2008 Harvest Totals

After drying and packaging, the final harvest yielded and additional 2.65 oz of cascade and 0.65 oz of centennial. When making the hop plugs (right), I did things a little differently this go round. I took a piece of cling wrap and placed over the end cap (lower left) of the plug chamber. I then with the cling wrap in place, inserted the tubing for the chamber (lower right). That way, when pushing the plug out of the chamber, it was already partially wrapped.








All in all, not bad for the first year.

2008 Harvest Totals
Wet Harvest:
37.30 oz Cascade
13.05 oz Centennial

Dry Packaged:
9.55 oz Cascade
3.20 oz Centennial

Final Hop Harvest - October 2

Well, the final cones have been harvested from the bines for my first year of growing. The last picking yielded in wet amounts: 2.80 oz of centennial and 11.40 oz of cascade. All in all, not a bad year considering most I've read says not to expect any hops the first year. I'll be doing a batch of pale ale or an IPA soon to try out my hops. Probably the IPA first, combining the homegrown cascade and centennial with amarillo. Yum!

My next post I'll have the total dry hop amounts for the year, and hopefully some pictures of hop plugs made with my new plugger!

Third Hop Cone Harvest!

After looking at the plants, I decided that I had more cones ready to pick, and again had one or two that had already fallen off the bines. After picking I had 6.9 oz of wet cascades and 2.1 oz of wet centennial cones. After drying, I netted 2.0 oz of cascades and 0.5 oz of centennials.

I also endeavored to build a Hop Plugger (right) after reading some posts on the Grow Hops forum. I have posted instructions and pictures of my Hop Plugger Project on my BrewTech blog. It worked pretty well and I will probably use it again if I get the chance to pick cones one more time this season.

No Impacts from Hurricane Gustav

We did get some wind, rain and cooler temperatures but nothing near what I was expecting for storms. Watching the radar for 2 days, for the most part Gustav fell apart right as it hit the Tulsa area. The cascade cones I picked Tuesday are dry and in the freezer, only 0.35 oz, but at least I didn't loose them to the storm.

It's been quite a while since I've fertilized, so I plan on mixing up some Miracle Grow all purpose 15-30-15 and dispensing across the plants this afternoon. We'll see if I can get a last push of energy with the plants to get some more cones before the weather starts to turn cold. Still haven't gotten to High Gravity to purchase ingredients for a brew so I can try out some of the cones I've already harvested.....GOTTA GET THAT DONE!

Hurricane Gustav - Heading This Way

Well, now it's just a Tropical Depression, but it's still heading toward Tulsa at this point. My hop plants have done well with the recent heat and I'm hoping that this storm doesn't damage them too much. I've already harvested some cones, but there are much more to harvest and I'd hate to loose them to the storm! I took some time this morning to go pick the most ripe cones, only picking 1.55 oz of cascade. I was going to wait a while longer until more were ready to pick, but I bet a good hard rain will knock some of the ripe cones off the bine as I've already noticed a few have fallen off on their own. Not a lot picked I know, but the 15 minutes of effort are better than loosing them in the storm.

Bring on the rain!

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

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!