath to take a look and saw a raised ridge in the plastic through where I drilled the holes for the syphons, DOH. Dunno how I didnt notice it before I filled the beds with gravel.
So undid them and chiseled off the ridge either side of the hole and refitted with more sikoflex. Will hook it all up again tommorow and have turned off the new beds till then.
Got a very strange look from the wife when I walked into the house soaking wet and sikoflex all over me

2010-10-04T14:41:00.000+11:00

Also made a lid for the fish tank to try to kill off an algae bloom in there. Algae needs sunlight
Then a rope and pulley and a hook

2010-09-28T19:29:00.000+10:00

Made this polly hoop shadehouse over the last couple of days. This will allow me to grow tomatoes in the aquaponics as they cant tolerate our summers without shade usually. The other plants will do better as well.

Tomatoes in greenhouse in their selfwatering tubs

2010-09-25T15:19:00.000+10:00

Tour of the old system and feeding the trout

2010-09-25T15:14:00.000+10:00

I know I need learn to use the video camera better :)

A tour of the new system

2010-09-25T15:03:00.000+10:00

Smoking fish with Weber Q

2010-09-13T09:36:00.001+10:00

Bought a trout to try out smoking with the weber Q. Set it up like doing a roast with the rack on some silver foil then made two pouches and filled them with hickory pellets. Turned the burners on high till the wood started smoking then turned off middle burner and turned outer one to low.

2010-09-06T17:40:00.000+10:00

Finally got the water cleaned up after much hassle and growbed flushing.

Put some goldfish in the tank to start the cycling

2010-08-26T18:25:00.000+10:00

Nearly two weeks since this system started running and the ammonia reading is 1.0 and PH 7 so all good there.
Planted out spring onions , lots of lettuces, 12 brocolli , lots of snow peas and 8 silverbeet seedlings yesterday.

2010-08-19T13:31:00.000+10:00

Finished off the plumbing and got it all running. Threw in a good slurp of Charlie Carp and Seasol and some Humonia for good measure ;)
Will fishlessly cycle this system for a month or two before adding any fish

2010-08-19T13:28:00.000+10:00

Got the scoria into the growbeds and topped it with washed pebbles for easier planting

2010-08-13T22:43:00.000+10:00

Got 25 baby silver perch today form livefish.com, and put half in this tank and the other half in the bigger aquarium that was under stocked due to a power outage and fish kill a few weeks ago.
Hoping I can keep them alive till the aquaponics tank outside warms enough for these little fish
I think I am going to have to do a lot of water changes in the aquariums in the coming days

2010-08-11T22:25:00.000+10:00

Veiw showing the pump in the sump tank at full throttle pumping into the fish tank and the overflow from the fish tank starting to feed into the growbed.
This is called a CHOP system, as in Constant Height One Pump.
One pump in the sump tank pumps constantly into the fish tank , which overflows via gravity into the grow beds. The growbeds then drain into the sump tank.
The water just keeps going around and around, with the fish waste feeding the plants, and the growbed gravel and plants cleaning the water for the fish
Cool eh

2010-08-11T22:17:00.000+10:00

Well its all starting to come together, with the growbeds up on besser blocks/redgum bearers then hardwood frame. Most of the plumbing done.
If we ever get another fine weekend day, I might just get it running, but its not looking good for the coming weekend.
Will need to wash one metre of scroria before putting it in the growbeds, which will mean lots of hurt :(

2010-07-26T23:17:00.000+10:00

Fish tank filled the next day and a load of cream pebbles to make the area more purdy :)
One grow bed stand made, but I think I will need to add more legs and strengthen it more.
Sump is yet to arrive and when it does and I see just what size and shape it is , I can fashion the stand for the other growbed that will be over the sump.

2010-07-26T23:11:00.000+10:00

Pad levelled out and tank base in, and then by dark had tank in and plumbed up enough to fill the next day

2010-07-23T13:46:00.000+10:00

Lots of shovelling later and some boarding up and I have a raised pad for the fish tank to sit on. It needs stamping down and leveling yet and that will happen tommorow with luck. I will then put the tank on it and fill the tank to see if its going to sink anywhere

New System

2010-07-16T18:23:00.000+10:00

Grow beds and new fish tank arrived today for a new bigger aquaponics system Wahooo

And this is where it will go. I know , its a huge mess at the moment but, I will transform it over time

2010-07-09T19:07:00.000+10:00

Got a fail over switch and 12V bilge pump for backup in case of power outages. If the power goes out the switch turns on the 12V power, and off again when the power comes back on.

Brocolli in the system is growing at an amazing rate and is so healthy. The heads are about 2 inches accross.

Showing overall veiw of growth in the beds. Amazing eh. And all grown on fish poo

2010-06-28T17:18:00.000+10:00

The trout certainly are growing

2010-06-25T10:26:00.000+10:00

Here are the growbeds now with pea pods filling and brocolli starting to head.
Lettuce ready to pick when needed

2010-06-23T23:17:00.000+10:00

Week 5 with the trout in the system and only the two lost. Others are feeding like crazy and growing at a rapid rate. You have to stand back when throwing in the pellets or the fish hitting them on the surface will get you wet. Fun stuff.

Added an NFT (nutrient film technique) tube to the system to hopefully grow some strawberries
Havent been able to grow any successfull strawberry plants in the dirt here and have tried many times

Will keep updating how they go in here, with a pic of them actually planted eh, LOL

2010-06-07T17:41:00.000+10:00

Trout have been in the tank for just over two weeks now. I lost two of them a few days after the tank disaster but none since.

Plants are growing really well

Celery started two weeks ago from small seedlings

General veiw of beds with peas hanging over the side and podding

up and brocolli about to start heading

2010-05-24T21:53:00.000+10:00

Picked up 20 rather large trout fingerlings from the Ballarat trout hatchery on Sat morning and got them into the tank after removing the goldfish.
Trotted off to the local footy for the afternoon and came home to find one of the growbed returns had come off, and the tank with just 2 inches of water and 20 stressed fish. Quickly threw the hose from our rainwater tanks in and refilled the tank. Got the system running again and resalted the water to 1ppt. Today, Monday, I gave the trout their first good feed. The sight of them hitting the food pellets at great speed, and jumping out of the water when they hit a floating pellet is amazing and great fun.
Here is the tank with the 2 inches of water and stessed fish. I was very worried at the time, but there have been no deaths so far.

2010-05-09T12:10:00.000+10:00

Here is one of the growbeds showing amazing growth of the lettuces and brocolli

And another with dwarf peas and some grub eaten cabbages

2010-05-09T12:05:00.000+10:00

Pic showing the syphons at work draining the growbeds

2010-04-24T16:25:00.000+10:00

Just caught this little fella in the local river. Have no clue what he is but he is in the tank along with one yabbie I caught as well.

Have caught the aquaponics bug

2010-04-21T18:08:00.000+10:00

What is aquaponics

Its the combination of hydroponics and aquaculture. Basically it works by having the fish tank water pumped to the grow beds that contain inert growing media, like bluemetal, etc. The water then returns to the fish tank cleaned
The fish wastes feed the plants in the growbeds and the growbeds themselves become a big biofilter and convert the ammonia produced by the fish to nitrates.
So the plants are grown hydroponically and organically as we cannot use any chemicals on the plant or we would kill the fish.

The three growbeds in the picture have autosyphons in them that rapidly drains the beds when they reach a certain level. Then the beds slowly fill again (approx 12mins).

This shows the autosyphon in action rapidly draining the growbed

I am cycling the system with 10 goldfish in the tank and when cycled will get some rainbow trout and grow them up to eating size

Cant wait

2009-12-06T16:31:00.000+11:00

This was the pickings from last week and they went into a batch of spicy relish.

2009-11-18T22:28:00.000+11:00

Here they come. Some Juanne Flammees, 4 Cherokee Purples, 2 Gregoris Altai a Polish Dwarf and a Grubs Mystery Green.
Wife and I had the Grubs in some sandos with some white onions also fresh from the garden, yum.
The Juanne Flammees are great on crackers with a bitey cheese as they are tart and yummy.

2009-11-11T16:25:00.000+11:00

Here is nearly 5kg of hop pellets that I got from the US. Landed on my front door step for less than half the price I can get them from here.
I vacumm sealed them into 500g lots to put in the freezer

2009-11-11T16:21:00.000+11:00

Japanese Black Triefle tomatoes
This one is growing in a self watering tub in the greenhouse

2009-11-11T16:19:00.000+11:00

Juanne Flammee tomatoes coming on applenty. Over 100 fruit set on this plant now. It is growing in a hydroponic setup

2009-10-14T12:08:00.000+11:00

Greenhouse is turning into a jungle again even with me pruning

the plants down to two leaders each.

2009-09-03T11:40:00.002+10:00

Just another hobby/passion is tropical fish keeping.
This tank has been running for 9 weeks and the plants and fish are doing really well.
Its inhabitants are:
1 Angel fish
10 Rummy nosed tetras
2 Kuhli Loachs
3 Ottocinclus catfish
3 Kribensis with one breeding pair

The Kribensis have bred twice but the fry from the first all dissapeared and only 4 are left of the latest attempt

2009-08-28T12:00:00.000+10:00

Not really helpers in the garden but more curious onlookers

2009-08-28T09:51:00.000+10:00

I have some helpers on my broad bean plants on sunny days

2009-08-28T09:48:00.000+10:00

Tomatoes are coming along nicely in the greenhouse. These two are Gregoris Altai on the left and Aunt Ginny.

I have a total of 26 plants planted out in the greenhouse in these tubs and in bottomless pots sitting on the border soil.

2009-04-30T20:51:00.000+10:00

Well its been a while. Not very good at this blogging thing eh
The beer in the cube is now long gone but remembered fondly as being wonderful.

I have done 12 more brews the same way since. Did 6 days in a row in the recent school holidays (which I get) and filled the two fermenters and 4 cubes. So wont be brewing for a few weeks now.
Drinking an amber ale right now. Ambers are quickly becoming my favourite style.

2009-03-14T20:39:00.000+11:00

Here is my modified marga grain mill. By moding it to have a maximun feed gap and then a 1mm crush gap it does a good job.

The grain hopper is the box the mill came in and some duct tape :)

Today I fashioned a fitting to go in the handle hole and connected the cordless drill to run it. Made the job of milling 5kg of grain a lot easier eh

2009-03-14T20:31:00.000+11:00

Havent posted for a while but today I brewed my 5th all grain brew, so have been busy :)

Got winter vegies sown a few weeks ago. Most of this tray is up now and away

2009-02-20T14:46:00.000+11:00

The brew in the cube was down to pitching temp the next morning before work , so I emptied it into the fermenter and pitched yeast.

My first all grain brew

2009-02-15T14:27:00.000+11:00

Here is the process I used. It is brew in a bag method of mashing and sparging, and also no-chill in a cube method of cooling the wort.

Water is heated to 66C for the mash

Grain is weighed out. In this case 4.5kg of Joe White traditional ale and 300g of Carramalt

This is the bag which is made from Swiss Voile that will go in the pot to hold the grain

Water has come up to 66C and the bag and grain are added and stirred to get any lumps broken up

Heat is off the pot is wrapped in old rug to keep in as much heat as possible

Mash is finished and bag is hooked to a rope and pulley to lift it.

Corner of bag is gathered up and bag drained of most of the wort.

While the wort in the pot is coming to the boil the bag is hung in a bucket to drain out as much wort as possible

Wort has come to the boil and the first hop (bittering) addition

I added more flavour hops at 40min, 20min, and 0min (flameout).

Boil is finished so the pot is lifted up onto the table to drain it out into the cube.

Once up on the table I gave the wort a good whirlpool. This has the effect of gathering the hops and hot break material into a cone in the middle of the pot.

The pickup tube for the tap bends around to take wort from near the bottom edge of the pot.

Didnt have the missus handy to take pics when draining the wort into the cube but this is the end result.

I came up about a litre short for the cube. I think I boiled it too vigourously.

Anyway here it is, resting on its side to get the hot wort into the handle and inside top of the cube to sanitise it.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get down to yeast pitching temp (26C or so)

2009-02-04T22:16:00.000+11:00

No pics today as they would be depressing.
Most of the vegie patch is shriveled and dead from a string of 40C plus days in a row. Even some tomatoes in the greenhouse/shadehouse have been boiled on the vine.
I am keeping water up to my Hop plant because I really dont want to lose it, and a couple of zucs near it.
Other than that I am bucketing water onto plants that we are trying to keep alive through this horendous hot spell.
The young citrus trees, passionfruit plant, berry bush, grapes, older lime and lemon trees, and a few more.
We really are getting to dislike living in this climate after going up to the Hunter Valley for a week recently. Water everywhere up there and green grass, flowers, dams full of water sigh.

2009-01-20T10:50:00.000+11:00

After two weeks of ripening at 13-15C we tried one and it is very nice.

We do like them riper than this so will try the next one in another two weeks

2009-01-01T22:53:00.000+11:00

The cheeses have done what they should and have the mold covering them completely. Today I wrapped them in celophane and they are back in the ripening fridge for 2- 4 weeks.

2008-12-26T19:27:00.000+11:00

There is more to the process, but here they are now in the ripening fridge with mold begining to grow over them as it should.

2008-12-26T19:23:00.000+11:00

Jeez, I have been slack at posting here.

Here is the other project on the go. Cheese making.

I am having a go at making Camembert with a kit I got from the net at http://www.countrybrewer.com.au

Here the renet has been added and the curd cut

2008-12-26T19:17:00.000+11:00

With 1.5kg of frozen tomatoes from last year I have 9kg of fruit needed to make a batch of sauce.

I use the ezesauce and its recipe except that I put in pumkin instead of apple. The pumkin gives a smoother , richer sauce. Should only need to make one batch this year as we have so much left from past years in the shed cupboard.

2008-12-17T20:25:00.000+11:00

Havent posted for a while. Had a weekend in Hahndorf which was very nice.
Had a lot of rain since Friday which is very good.
Starting to put tomatoes in the shed fridge to slow their ripening so as to build up enough for a batch of sauce.
This truss pictured a week ago is showing 5 ripening today.
Holidays start on Friday so I will bore you with lots of pics :)

2008-12-09T10:10:00.000+11:00

Now we have some colour with the first Grubs Mystery Green

2008-12-09T09:03:00.000+11:00

This is one of my crosses and it has come up a treat. Very pretty with the gold skin and reddish interior. Taste is very good.

2008-12-04T22:29:00.000+11:00

Three more waiting for the chopping block. I must say that these are fantastic being different colours and so early. I love my greenhouse

I really wanted to pick a Lime Green Salad just to have a green in the pic but alas, the biggest fruit is not giving to the squeeze test just yet.

2008-12-01T14:01:00.000+11:00

This was yummy. Had to eat it with a towel over my lap to catch the juice :-)

2008-11-27T10:30:00.000+11:00

Finally found a way to control the damn earwigs, which have decided to breed up to plague proportions and eat any new shoot they can find.
I put a container with some beer in, up against my potato cage which I know houses hoards of the little charmers. In the morning there were hundreds of drowned wigs in there, waaahooooo
As I brew my own beer I have a lot of bait, so LOOKOUT wigs, here I come

Muuuhhhaahahhaaa

2008-11-23T17:33:00.000+11:00

Some of my Juanne Flammee x Azoychka F2's are starting to colour up.

Cant wait

2008-11-23T17:28:00.000+11:00

Another brew day today.

Trying for a pale ale but I think I used too much grain for the little pot and efficiency suffered. This brew will only come out about %3.5 alc.

Never mind, its done now and it should make a good hot weather swiller.

2008-11-16T19:42:00.000+11:00

Enter my member number 2120851. Evey donation over $2 is tax deductable

2008-11-15T18:52:00.000+11:00

And my very favourite for yeild so far is Cherokee Purple. There are 12 fruit on this truss

2008-11-15T18:51:00.000+11:00

2008-11-15T18:48:00.000+11:00

Decided to do some radical pruning in the greenhouse today

Hopfully this will deter the whitefly moths somewhat as they were starting to get into some of the fruit.

Its also made it much easier to move around in there.

2008-11-14T14:14:00.000+11:00

If anyone would like to donate to a good cause. I am growing a mo
https://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?rego=2120851&country=au

2008-11-12T13:44:00.000+11:00

Here are some UK2000's looking very strong and setting fruit. These plants get afternoon shade from a tree and grapevines.

2008-11-12T12:32:00.000+11:00

These are some Spudulata Blacks. Look how shiny they are

2008-11-08T17:53:00.000+11:00

Brew day today and I have decided to use up some grains that were laying around.

Did a mash (Brew in a bag style) of 2.3kg of grain at 68deg for 80 min. Very easy way of brewing this, as when the mash is finished simply lift the bag and give it a good squeeze to get out all the liquor. Then turn up the heat and start the boil.

2008-11-08T17:47:00.000+11:00

Here are the bittering and flavoring hop pellots weighed out and waiting for their turn in the boil. Also the extra liquid and dry malts to go in at the end of the boil.

Took about 3 hours from start to finish. Now to wait and in about two weeks it should be in a keg and ready to test. :-)