Thursday, July 31, 2008

Hop Cone Drying and Packaging

The hope cones that were harvested last weekend have been dried and packaged. To dry them I took a house window screen I had in the garage and spread the picked hop cones on it. I left it in the garage for 2 days, placed so that air flow could reach the hops from above and below but didn't use a fan or applied heat to help in the drying process.

Once dry, I packaged in zip lock bags, compressing the hop cones to purge as much oxygen from the packaging as I could. I did run into a problem however. When compressing the cones in the bags, I did get punctures through the plastic. To fix this, I used a bag inside bag approach to ensure a seal. For the next harvest, I'm either going to get thicker bags, or possibly spend the money on a vacuum sealer.

In total, I ended up with 1.05 oz of dried cascade hop cones, and 0.35 oz of dried centennial hop cones.

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