GVH_Dan

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DAY_TRIPPR: Honestly, this isn't an "internet argument...my bytes are bigger than yours" kind of thing, but you something isn't adding up. Are you drying your hops completely?

I can't quite judge the exact size of those buckets, so let me repeat the math for a 1 gallon, 3 gallon and 5 gallon bucket.

1 gallon = 0.134 cubic feet
Hope cone density dried to 8 to 10% = 1.3 lb/cubic foot
0.134 cubic feet x 1.3 lb/cubic foot = 0.101 lb = 1.6 oz/bucket

3 gallon = 4.94 oz/bucket

5 gallon = 8.22 oz/bucket

I'm guessing those are 3 gallon buckets. That means you still have 14 oz of extra water in your hops, which means you are at...76% MC. Ah, those are your wet weights, right? Or I'm way off on the size of the bucket.

Anyway, a fully mature plant, depending on the variety, should be able to produce .8 to 2 pounds per plant dried to 8% moisture content. Fresh picked, that is about 5 to 10 pounds or 80 to 160 oz per plant...or 9.5 to 20 3 gallon buckets per hop plant.

Is that possible, heck yes. One of my little oasts uses shipping containers that are 4 foot by 1 foot wide by a little over 1/2 foot deep and I have seen a single container filled by a single mature plant.

In other words, looking at the 3 varieties you have, if you push them to their full production, you should be harvesting about 45 of those buckets of hops in a couple years. Just warning you that you may want to consider upping your brewing production.

GVH_Dan

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After one of the first big articles got published about us a little old lady called and said she had some "canned hops" from her daddy that did in "02" and she wondered if we wanted them.

They had been canned in 1902. We didn't open the jar because they were so yellow but still held their shape.

B-Hoppy

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i902, ya got me beat. I didn't come around till a little later! So I guess these: http://www.esnarf.com/2053k.htm were somewhere in the middle? Pretty cool stuff. Hop On!

day_trippr

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Oh, sh!t. Yes, those were the wet weights. The pic was almost a year old and I totally forgot what the numbers meant. Damn.

My apologies for a stupid error. And thanks for the catch - I wouldn't want anyone to get an inferiority complex when they compared their yields to those pics and wondered "wtf is going on?"

Cheers!

GVH_Dan

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Oh, trust me. I've made way stupider (if that's a word) errors. I just wanted to make sure 1.) you were drying properly and 2.) you realized just how many hops you will some day end up with...how many hops you will have to pick, you will have to dry, you will have to store...and you will have to convince the SWMBO are important enough to spend so much time and space on.

day_trippr

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LOL! Well it still was a total "DOH!" moment. Embarrassing, really. My memory is actually very good but somehow I totally screwed the pooch on that one.

Otherwise...The first point I had covered; the second one I can only hope to have a such high class problem ; and the third: my spouse of 36 years is incredibly indulgent about pretty much anything I get myself into, and as she's into my beer, the home brew related activities are actually pretty easy

One of my two beer fridges is always kept at 36°F so I have a full freezer section that's used just for hops. If I somehow manage to fill that up with home growns this season I'll be quite pleased And if I need more freezer space...what the hell, I have two beer fridges and a 10cf keezer, all from Craig's List, I'm sure I could score a small chest freezer from the same source if necessary!

Cheers!