What do you plan to do with all the hops?

I know that in the past 2-3 years a lot of home brewers planted their own hops in response to the hops shortage of a couple of years ago. I did the same thing. I have two Cascade plants and I harvested a couple of pounds of nice fragrant hops this year. I figure that's a little more than I need for the brewing I do in a year - using Cascade at any rate.

Reading some of the other post I see some folks have planted 5, 10, 20 or more plants. My questions is: what does everyone plan to do with their excess?

If I had excess, I would sell last years left overs to members for a good price.

This was my first year growing so I used my harvest for an APA. (I did have to add some bittering hops from my stash to complete the hop bill though. )

I've only got two nugget plants, so there won't be any excess. Actually at this rate I'll be doing good to harvest enough for a 10 gallon batch of my planned Rye Pale Wet Hopped Harvest Ale.

It will be a couple of years before I'll need to worry about that. But if the time comes that I have too much to use myself, I have a couple of friends that brew and I'm sure they would be happy to take some off my hands.

I have nine plants, but only one of each variety. Unless there is a radial change in the summer weather here, I doubt I'll have to worry about excess hops. I've been having abnormally cold Springs followed by record hot Summers ever since I planted mine.

I ended up with about half a pound of Chinook and a pound of Cascade. I'll easily burn through that within the year.

Vacuum seal & freeze!

I'll have a good enough cascade harvest this year that I'll probably give some away to other local brewers and hopefully get them growing some other varieties that I don't have. I'd rather give the excess away and try their beers than ship 'em across the state and get a thumbs up over e-mail.

I'm advocating a "pay it forward" movement with our excess hops because only better beer and more hops can result.

cuinrearview said:

I'll have a good enough cascade harvest this year that I'll probably give some away to other local brewers and hopefully get them growing some other varieties that I don't have. I'd rather give the excess away and try their beers than ship 'em across the state and get a thumbs up over e-mail.

I'm advocating a "pay it forward" movement with our excess hops because only better beer and more hops can result.

Click to expand...

ok - I like this plan. I have about 2 pounds of whole Fuggle, Saaz, and Cascade left over from last year. That, along with a couple of pounds of Cascade from this year and about another pound and a half of various pellet hops, means I have plenty of hops - perhaps too much to use in the foreseeable future. I think I'll do something along these lines...

I could use some cascades...I have first year hops going this year that I would love to pay if forward with. Willamette, Cascades, Centennial, Sazz and Nugget

I planted 13 varietals but, only one hill each.

I chose the varietals based on styles and Alpha potentials. I don;t expect any extra in that I intend to use my own hops exclusively. Everything harvested gets dried, vacuum sealed, and thrown into the deep freeze.

If I come to a point where I need to burn through some hops. Well, there is always the DIPA and a hopback.