2016 Hop Growing Thread

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Anyone know what this might be?

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I run my dehydrator at 95 degrees for about 14 hours and that gets me down to about 18% moisture content.

I've done over 5 lbs of cascades over the lady week. I pick a pound a night and package the following day
 
Picked my first variety of 9 today (9 different plants) - Chinook. Smells great. Ended up with 14.2 oz wet from a 1.5 year rhizome. Should be perfect for 2 brews worth this year. Each of the other plants should have this amount as well - if I can figure out what the faded labels are.
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I've used neem oil for pests, it is organic, but I think there are special times to spray. Like you have cones now, but I think since organic, it may be ok.
 
I know I'm not recognized here, but please let me chime in on general gardening.

Healthy plants are very resistant to, and even repulsive to, pests of all kinds.

Tons of bag ferts won't get you there. You must have high quality, very rich soil that runs very deep.

So, for new plantings, this is easy: Double dig your beds and use lots of organic matter to fill it up. I use a mixture of native topsoil and hay. Lots of hay. Mostly hay. More hay than soil, actually. Put a solid layer of hay down in the hole. Then some poop. Preferably not your own. Then your soil mixture. Make a mound of it, because it'll compact down over time. Double dig, make a mound, and let it sit for 2 months before planting. So get out there very early next spring and get at it.

For existing plantings, one must be careful. Just do the same digging and filling AROUND your established plants, being careful not to get so close you start hurting roots. A few root cuts won't do anything but set the plant back a bit. Year after that you'll never know it was set back. The roots will grow towards the enriched areas.

DOUBLE DIGGING: This is the hard part. Dig your hole twice as deep as the planting instructions say. I dig mine 4 feet deep and in a very large circle! Put a solid flake of hay, about 4-6" thick, at the very bottom, then some manure. Then the soil mixture, and mound it up!

And always keep everything mulched over with 6" of hay. Your plants should appear to be growing right out of the hay. Might have to rake the hay back a little in springtime until the plants are big enough above ground to clear that hay.

All this back-breaking soil prep will really pay of over the next, oh, century! You'll be so glad you did it. A sore back now = great hops yield forever.

Hope this helps!
-Johntodd

PS: The first year I sometimes *do* add nitrogen to offset all that carbon from the hay. Just make a judgement call and you'll be OK.
 
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I picked about 2-1/2 pounds wet from 2 of my first-year Chinooks. They smell great, and I'm sure they'll be even better next year.

My winch makes easy work of accessing the top of the 15 footers no problem.

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So envious of all the fantastic hop harvests. My plant never got over a foot high. Not enough sun. Not enough water. To hot in Texas. Plus I kill every plant I touch so there's that.
 
I just harvested my first year wild neomexicanus. Produced 28 ounces wet from 2 rhizomes that I cut back in March.

Ready to be picked:
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Post harvest:
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In a 3 gallon kettle:
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No signs of cones yet. I had some small ones starting about a month ago and we got a nasty heat wave. Will high heat delay cone growth? Can it make it so they won't produce at all?
 
Is it ok to have two types of hops in the same dehydrator? I have them well separated. 10 tray dehydrator centennial on top, cascade on the bottom. They are a good 2.5 to 3 in away from each other and empty tras in between.
 
BrandonMH said:
Is it ok to have two types of hops in the same dehydrator? I have them well separated. 10 tray dehydrator centennial on top, cascade on the bottom. They are a good 2.5 to 3 in away from each other and empty tras in between.
Click to expand...

Just dont feed them after midnight...

;-)
 
brewshki said:
No signs of cones yet. I had some small ones starting about a month ago and we got a nasty heat wave. Will high heat delay cone growth? Can it make it so they won't produce at all?
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Our brutal 30+ day heat wave knocked my plants down to the roots with just a few brown leaves, but they recovered once the temps dropped a little and now with rain they've really taken off again. Many of them started producing cones now. Be patient, depending on where you are you might still have time to get a crop.
 
corkybstewart said:
Our brutal 30+ day heat wave knocked my plants down to the roots with just a few brown leaves, but they recovered once the temps dropped a little and now with rain they've really taken off again. Many of them started producing cones now. Be patient, depending on where you are you might still have time to get a crop.
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Good to know. Im in Southern California so I dont have any real worries about frost. It took a long time for the plants to finally give up and go dormant last year.
 
I decided to harvest this weekend. After air drying with no fan for a couple of days it's at 25 g of harvest. Not much. But I've vacuum sealed them and will freeze them. The cones really started to open up as they dried. Does anyone know how long it takes to dry cones on a perforated tray with no forced air movement?
 
If it's a single layer it may only take a few days, depending on the humidity. Again, it takes time to get it right. You want the strig to START to firm up, then cut off the drying. If it gets too firm, the petals (bracts/bracteoles) will fall off when you package them. Still learning since about '88, haha!
 
LoopeyLoon said:
We brewed a wet BIPA on Saturday. 3 pounds of wet cascade hit a 30 minute whirlpool.
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Very nice! Cheers! I did a brew back on 8/21 with 4.2 pounds of wet Cascades going in at 20 mins. But instead of throwing them all in at 20 mins, I did a couple of handfuls starting at 20 mins every minute all the way down to flame out. What was left I tossed in the wort and steeped it for 20-30 mins (don't have my notes handy to reference) at 150 degrees (F). Then chilled the rest of the way and pitched my yeast! I should be kegging it later this week. I can't wait to try it!

Congrats and keep let us know how it turns out!
 
Yea I will do a little write up on how it taste. After about 72 hours the yeast is slowing down. I'll take a reading tomorrow.
 
My first year Cascades (2 plants; multiple bines each) only gave me 1.7oz wet.

1) I'm not sure if I fertilized them enough or if they got enough sun.
2) While they smelled of citrus and had a lot of lupulin in them, I'm thinking that I could've waited another week to harvest.

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This was my take from Sunday's harvest. Just over 303 oz (almost 20lbs) of wet cones. Hopefully all will be ready for packaging on Wednesday.
 
Wow, 5 lbs per plant?! What are you fertilizing with?!

also how many cones deep will you allow in each of the oasts? I got ~1/5 lbs of wet cascades and its probably 2-3 cones deep in mine, but i dont currently have forced air set up. do you just put a box fan underneath the stack with yours thaymond?
 
BeerFst said:
Wow, 5 lbs per plant?! What are you fertilizing with?!

also how many cones deep will you allow in each of the oasts? I got ~1/5 lbs of wet cascades and its probably 2-3 cones deep in mine, but i dont currently have forced air set up. do you just put a box fan underneath the stack with yours thaymond?
Click to expand...

It's 5 lbs wet, which equates to about 1 lb dry. It's part for the course on my setup. I'd bet that I would have increased yields with a vertical trellis, but having nearly 4 to 5 lbs of hops more than lasts me a whole year on brewing needs, even with brewing highly hopped IPAs.

I have about 3-4 deep in the oast. I have forced air (read: box fan) pumping from the bottom up through each bed. Every 8 to 12 hours I try to rotate the beds so each will have direct fan on it. There's a thread on the forum here. I'll weigh in tomorrow to see what my total weights are for the season. I am super excited.
 
I just harvested a small quantity of Cascade and a second flushing of Brewer's Gold. I'm excited!

Both are first year plants.
 
I Finally have it all packaged up for another day. Overall, I took 83.1 oz of dried hops into 3-5 oz packages. Perfect for a brew day addition. Just clip a pack, and use it.
 
Took time this morning to harvest the Chinook Hops plant from my backyard. Managed to get just over 20 ounces wet from a plant I thought perhaps would die completely! This was the same plant my kids poured chlorinated pool water on when they were "helping Daddy to water the Hops".

It managed to come back and give me 20 ounces of wet hops! Pretty awesome. All Things Considered.

My Cascade cones lupulin are still a bit more "sunshine yellow" than the Chinook, so I am going to hold off on harvesting it until at least next weekend. Still, the Cascade plant has truly thrived in its second year now, and I am anticipating several pounds of wet hops from it!

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I got 1.1kg from mysingle first year hallertau mittelfruh plant up here in sunny :0 scotland. I believe that is about 2.4 lb . So I'm rather delighted. now to see if i can dry them
 

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