Hops Update - August 22

Here in Oklahoma, we're still trying to get through the hottest days of the year, and yes, they have not been kind to my hops. My plants are still healthy and producing cones, but man they don't look too pretty anymore! As you will see from some of the pictures in this post, some of my hop cones and leaves are significantly brown and wilting. The interesting thing is that this is happening while new growth is showing within inches of what looks to be almost dead!

I've been watering the hops each day when the temperature is over 90F and so far, they are surviving. They soak up the moisture (along with the hot day) and are ready for more the next day. I'm trying to decide whether or not to trim some of the bines back where I have already harvested cones, so that the plant can focus energy on new growth.

My Goldings plant is producing more and more cones, although they are all very small. I've heard others haven't had the best of luck with goldings in the lower latitudes, so maybe this just isn't the right climate. I'm not giving up though, hopefully I'll be able to at least harvest enough to brew one batch of my brown ale that uses goldings.

And lastly, is a picture of the whole hop garden. It's hard to believe that just 5 months ago, this area of the back yard was basically weeds that was a pain to mow! Now it is helping in my quest to brew good beer.....well, as soon as I get the ingredients pulled together to do a batch and start using some of the harvested hops!

Second Hop Cone Harvest!

This week I when I checked the Centennial and Cascade plants, I noticed I had a lot of cones browning (some significant). Also, the majority of the cones had that papery feeling so I decided to do another harvest. Below are pictures of the harvested cones. If you look closely, you can see some cones almost completely brown, with others while still mostly green have browning of the tips.






I also took one of the larger cascade hop cones and split it down the middle. If you look real close, you can see the yellow substance among the leaves which is lupin.










In total, I harvested 6.65 oz of Centennial and 12.95 oz of Cascade this time (wet). After drying, I ended up with 1.7 oz of Centennial and 3.5 oz of Cascade.

Here are my totals for the year so far:

Wet Harvest:
17.45 oz Cascade
8.15 oz Centennial

Dry Packaged:
4.55 oz Cascade
2.05 oz Centennial

Hops Update - July 31 Growth

It's been a few weeks since I posted an update. Not a lot to discuss in this post but I've included a few pictures I took the end of July. I was finally able to get a few good close up pictures of the cascade hop cones still on the bine. I also took a picture of the 2 cascade plants together that show a lot of cones, and the last picture shows the base of the OK goldings plant. On all of my plants I stripped the bottom 2 feet of vegetation to minimize the possibility of mildew and insect problems.

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.

First Hop Cone Harvest!

Well, after debating on what to do, and looking the plants over, I decided to go ahead and harvest some cones. Several of the cascade hop cones were showing significant browning, and a few of the centennial hop cones had actually fallen off the bines on their own. My wife was kind enough to come take some pictures of me in my first harvest, so now you can see my ugly mug! It was very rewarding getting a chance to harvest my own hops, hoping to brew with them soon. I'm going to wait until my main harvest to brew a 'harvest ale' so, the harvested cones are now sitting in the garage on a window screen to dry. I do not have a vacuum sealer, so once dried I plan on packaging in good quality freezer bags, purging with CO2 to eliminate oxygen from the packaging.

Below are pictures of the harvested hop cones, cascades on the left, centennials on the right. In total, I ended up with 4.5 oz of cascade cones, and only 1.5 oz of centennial cones. Not a lot harvested, but I didn't want them to go bad!

Hops Update - July 24 Growth

Since the last hops update, we have had very hot temperatures (95F-98F) and absolutely no moisture. I've been watering every day but still have some leaves browning and some withering due to the heat. We finally hit the hot, dry Oklahoma summer! Overall, the hops are still very healthy (right) and all of the plants are shooting laterals everywhere. The Goldings has finally started producing burrs, so I'm hoping we'll at least see a handful of cones before the end of the growing season! If so, we'll be able to get hop cones off of all the rhizomes planted (First Season!), except for the one heavily damaged by storms early in the season.

Other than the goldings, the other 4 plants all have produced cones and some seem to be ready to harvest based on what I've been reading in the grow-hops forum. All of the plants are still producing new burrs but some of the cones are papery to the touch and starting to brown slightly. I've had a few cones dry enough that they have fallen off the bine, so I may not have a choice on whether to harvest some or not. Pictures: Cascade Hop Bines (above left), Centennial Hop Bines (right), Cascade Hop Cones (lower left), Centennial Hop Cones (lower right).

Hop Pictures - Night Shots

I decided to try and take some pictures of the hops at night. I've seen some very interesting pictures of hops taken at night, but think I have a lot more learning to do to get good pictures. Figured I would share some with you anyway.