beginning the 2010 hop harvest
aside from sampling a few draft homebrews (and discovering that the local elks lodge has quite a few beers on tap, including SN pale ale), the weekend went by without incident. on monday, however, the hop harvest began.
- after doing some research regarding optimal hop picking indicators, I determined the following: wait until the cones are light and papery, and you can smell significant hop aroma, then wait a week or more for the cones to fully develop before picking.
- last year, I picked my cones when they felt papery (and when I saw significant lupulin in the cones), but I didn’t really get any significant aroma from them, so I think I picked too early.
- this time around, my cascade cones were light, papery, and smelled great, and my I ended up with tacky fingers after handling the cones. I cut down the cascade vine and picked approximately a little less than a pound of wet hops, which will likely result in 4oz. of dried cones. not bad for first year growth!
- I spread the hops out in the basement on some mesh and put a fan on them to dry them out. I plan on stuffing them in a ziploc in a day or two, when they fully dry out.
- in the future, I plan on planting my rhizomes in the ground to increase output, as the time and effort put in for a 4oz. harvest could get a little frustrating over time. I will definitely plant the cascade, which showed the best growth potential by far, but other varieties are still up in the air (columbus? amarillo?)
Tags: cascade, harvest, hop drying, hops, pale ale, sierra nevada
September 1st, 2010 at 3:09 pm
those nugs are really pretty. and 4oz is not a bad yield can keep your ‘fermenter’ bubbling for a few months!
September 9th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
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