My Chinook are looking awesome this year the Cascade is not bad. The Willamette and nugget look crappy. The Willamette is getting ripped out this year. They all still smell green
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I had my doubts, but in its fourth year, my Willamette might finally give me an ounce. Definitely not a heavy producer! However, it’s doing better than my Goldings which also has been a constant struggle. In its third year, my Mt. Hood might finally give me something. I find the bines want to grow very tall with this variety and have cones only on the top 6 feet. It’s going to make me work for that Hefeweizen I want to brew! The other four varieties are going to fill the freezer!
That’s exciting! Happy for you. I checked out the UVM website for hops - Unfortunately it looks like they took down that calculator. There’s lots of other helpful resources though! Thank you for sharing that.
I guess they relocated it. I did a search and found it here:
What I do is figure out subjectively when they are ready to pick and then weigh them and figure out what that should weigh at 8% moisture. I then dry my hops overnight betweem 95 and 105 in my food dehydrators and then weigh them again. Most of the time, I am very close to that 8% moisture weight. If I’m off, I know that I either picked them a little too early or late and then learn from that. Last year would have been the 3rd year drying hops, and I’m getting better at predicting the proper harvest time based on how the cones look and feel.
You’re the man! Thank you for finding that.
I’ve read and heard from local hop growers not to expect much from my first year plants but it looks like I’m going to get hops from each of my four varieties. Probably not much after they’re dry but at least I’ll get a feel for what harvesting is like.
Nice. What variety is that?
Does anyone use a Food Saver to store their hops? If so - what kind would you recommend getting?
Those are my Chinook.
I have a similar model to this and really like it. The only problem I have with vacuum sealing hops is that I have to make sure that the packages seal flat so I can pack them in a box in the freezer to save space. If they don’t seal flat, the plastic seams to crack in the freezer and then allows air in. Otherwise, it’s been working great.
Picture perfect.
Are you guys getting close to harvesting? We will have rain here in Iowa until Tuesday but I’ll do a dry matter test at the end of the week and see where they’re at.
It’s been cool and drizzly, so things are going long here. Unfortunately, some of my Cascade turned nasty and brown before harvest, so I’ll have fewer of them. The Chinook is nice and plump, but still needs some time to dry out.
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The hops seem at least 2 weeks behind here. It’s been a very wet summer here in New York. My Tettnang and Goldings were a bit on the dry side when harvested but the Mt. Hood was right on. I usually don’t harvest my Chinook, Cascade or Nugget until fall around here.
Do your C hops and Nugget just take longer to mature? I think all my varieties are behind because I just planted the rhizomes this year.
Yes, I find that they are later varieties. Tettnang is always my earliest.
