2016 Hop Growing Thread

[KennyRedman]

And here's my little helper

 

[Yeastieboy]

So envious of all the fantastic hop harvests. My plant never got over a foot high. Not enough sun. Not enough water. To hot in Texas. Plus I kill every plant I touch so there's that.

 

[Texconsinite]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1472613656.321705.jpg
New Saaz next to Multihead beast!
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Northern Brewer in the bucket, with Cascade growing up the low trellis behind the blueberry bushes, and 2x Willow Creek in raised bed to the left of cascade

 

[TandemTails]

I just harvested my first year wild neomexicanus. Produced 28 ounces wet from 2 rhizomes that I cut back in March.

Ready to be picked:

Post harvest:

In a 3 gallon kettle:

 

[brewshki]

No signs of cones yet. I had some small ones starting about a month ago and we got a nasty heat wave. Will high heat delay cone growth? Can it make it so they won't produce at all?

 

[BrandonMH]

Is it ok to have two types of hops in the same dehydrator? I have them well separated. 10 tray dehydrator centennial on top, cascade on the bottom. They are a good 2.5 to 3 in away from each other and empty tras in between.

 

[KennyRedman]

Is it ok to have two types of hops in the same dehydrator? I have them well separated. 10 tray dehydrator centennial on top, cascade on the bottom. They are a good 2.5 to 3 in away from each other and empty tras in between.

Absolutely.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Is it ok to have two types of hops in the same dehydrator? I have them well separated. 10 tray dehydrator centennial on top, cascade on the bottom. They are a good 2.5 to 3 in away from each other and empty tras in between.

Just dont feed them after midnight...

;-)

 

[5hakesbeer]

We're going on holiday tomorrow so SWMBO is at home harvesting my first year Styrian Goldings while I'm at work so we can freeze them before we leave tomorrow.
She just sent me this picture. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1473072880.259046.jpg
Not sure of the weight yet but I'm chuffed at the volume from one first year plant!

 

[corkybstewart]

No signs of cones yet. I had some small ones starting about a month ago and we got a nasty heat wave. Will high heat delay cone growth? Can it make it so they won't produce at all?

Our brutal 30+ day heat wave knocked my plants down to the roots with just a few brown leaves, but they recovered once the temps dropped a little and now with rain they've really taken off again. Many of them started producing cones now. Be patient, depending on where you are you might still have time to get a crop.

 

[brewshki]

Our brutal 30+ day heat wave knocked my plants down to the roots with just a few brown leaves, but they recovered once the temps dropped a little and now with rain they've really taken off again. Many of them started producing cones now. Be patient, depending on where you are you might still have time to get a crop.

Good to know. Im in Southern California so I dont have any real worries about frost. It took a long time for the plants to finally give up and go dormant last year.

 

[phug]

I decided to harvest this weekend. After air drying with no fan for a couple of days it's at 25 g of harvest. Not much. But I've vacuum sealed them and will freeze them. The cones really started to open up as they dried. Does anyone know how long it takes to dry cones on a perforated tray with no forced air movement?

 

[B-Hoppy]

If it's a single layer it may only take a few days, depending on the humidity. Again, it takes time to get it right. You want the strig to START to firm up, then cut off the drying. If it gets too firm, the petals (bracts/bracteoles) will fall off when you package them. Still learning since about '88, haha!

 

[phug]

Only had a couple handfuls of petals falling off during packaging. They smell great.

 

[LoopeyLoon]

We brewed a wet BIPA on Saturday. 3 pounds of wet cascade hit a 30 minute whirlpool. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1473172676.754369.jpg

 

[pshankstar]

We brewed a wet BIPA on Saturday. 3 pounds of wet cascade hit a 30 minute whirlpool.

Very nice! Cheers! I did a brew back on 8/21 with 4.2 pounds of wet Cascades going in at 20 mins. But instead of throwing them all in at 20 mins, I did a couple of handfuls starting at 20 mins every minute all the way down to flame out. What was left I tossed in the wort and steeped it for 20-30 mins (don't have my notes handy to reference) at 150 degrees (F). Then chilled the rest of the way and pitched my yeast! I should be kegging it later this week. I can't wait to try it!

Congrats and keep let us know how it turns out!

 

[LoopeyLoon]

Yea I will do a little write up on how it taste. After about 72 hours the yeast is slowing down. I'll take a reading tomorrow.

 

[NothingRhymesWithCurtiss]

My first year Cascades (2 plants; multiple bines each) only gave me 1.7oz wet.

1) I'm not sure if I fertilized them enough or if they got enough sun.
2) While they smelled of citrus and had a lot of lupulin in them, I'm thinking that I could've waited another week to harvest.

 

[jabba11]

This is the third of probably 5 harvests of my second year cascades.

 

[thaymond]

This was my take from Sunday's harvest. Just over 303 oz (almost 20lbs) of wet cones. Hopefully all will be ready for packaging on Wednesday.

 

[thaymond]

This was my take from Sunday's harvest. Just over 303 oz (almost 20lbs) of wet cones. Hopefully all will be ready for packaging on Wednesday.

It would be helpful to post a picture.
It starts as this.
View attachment 1473734395072.jpg
Then to this.
View attachment 1473734428323.jpg
Once they're all picked they go here.
View attachment 1473734451950.jpg
And dry in the oast.

 

[BeerFst]

Wow, 5 lbs per plant?! What are you fertilizing with?!

also how many cones deep will you allow in each of the oasts? I got ~1/5 lbs of wet cascades and its probably 2-3 cones deep in mine, but i dont currently have forced air set up. do you just put a box fan underneath the stack with yours thaymond?

 

[TwistedGray]

Nothing is growing this year, yet (hops or otherwise) ... odd summer here, but hopefully it'll get a bit hotter now and they'll take off.

 

[thaymond]

Wow, 5 lbs per plant?! What are you fertilizing with?!

also how many cones deep will you allow in each of the oasts? I got ~1/5 lbs of wet cascades and its probably 2-3 cones deep in mine, but i dont currently have forced air set up. do you just put a box fan underneath the stack with yours thaymond?

It's 5 lbs wet, which equates to about 1 lb dry. It's part for the course on my setup. I'd bet that I would have increased yields with a vertical trellis, but having nearly 4 to 5 lbs of hops more than lasts me a whole year on brewing needs, even with brewing highly hopped IPAs.

I have about 3-4 deep in the oast. I have forced air (read: box fan) pumping from the bottom up through each bed. Every 8 to 12 hours I try to rotate the beds so each will have direct fan on it. There's a thread on the forum here. I'll weigh in tomorrow to see what my total weights are for the season. I am super excited.

 

[olotti]

It would be helpful to post a picture.
It starts as this.
View attachment 369853
Then to this.
View attachment 369854
Once they're all picked they go here.
View attachment 369855
And dry in the oast.

Looks phenomenal.

 

[Johntodd]

I just harvested a small quantity of Cascade and a second flushing of Brewer's Gold. I'm excited!

Both are first year plants.

 

[jimyson]

My 1st year Columbus. 14.5 oz. I'm happy with this. My Cascade and Centennial only did 1.5 oz each so...

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1473986320.470886.jpg

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1473986330.702620.jpg

 

[thaymond]

I Finally have it all packaged up for another day. Overall, I took 83.1 oz of dried hops into 3-5 oz packages. Perfect for a brew day addition. Just clip a pack, and use it.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Took time this morning to harvest the Chinook Hops plant from my backyard. Managed to get just over 20 ounces wet from a plant I thought perhaps would die completely! This was the same plant my kids poured chlorinated pool water on when they were "helping Daddy to water the Hops".

It managed to come back and give me 20 ounces of wet hops! Pretty awesome. All Things Considered.

My Cascade cones lupulin are still a bit more "sunshine yellow" than the Chinook, so I am going to hold off on harvesting it until at least next weekend. Still, the Cascade plant has truly thrived in its second year now, and I am anticipating several pounds of wet hops from it!

View attachment 1474043075125.jpg

View attachment 1474043086033.jpg

 

[Hanglow]

I got 1.1kg from mysingle first year hallertau mittelfruh plant up here in sunny :0 scotland. I believe that is about 2.4 lb . So I'm rather delighted. now to see if i can dry them