Your Hops Harvest 2014

How’s everyone’s hops looking. It looks like I’m going to have a lot of hops to harvest from my Cascade and my Centennial. Only problem with this is that inevitable i’ll hemm and haw for days about when is the right time to pick them. I swear that they look about ready now!

Just checked my Cascades. I’d say within the nest week.

I am in Southern California and my buddy is harvesting this week.

Just picked 4 1/2lbs of Cascades this week end. And boy they smell terrific ! :smiley:

Pre or post drying?

Was going to say… Dried 25% of my harvest and got 2.5 oz. that’s split between 2 plants. The big cones are still not ready.

picked another 2 lbs. of Cascades for a grand total of 6.5 lbs wet.

I’m in Western Massachusetts - hills to the east of the Connecticut River. I’ve been harvesting since 7/30 (Willamette, and one I only know as “Y”); these were starting to turn more than a little brown, smelled good, mild aroma, clearly lots of yellow glands. I harvested one I know only as “X” (more later) in the 8/09 to 8/12 window (2.6kg dried to 8% (air dry wt, adw, from 2 vines). Harvested Santiam 8/16 (416g adw, one vine). Harvested Nugget 8/20 (not impressed, not much aroma or resin, but cones were definitely going brown, and went further brown in drying…). Harvested Cascade 8/21 from an older vine (with too many little cones, good though! 755g (adw) and it was very fragrant and sticky when packing my mylar bags. Harvested another Cascade from a 1st yr start (rhizome piece from the older plant, started this spring - good # of very large cones that came later…) on 8/24 and got 330g adw from that plant and this was good, aromatic and sticky with resin when handling. My hands looked yellow and had to use GoJo hand cleaner to get the resin off after packing some of these hops.

About “x” and “y”… I had some hops that were derived from some experimental hops in the 1970s (a prof I knew was doing gas chromatography profiles on the aromatics of some experimentals for “the industry” and had a few he put in his backyard, gave me some) and had also bought a couple of varieties in ~1988. They got neglected, mixed and I eventually took some pieces from the field and have them as separate plants along with the ones I bought more recently (Santiam, Cascade, Nugget). This “X” hop could be some commercial variety - it is much too early to be Chinook, which is one I had bought. It is very very pungent and extremely resiny. I have given some to people who love it for beer. I would be happy to share some rhizome with any grower in my area - would love it if someone could tell me what it was, and failing that, maybe it will be something you like. It seems really good for an IPA, seems high alpha and very aromatic (in the piney end of things…).

So how are people drying their homegrown hops? Picture of my “oast” attached. Garage attic gets to 100 - 110F on a sunny day, hops dry in about 2 days. They seem good, don’t loose color.

Cheers!

My hops are looking great, but I don’t think they will be ready until the 2nd week of September. I know when they are ready when the tips of the cones start to turn yellow. Right now they are all green.