Need to dry hops in two days

Hi all,

I was looking at my plants today and realized I had cones ready to harvest - all told about 4oz and that was maybe 1/3 of what was still in the bine when I finished.

My problem is that I have to leave town for two weeks starting in two days. What so you recommend for a quick drying procedure? I have the rest of today, through Tuesday evening to dry these and vac pack into my freezer.

Four ounces wet is around a quart of cones, I reckon. If you have a fan and a window screen you could place above it, you might get those down to baggable weight in two days...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

Four ounces wet is around a quart of cones, I reckon. If you have a fan and a window screen you could place above it, you might get those down to baggable weight in two days...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Ok...I'll need to get a screen and fan.

What about using my oven? Lowest setting with the door open?

If you have a box fan get 2 cheap air filters the size of your fan and a bungie cord. Sandwich the hops between the 2 filters and bungie it to the fan.

Can't comment on hops, but I was faced with a similar dilemma with another similar plant species..

I would warm up the oven a tad (lowest setting or if you have a pilot light in there I heard that is OK as well) then sticking the cones in there and turning off the oven would dry it out quickly but not too quickly. I turn on the oven on lowest setting just every once in awhile during the process. I would hope to accomplish it in a couple hours.

Alright, I ran over to my local Ace and picked up a 20" box fan and two 20" square filters. Unfortunately they didn't have the cheap non-pleated type. 5 minutes to set it all up and it's in the attic above my garage which is about mid 90s right now.

There was not much air flowing through them though I'm only using two filters. If anything there was some back pressure flow around the corners of the fan box wheres the blade doesn't spin. Is this because they're the pleated type? They weren't the top of the line - but thy still cost $4.50. I'm thinking of maybe trying to make a cover for the back with a round opening for where the fan is to minimize that back pressure air flow...overkill?

I think as long as you have some air flow coming through the filters you will be fine. Others use it for drying hops but I originally saw it done by Alton Brown on the food network he used it to make beef jerky.

Thanks everybody for the advice :cheers:

This is probably too late, but the pleated filters won't work. The pressure drop is too high for that type of fan. IT will either whistle through any gap or the fan will spin without air movement.

If you still have time and a dehumidifier, your best bet is to through the hops and the dehumidifier under a plastic tarp and let it run. The dehumidifier will pull the moisture out of 4 oz of hops in a couple of hours without the damaging effect of all that heat.

GVH_Dan said:

This is probably too late, but the pleated filters won't work. The pressure drop is too high for that type of fan. IT will either whistle through any gap or the fan will spin without air movement.

If you still have time and a dehumidifier, your best bet is to through the hops and the dehumidifier under a plastic tarp and let it run. The dehumidifier will pull the moisture out of 4 oz of hops in a couple of hours without the damaging effect of all that heat.

Click to expand...

Ahh that would have been an awesome and quick method.

I am getting some airflow through the filters but it's low, for sure if there was a third filter it wouldn't flow through. But with the two I have it seems to be working - it's dropped to within 1/8 of an ounce of where I wanted to be. I'll keep running it until I have to leave and then I'll vacuum seal and freeze them.

Thanks again!

Just had to close the loop - even with the pleated filters I was able to dry the hops - got 1 1/8 oz exactly when all done, just as planned.