Big first harvest, now we dry the hops

About half of the hops are ready to go, so now I get to pick and dry them so that I can see how much I'm going to yield. As anyone that has been into drying herbs or anything knows that I'm going to lose 70-80% of the weight of my harvest as the hops dry so keep that in mind when you see the pictures.

This is just a gratuitous hops shot that I thought all the hop heads would enjoy.

After doing some reading, I discovered that there are two basic concepts in drying hops. One is heat based and the other is airflow based. When push comes to shove, it's up to you beyond that. the things to be sure to avoid are situations where your hops are going to be sealed up while still moist as this will lead to everything from off smells to mold. You also want to keep an eye on them because you don't want to over dry them so that they are too brittle to use.

With all that said, it's drying stuff so don't get too worked up about how you do this. Just keep an eye on them and you'll do fine.



As you can see from these pictures, I used the airflow based method where you ensure that there is a steady flow of air going over the hops to remove the moisture. To do this, you are going to need to have the hops in a warm place.

I took a screen out of one of my windows (ghetto?) and placed it over a plastic bin. I have a small fan in the bottom that is face down turned on. My thought here was that the fan air is pretty intense so by facing it down the airflow will be broken up by bouncing off the bottom before flowing over the hops. I also placed another bin over this one to keep anything from landing on the hops from in the air, but it's not a huge ordeal of you left them open.

As you can see, I spread them out so that there were no hops on top of one another and let them be for a few days. They were done within five days and I put them in zip lock bags to store them in the freezer. My total yield for this first picking was 2 ounces so I am a little disappointed, but I sill have another harvest that is about half as much as that so I should wind up with three to three and a half ounces of hops. I was thinking of using all my homegrown hops in a batch with some organic malt and call it hippy juice or something.

One quick note is that with my second set up hops I am going to try and dry them on the vine. I have heard of doing this with other plants and I thought it might work with hops too.

Cheers!

How do I know when my hops are ready?

Well the short answer is like that. But what are we looking at? (click on the picture above for a good look)

First, you will note the yellow lupulin glands are spilling out onto the leaves near the stem. This is the yellow dust you see in the pictures.

Second is papery to the touch. They should be dry and papery, but not brittle.

Third, the cone should be beginning to open up. When touched, your hands should smell like hops (yea, it's awesome to rub a plant and have your hands smell like hops).

The cones will ripen at different times. There will be some that are ready before others. In some cases, homebrewers wait and let them all ripen and sacrifice a few for the ease of getting it all done at once, but I am going to pick these ones that are ready now.

Cheers!

Hops are almost ready!

While my brewing has been a little sparse this summer, the hops have been continuing to grow and in only their second year, look to be doing pretty well!

This is the cascade and fuggles vines. The fuggles on the right is not producing anything, but the cascade is looking great!!!



There are quite a few cones on there and they are coming along nicely. There are some hairs on them, but they still seem small compared to some of the hops cones I see in other pictures. I am thinking that next weekend I might pick a few and dry them because some are further along than others.



This is a nice shot of the head to head between the cascade (on the right) and the centennial. I am quite sure the centennial are ready as they are REALLY smelly and look a lot more open than the cascade. The cascade cone pictured on the right is more mature than most of the others on the vine so I am going to give it more time.




As you can see from the pictures above, the centennial hops did not do as well, I only expect to harvest a few ounces at best with this one. Hopefully next year all hops will be putting out a bigger harvest. I am pleased with this year as a whole though.

Cheers.