Sanitation in the Home Brewery

By HomeBrewing.com Staff


The most frustrating aspect of home brewing is when a batch goes bad. The only way to improve your chances of avoiding this depressing situation is to maintain the highest degree of sanitation in your home brewery as is possible. There are also some other pitfalls of the modern age that require a closer look, and some basic tools that will give you the best chances of fighting bacterial infestations, vinegar cultures, and rogue yeasts in your home brew.


One factor often overlooked when cleaning and sanitizing home brew set-ups is that of the water used. Tap water in modern cities is sometimes good, sometimes terrible. It is wise to do some research and find out how your city water rates when analyzed for bacteria, harmful chemicals, and heavy metals. The quality of water used in making beer has a very strong connection with the quality of the finished product. But how to deal with it?


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3 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Growing Grapes

By Matt Granger

Growing Grapes is one the few overlooked yet most promising and exciting outdoor hobbies one can become involved in. It is fun, challenging, and best of all rewarding in the sense that once you have a fully grown grape farm or grape garden, you will enjoy the benefits of having fresh wine grapes to eat at your convenience. Plus, since growing grapes is an outdoor hobby, it will force you to get out of the lazy chair and out into the open and truly become one with nature.

Growing Grapes while appealing to most because of the delicious home grown wine grapes can be quite challenging at times. There are a few common mistakes that many new grape growers commit. I would like to cover them briefly with you now.

Growing Grapes Common Mistake #1:
One of the most common grape growing mistake new grape gardeners commit involves purchasing already grown grapevines and planting them in their garden. Here is the problem that lies with this situation. Your local nursery will buy grapevines in bulk for a low price and will put them on sale. They will look all nice and pretty at the nursery since they just brought them in. However, what you the customer doesn't know is that these grapevines have come from different parts of the country, places where in fact the grapevines were growing really healthy and strong.

You see, climate and atmosphere plays a key role in successful grape growing. When growing grapes in different parts of the country, you can expect totally different results with your grapevines. Different in climate alone will affect the types of disease your grapevines might get plagued with or when they will fruit better, if at all. Therefore, do not be fooled by what is being sold to you at the nursery. It is best to verse yourself on how to grow grapes from an expert and understand how the climate in your area will affect your vines.

Growing Grapes Common Mistake #2:
The second most common mistake committed when growing grapes is the eagerness for spraying.
I understand it is frustrating to see a few insects on your vines and can become quite irresistible to hold back from spraying your grapevines clean. Well, don't go too trigger happy. There are plenty of other procedures that you can use to keep your grapevines under pest control. Spraying should only be used when it is truly needed because you can risk killing off everything else in the area that normally would've controlled those pesky pests.

Growing Grapes Common Mistake #3:
Finally we come to the third most common mistake of growing grapes. This one involves planting grapevines without learning how to train grapevines first. That's like buying a car without knowing how to drive. Grapevines require proper training and pruning in order for them to grow successfully and most rookie grape gardeners just do not understand that growing grapes takes more than just planting a few grapevine seeds and watering them everyday.

Growing grapes can start from a fun hobby to ultimately becoming a full time career. However, it takes some skill and knowledge to fully succeed in growing grapes. Otherwise you will probably commit some of the costly, rookie mistakes covered above.

Visit this link to begin learning the skills necessary for growing grapes . Matt Granger has been growing grapes for over 30 years and is an expert in backyard grape growing and grapevine farming. Visit his personal grape growing website here: http://www.grapegrowingsecrets.com

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Beer Review #5 -Guinness Extra Stout

A great choice for your St. Patrick's Day. Guinness Extra Stout was reviewed by elharlock and he gave it a 5 out of 5. Personally, I would have to agree with him since I enjoy a pint or two of this flavorful brew. Enjoy the video review.



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Planting A Grape Vine

By Danie Wium

You have prepared your site; you have decided what variety to grow; now it is time to plant your grape vine! Well, unfortunately, this is where many home grape growers terribly fail!

Planting a grape vine is not hard, if fact, it is one of the easiest fruits to get started, but there are a few key things to remember when planting your grape vine.

1. The planting hole

In the early days, before research proofed this method wrong, planting grape vines, by adding fertilizer and all kinds of stuff into the planting hole, was a well-known practice? Research showed, that a grape vine sprouts from energy within the vine itself, and do not actually use any fertilizer until the vine reach about 2 to 3 inch shoot length. By adding fertilizer directly into the planting hole, or directly on the roots of the vines could damage (scourge) the roots.

With knowledge/information you gained from soil samples, you should fertilize and correct all mineral shortages BEFORE you prepare your vineyard site and then plant your grape vine. This will mix all the fertilizer with the soil and will not damage the roots of your grape vine.

Make a large enough hole to accommodate all the roots from the cutting and do not cut or remove any roots - the more roots, the better the chance of successfully planting your grape vine.

2. Preparing the new vine before planting

Before planting your grape vine, you should plunge the complete vine into a bucket of water for at least six hours. Under no circumstances, let the roots of the vine dry out - this is very important! If you are planting a few hundred vines, cover the vines not planted yet with a damp gunny bag or something similar.

3. Watering the vine

Before you plant the grape vine, you should thoroughly water the planting hole and ensure that the water deeply penetrates the sidewall of the planting hole.

Constantly add water to the planting hole while filling the hole with water to ensure that no air pockets forms near the roots of the vines. Water your grape vine once a week for at least a month after planting the grape vine.

Following these simple rules when planting a grape vine, will guarantee a much higher success rate.

For even more grape growing tips, you can visit My Grape Vine and if you would like to become a member of The Grape Coaching Program, where you will learn how to grow grapes by means of video and mp3's, visit The Grape Coaching Program - get your 10 day FREE training right now!

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