South Florida Hop Growing

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So how are everyone's plants doing?


Some cones I have are a bit brownish near tips of their leaves. What does that indicate?

How can I tell when I should harvest??

Thanks!

TD
 
My cascade is flooded with cones. Your cones sound about ready to pick. The best I can say is to look at whole cones you buy and that's what they should look like when you pick them.
 
So how are everyone's plants doing?


Some cones I have are a bit brownish near tips of their leaves. What does that indicate?

How can I tell when I should harvest??

Thanks!

TD

Brown tips would indicate that it's time to harvest:D another good way to check (and I do this to every hop before picking) is to squeeze them a little, They are ready to be picked if they are kind of papery feeling, bounce back rather than staying compressed, and feel the same temperature as the air. Unripe hops will feel a little cool to the touch and ripe ones will not
 
Thanks for the tips! I know they are supposed to be dried after picking. How soon do they need to be dried after picking? Any cheap and easy ways to dry them? I have tasted a couple of the wet hop brews, and gotta say not a huge fan, though I have been toying with running my Pliny clone through a hop rocket packed with fresh cones between the keg and the faucet as a randalizer. I suspect that the dried cones might have more fragile lupulin glands and would contribute better flavor in the manner?

Seems like I need to get ready to harvest them soon. Once they're ready, if I leave them on vine, how long before they deteriorate?

TD
 
I've heard of people using dehydrators but I don't know if I'd recommend it. You can lay them out on a window screen for about a week or so. You really want to let them dry completely out or they'll be very vegetal smelling/tasting. It takes a little trial and error to get it all down right.
 
I'm getting ready to pick my meager columbus haul in a about a week I think. They are plumping up and starting to smell like hops. I picked one this morning and could see some lupulin forming, but not quite there. I doubt I'll get more than a 1/2 oz dried from this first harvest. Hopefully the plant grows again more after harvest and the next will be a bit bigger in the fall.
 
I have a new food dehydrator that I haven't used yet, but I'm still dring the way I always have. I put them on top of a kitchen towel, on a hanging wire rack next to the window. takes a week or two but occasionally take one and try to break it in half, if it bends but doesn't break easy they aren't totally dry. But if it snaps right off, go ahead and freeze/use them.

I reccomend the book Homegrown Hops by David R. Beach
 
I harvested a good sized batch already and have a lot more coming. I dried mine with a dehydrator, keep it on a low setting.
 
I need to harvest this week. I think I might dry mine on my oven. It has a bread proof setting so should be very low temps. Ill monitor with my maverick grill thermometer to be sure. I think also the convection fan is running during the proofing, but not entirely sure.

TD
 
The madfermentist also had a process on his blog of using the microwave that seemed to work well for him. Use it at 50% power in 30 sec intervals stirring each time. My oven only goes down to 180 and isn't convection, without buying a dehydrator, the microwave is pretty much my only option. I thought of the window screen technique but my house/garage is just way to humid for me to see that working. Maybe it does, I just don't see how.
 
harvested about a half gallon ziplock bag from the Chinook and Cascade plant. Some MONSTER sized cones on the Chinook. The Columbus is lagging, no cones yet. The Sterling has lots of hops up top, but my thin gauge wire has slipped between the pulley and has jammed - ditto on the other pulleys! DOH! WOrked well to lower the cascade and chinook but need to repair...

Post pics later. Gonna put in my convection oven on Dough Proof (100 degrees) and leave the door cracked and maybe stick a PC fan in there (the convection fan is off on dough proof mode).

My hands smell like pine sap and grapefruit after vigorous washing. Need to wear gloves next time. Also FYI if you have a pet dog - hop cones are deadly so keep them out of it - I'm sure ya'll knew that anyway.

TD
 
I hope they're ripe! Another mystery to me. Seems that the cones are somewhat papery and tend to spring back. What an exact science that is! There is definite lupulin with tacky yellow stuff near the base of the cones on the inside, and the smelled good. The Columbus has no cones yet, and the sterling cones that I could reach (my pulley setup is crappy and the wires came off the pulley track and are now locked up) were nearly odorless and didn't spring back. Some cones near the top half of the vines seem larger with brown tinted leaves at tips. Ill get to those later this week.

Thanks!

Trying to dry in electric oven. Dough proof mode. Metal pans get a bit overheated if I leave door close, so ill crack it open and see what happens.

If I tried the clothes dryer in a hop sack I think my wife would kill me...

TD

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ya make sure you fan is going otherwise you'll cook em instead of drying them. I could probably get a second harvest out of my plant now but I'm going to wait another week. That thing is loaded with cones and has done much better than anything else in the garden
 
Thanks for the tip. I had them in the oven for a couple hours last night and didn't seem to do much. I have no window screens to use for making an oast, but I have an old box fan that I could setup and put the hop cones between AC vent filters... It's not and humid here as we know, so not sure if a dry 100°F oven with a small fan inside the oven is better or worse than a larger fan with more airflow but humid ambient 90° temp...

Note that I also need to keep the oven door cracked a bit or the metal sheet pans get hotter than 100. I let that go on for not more than about 15 minutes.
 
2nd year Cascades - 2.72 ounces. About 1/4 are quarter size or bigger. The rest are dime size or smaller. I have them drying in the utility room that does not have AC and has the hot water heater.

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I harvested two of my 1st year crowns Sunday night, in between rain showers, and brewed a wet hop harvest recipe.

Columbus
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ugrlXRIfINixHbrH8CMOF7gzq9P6uQMz56QeZj87XSo=w0-h0


Chinook
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Beautiful!


I dried mine in oven with door cracked and only the lights to heat them. Surprisingly warm!
Dried weight was 1.1 oz cascade, and also 1.1 oz chinook! My cones had considerable browning of the tips.

Columbus is lagging and sterling harvest later this week.

TD
 
KeyWestBrewing said:
I don't know of its true or not but I've heard running the light in the oven will keep the oven at 100f.

I think I heard that too. I just recently got a new oven. I think it has halogen lights. It was definitely hotter than 100. Was uncomfortably warm to remove the pans with bare hands. Maybe the pans are absorbing the heat and feel warmer than the air? I don't know.

I think I'll use my maverick grill thermometer next time and see what's happening.

TD
 
TrickyDick said:
I think I heard that too. I just recently got a new oven. I think it has halogen lights. It was definitely hotter than 100. Was uncomfortably warm to remove the pans with bare hands. Maybe the pans are absorbing the heat and feel warmer than the air? I don't know.

I think I'll use my maverick grill thermometer next time and see what's happening.

TD

Could be since the pans definitely keep absorbing and retaining the heat. Though of the light does heat to only 100f then technically that's the hottest the pans could get. Gettin a bit off topic here lol.
 
I have a Electrolux convection oven that has a dehydrator setting. I'm gona give it a try tomorrow. It's about 95 here in PA, and I keep the house about 80 so I don't think the oven will be doing much of the work, but the convection fan should speed things up.
 
My plants are covered with good sized cones, I need to get a little scale so I can see how much I'm actually getting off these things.

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Hey everyone, I am a first time grower (of anything). My Columbus plant is looking quite sad after all of the rain we have had in the past week in Central Florida. Any suggestions on a remedy would be great. Almost the entire plant is looking like the pictures and quite a few of the leaves are dying off. I was thinking it was powdery mildew due to all of the rain but would like to be certain. Thank you for the help! Please save my plant!

columbus hop 1.JPG


columbus hop 2.JPG
 
Has it been sunny between the rain? Its hard to tell from the pics but leaves look burnt. Might just be from the sun baking the plant while the leaves were wet. If your worried it might be something else you can always use Organocide. I use the stuff for all my plants and it works great.
 
KW thanks for the assistance, it has been quite cloudy this entire week. How often should Organocide be applied? At least I have some cones!

hopsA.JPG


hopsB.JPG


hopsC.JPG
 
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Harvested the first of the columbus. Dried it in the garage and got 8.5g of hops!

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Cheers!
 
Ended up harvesting a half ounce each (dried) off the Cascade and the Chinook plants. My pulley setup failed and its been a few weeks since I have had a chance to convince a friend to bring a ladder and help fix. I simply removed the pulleys, and ran the wire through the double eye bolts. Seems to work fine.

Plants mostly dried and dead except for a couple of bines on three of four plants, one still going great (Chinook). I have been neglecting them for sure, but thought with all the rain that they'd be fine. nope lost about an ounce of hops or slightly more on the Sterling and Columbus plants combined. Wish I had a Centennial plant, but oh well. Maybe next year I'll try to see what I can come up with as far as sterling crowns.

All in all I don't think I'm doing too badly for the first year out. Need to connect a makeshift irrigation setup from a hose bib and what-not for more regular watering during the HOT months.

I think I'm going to get more cones off the Chinook plant for sure. I might need to abandon the fourth Sterling plant as the location is next to a AC handler and the hot air blows on the vines and before they all dried out, was looking stressed in the part of the plant in the path of the airflow from the air handler unit.

TD
 
Just wondering if anyone has left their vines alone post harvest, instead of trimming them down, to see if they need to be trimmed? What with the year round growing season everyone seems to be able to take advantage of and all.

Also, I read on the U. of Minnesota Hops studies page, http://sroc.cfans.umn.edu/People/Faculty/VinceFritz/Hops/index.htm
that the tall hops produce a different taste than the low hanging ones. Has anyone noticed this in FL?
 
I harvested mine a while back.

I had four plants. Two did OK. One did great. One did poor.

I left the now dead or mosty dead foliage on two. On developed fungus or mold so I trimmed and treated.

I'm going to cut back the last play with foliage soon and re mulch and fertilize.

Curious about how to tell if the plant is still alive. One has a tiny green leaf. Others look like dead twigs sticking through ground.

TD
 
Mine did great right up to December when things started drying out they are still alive but there is a lot of dead foliage. Even with a lack of watering and fertilizer they are trying to start new vines. I'm waiting another week or two before I cut off all the dead and start bringing them back to life.

Sent from my XT1080 using Home Brew mobile app
 
Anyone make a decent hoppy beer with their South Florida hops yet?

My original 2nd year hops had minimal flavor and aroma. We moved and I haven't grown any since, or sense. I wanted to start growing them again, but am thinking the quality of the hops in this heat and humidity is bad.

What are your experiences?
 

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