drying hops - location?

i picked my first year cascades today. im hoping for a half ounce dried, we'll see. anyways, the way im drying them is i laid a window screen flat, dumped the hops out, spread them out, then put another window screen on top to hold them in place. I set this on some chairs, and laid a box fan underneath of it. i think this will work fine for drying hops, i just dont know if where im doing it is ideal. This is currently setup in my bathroom. its about 72-73 degrees in the bathroom. will this be ok? i dont really know of a better place i can do it, but am up for suggestions. also, about how many days will it take for them to dry? the fan is currently on low.

I put my first year hops (last year) in the oven at 150F overnight. They were pretty dry after that. I'm gonna have way too much to do that this year, so I'm thinking of building a drying rack using 2x4s and some wire garden fencing. I'm thinking about leaving them in the shed, or the garage, both of which get into the high 90s during the day. I'm not sure how long to leave them there, so I'll have to check them often.

The fan idea is a good one, I may have to steal that...

If your bathroom is humid (mine is), that might not be the best place. A dry garage, attic, bedroom, etc, would probably be better. I dry mine in my upstairs- I have a 5 bedroom house but my kids are grown up so I have two "hop drying rooms" in the upstairs in the fall. I spread them out over netting that's hung through the room and leave the windows open and a fan and they are dry in three days.

i have them drying in the guest bathroom currently that doesnt really get any use. we have the AC on, so no windows are open in the house right now. its incredibly humid outside, so when i come inside i dont feel like its humid at all. i have the vent turned off in the bathroom now. i was hoping that would keep things a little warmer in there. I also have the bathroom fan on. think this will be an OK setup?

Do you have a gas, or electric oven? Here's what I did to dry mine: I used aluminum foil to make a tray - I made two. I spread the hops on the foil so they weren't on top of each other, and put them in the 150F oven. The next day, maybe 36 hours or less after putting them in, I took them out. They were almost crumbly, but mostly held together. I then packed them in vacuum bags and put them in the freezer.

Last year I used a food dehydrator on low (95) for about 12 hours. They were plenty dry.
Mid 70s is going to take a while. If you have a garage that gets into the 80s or 90s that would be better.

Central A/C really dries out the air, so all I would add to the your approach is turning the house fan on to circulate more air through the bathroom. Lower temperatures retain more of the light oils. There's a specialty hop provider in the area that dries at 110F vs 140F. The difference is noticable.

2-3 days should do the trick.

uechikid said:

Last year I used a food dehydrator on low (95) for about 12 hours. They were plenty dry.
Mid 70s is going to take a while. If you have a garage that gets into the 80s or 90s that would be better.

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To the OP:
Garage, attic, shed, a very dry area of the house (you do realize your whole house is gonna smell like hops for quite a while, right?

I have done what uechikid has done although my dehydrator seemed to take around 18-20 hrs. Crop gonna be too big this year though

24hrs in the garage at about 85F when it's dry, humid like right now takes alot longer, 3 days so far. If I had any more, I'd be rigging up a kiln of some sort.

Edit: just had a thought though, how about a solar dryer with screen on the bottom and aluminum foil (or some other tin) on top, set in the sun. as long as you keep them in shade with some ventilation room, they should be fine.

Randar said:

To the OP:
Garage, attic, shed, a very dry area of the house (you do realize your whole house is gonna smell like hops for quite a while, right?

I have done what uechikid has done although my dehydrator seemed to take around 18-20 hrs. Crop gonna be too big this year though

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I know what you mean. I have 10 trays. I don't think that's going to be enough. I'll have to dry in stages.

I would do it in the living room...nothing like the smell of fresh hops throughout the house

SauceBoss said:

I would do it in the living room...nothing like the smell of fresh hops throughout the house

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To funny. If for some reason you do dry your hops in the house and you have a dog, keep the dog away from the hop cones. If he eats them they can kill him.

Someone was reading my mind. I was just going to ask something about this.

So it would be ok to dry hops indoors (with the AC on). I was going to use the air filter set up with a fan on it indoors. My garage and outdoors would be way too humid.

The key is to get the moisture content from 80% down to the 20% or so range ASAP before the hops start decomposing. IIRC the commercial guys get it down to 8% moisture or so for sale. (dry) heat and air movement help this process but excessive heat can degrade the quality of the dried hop (commercial oasts around 140 degrees, most home growers seem to shoot for 95-105. I would think even with dry air, you sill have to get some pretty good airflow going to dry them quickly at 75 degrees or whatever you have set in your house. Never tried it though, so it is possible that it works even better. Let us know!

I could always run my oast in my basement with a heater and dehumidifier running and a 70 degree ambient air temp. Best of both worlds? Hard to say without trying I would guess.

i put mine on a few half-sheet pans and left on the counter all weekend whilst i was gone. they were nice in dry by my return.. 60%+ of the weight goes by-by.

Just to add my 2 cents, the lower the temperature the better. At 140F, the alpha acids start breaking down. At 100F, most oils are evaporating away. (I understand Farnesene starts at 79F.) So the lower the temp, the more oils and aromas you will preserve. You also want to avoid sunlight as it speeds the oxidation process.

Think of how drying works. Use yourself as an example. Step out of your shower into a foggy bathroom and you can rub with a towel forever and you never feel dry. But as soon as you pop open the door to the air conditioned (dry) hallway, you suddenly feel dry and cool from all that moisture evaporating.

When you are removing the moisture from the hops, its the same process. You want air that is dry, a.k.a. low relative humidity, passing over the cones. This could mean laying them on a screen in your living room or in a dehydrator. Adding heat serves as a method to lower the relative humidity. The same can be done with a dehumidifier, such as the A/C in your house.

I wouldn't put them in an oven. There you have high heat and restricted air movement. That's a bad combination for removing moisture while preserving flavor.

Lat year rigged up some screens and laid them out in the sun. The wind picked up and started to blow them away. So I brought them inside and vacuum sealed them.

This year I will rig up a bigger screen and forget the sun. I think they are going to go upstairs in the garage attic with a box fan blowing across them, just enough to keep the air moving. If it takes a couple of days that is ok.

We have a dehumidifier in our basement, which I set on constant dehumifying. I curtained off the basement windows, so it is always dark down there, and that is where I set my window screens full of hops. I start with a weight of about 6.5 grams for four hops cones, and the third day it's down to about 2 grams. Then I cram 1 ounce of dry hops into a plastic food storage bag (I use FoodSaver), pump out the air and seal. Then in the freezer they go!

mine took about 4 days to dry in the bathroom with a box fan and windows screens. seems to have worked well!