Starting to harvest here. Have some Cent, Zeus, and Cascade on the drying rack.
Wondering about how much to dry.
Seems some of my stock in years past has been overdry…is that possible?
Just wondering if there is a good rule of thumb that experienced hop hands know. Thanks.
hmmm, used to be these threads were pictoral… 
Cascade hop tube in front, leaning tower of Crystal in back.
Cheers.
just starting to see some cone formation . Can’t wait!
That Cascade in very impressive. My first year here in Kansas is doing ok!
[quote=“pinnah”]Starting to harvest here. Have some Cent, Zeus, and Cascade on the drying rack.
Wondering about how much to dry.
Seems some of my stock in years past has been overdry…is that possible?
Just wondering if there is a good rule of thumb that experienced hop hands know. Thanks.
hmmm, used to be these threads were pictoral…
Cascade hop tube in front, leaning tower of Crystal in back.
Cheers.
[/quote]
Pinnah - do you trim back any of the bines that grow from the ground, or do you let them all climb? I’m just comparing your picture to my 3rd year Cascade plant at home, and I feel like the little guy in the shower…
[quote=“n8young”]
Pinnah - do you trim back any of the bines that grow from the ground, or do you let them all climb? I’m just comparing your picture to my 3rd year Cascade plant at home, and I feel like the little guy in the shower…[/quote]
:lol: Don’t feel like that man! You will have a monster soon enough.
No, I don’t trim much, and let about 10 bines loose on the bush hop tube.
Maybe I should post up some carnage
to prove it ain’t all milk and honey around here:
The hop survival strategy: try and outgrow your predator.
:shock:
:cheers:
Ouch man…Japanese Beatles???
hmmm, I dunno, I have lots of bugs in my garden. I don’t investigate pests that much.
That is a Magnum. nuf said I guess.
Leaves are eaten from inside, sections between leaf branching structure eaten, leaf veins remain.
Most of the time, the hops out grow the pests
and some varieties produce nice flowers
despite some excessively overgrazed leaf structure :shock:
:lol:
I packaged up some Hood and Cascade tonight.
Do you folks smash the bag when you vacuum pack?
If I stuff it, I loose cone structure.
If I don’t stuff it, I go through a crap load of $pendy food saver plastic!
My last roll ran out tonight!
Heres some of my stuff. I had a couple of bines die last year and got a Centennial and a CTZ this spring. The CTZ is doing fantastic, check the size of the bines and the early cones are 1.5" long. The Centennial is doing alright and will produce some cones as well. The Magnum I had from before isn’t doing so well simply because I dug up a bunch of it to give to people.
I don’t think you can overdry hops. The oils are going to be fine under low moisture conditions. I think you’re just drying to prevent mold in the vegetative part of the hops.
[quote=“pinnah”]
Do you folks smash the bag when you vacuum pack?
If I stuff it, I loose cone structure.
If I don’t stuff it, I go through a crap load of $pendy food saver plastic!
My last roll ran out tonight![/quote]
Last year I tried to save FoodSaver bags by compressing the hops prior to packaging. I loaded them up about 1 oz at a time into a plastic tub, then built a plywood follower to fit inside (looks like a wooden dumbbell). I pounded on the smasher with a rubber hammer to compress the hops, fitting 4 oz into a large Cool Whip container. Then I transferred them to the bag & packaged them in 8 oz portions.
I definitely saved space, but there was an awful lot of lupulin built up inside the container too. Seems like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t!
But wasn’t somebody posting on here recently about a smokeable lupulin product?
This time every year I stock up on FoodSaver plastic. I average only 20#'s dry every harvest and I too got tired of going through tons of plastic so now I vacuum in 5oz to 1# bags, leave extra plastic at the top so I can reseal the bags if I only pull out a couple of oz each time.
I’ve been doing that too, and they re-seal fairly well for me. :cheers:
How many plants you got? what year are they? man, 20 lbs…thassssalottahops!
[quote=“n8young”]
How many plants you got? what year are they?[/quote]
I have 44 hills, each started with 4-6 rhizomes per hill. They range from 6yrs to 3yrs. I have one Chinook plant that yields over 5lbs dry every year, it’s nuts.
I do take a small vacation after harvest is all complete. It’s like another small job that takes me a week and a half to two weeks to harvest them all(I can only dry so much at a time balanced with picking at their peak).
But I haven’t bought hops in six years :cheers:
We are getting pretty close to harvest. Probably a week for a couple of the varieties with the others out another 2. This is a couple weeks earlier than last year. Here are a few picts. I really need to put a support wire on my end pole.
Beautiful Bigbrews. I love pictures of hop plants.
What are the varieties you are growing?
Crap, I waited too long to put in a support wire on that end pole. This is what was waiting for me when I got home from work today. I was only a few days away from harvesting too. Currently, I am training three rows onto a single wire. I am thinking of adding more poles so that each row has its own set of poles. That will reduce the weight on the poles.
Pinnah, I have Hersbrucker, Nugget, Zeus, Chinook, Mt. Hood, and Centennial.
My hops this year. 
I planted 2 each of Nugget, Willamette, Cascade, and Fuggles. none of them are producing anything. next year will be better.
This is year 3 for mine…Cascades, fuggles, goldings, and nuggets…so far, fuggles and goldings have not given me a cone any of the years…they are getting yanked out…and sadly, this year has been the worst of the 3 for my nuggets, which historically has gone gangbusters, and cascades is right about on par with last year, but still not nearly as much quantity as I had hoped for. I think I am replacing the fuggles and goldings next spring with more cascades…as they tend to be the kind of hope I would prefer to use anyway.
