a couple days ago my potted zeus hop plant seemed to be ready for harvest.

• the cones on the plant looked like they were ready to go.  like the vojvodina cones, they were light to the touch and contained some lupulin:

• the hop vine was nowhere as prolific as the vojvodina, but it still reached my second story window.  after cutting down the vine, I brought it inside to do some picking.

• when all was said and done, I had a little over 4 ounces of wet hops (vs. over 12oz for the vojvodina!).  not amazing, but not bad for a little late hop addition.

• instead of using these wet/fresh, I laid them out on a screen where they have been drying for the last couple of days with a small fan on them.  since they have been drying in a somewhat cool environment inside, I am going to let them go for another couple days before bagging and freezing them.

• I planted the zeus for their very high alpha acid (AA) content, and I can already tell the difference between this batch and my last harvest.  I had to wash my hands multiple times while picking because they kept sticking together from all the lupulin!

Tags: apha acid, fresh hop, hop drying, potted hops, vojvodina, wet hop, zeus

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under brewing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.