Do you harvest a variety all at once or in stages?

[CascadesBrewer]

Second year growing hops. My first year Chinook yielded around 8 oz of wet hops last year. They all pretty much were ready to go at the same time so I brewed a wet hop Blonde with them (was hoping for at least enough to call it a Pale Ale, but whatever).

This year my Chinook plant grew much bigger, but it seems like some of the hops were ready to pick weeks ago, some are in their prime and some are still a bit young. I went ahead and harvest the entire plant today, tossing out the brown hops and hoping the young hops still make for a decent beer.

I think maybe I should have cut back some of the initial bines. It seemed like a fairly mild spring and the plants took off early. Some of the shoot that grew tall seemed to be bull bines. Would cutting back the bine have helped with a more even harvest?

Oh well...I got about 2 lbs of fresh hops off the Chinook that I have drying in my garage now.

In the first picture you can see some nice fresh green cones down lower, with several brown cones at the top (and some cherry tomatoes escaping from my deck).

My Harvest

Does size matter?!?

Giving drying:

 

[Kaz15]

Nice harvest! I’d say most of the time I harvest in batches. It really depends.
My cascade seems to have the most variability in ripening. But usually I have enough ready at once to do a wet hop ale. This year for example I brewed my 10 gallon wet hop and then 2 weeks later harvested and dried 6 oz more.

Compare that to this morning; I harvested my entire Hartwick crop. I’d say 90%+ were perfect and ready to go.

 

[mashpaddled]

Commercial farms harvest in a single run so it wouldn't be out of place to pick a time when most of the hops are ready for harvest and taking them all at once. You aren't a commercial grower so you have a choice whether to harvest as hops ripen or all at once. If you don't mind harvesting and drying in waves then that would ensure the best hops. Personally I harvest all at once because my plants are not so big it would make sense to do several runs.

I harvested my mount hood a couple weeks ago and this last weekend I harvested the cascade and chinook all at once. It would have been better to harvest the chinook a week later but I needed enough hops to fill out the wet hop beer I brewed and the chinook didn't have quite as much as I hoped this year.

 

[bobeer]

If a bine is ready I harvest it.
If a bine on the same plant isn't ready then I leave it until it is. I've done fresh hop half batches in November just to make sure I can use them all haha. I only have a couple plants though. Once they're all harvested I cut them at the dirt and look forward to seeing bull shoots again next year.

 

[Cyclman]

I’d like to harvest my hops when they are extremely dry, maybe a tinge of brown on the very edges. Sometimes because I get so many hops, some are young and green while others are at the state I am ready to pick them, so I ideally go through every five or so days and pick all the ones that are good. My hops this year in particular looked fantastic, can’t wait to brew a pale ale soon.

 

[Bilsch]

Usually by the time the hops are very dry and turning brown they have lost a lot of their aroma. Sure the alpha has increased but to the detriment of overall fresh flavor. Determine picking day by the proper moisture content (21-23%) and aroma of the freshly crushed cone.

P.S. Overly large cones just means the plant got too much nitrogen in the latter stages of cone development which usually is a detriment to lupulin development.