Hops drying tower: dummy or genius?

[jojo]

Hello! First post. I have brewed 10 batches of Brewer's Best kits and love them. But I also love Zombie Dust...so I got a clone recipe and am going to use my fresh picked (2nd year bine) Cascade hops.

I decided to dry the hops on a screen that I rolled loosely into a tower cinched at the bottom so they dont fall out and capped with a yogurt dish to recirculate the air. I set the tower in an HVAC vent in my house and hope this will be a good drying method. It takes very little space, very little effort, and used up a bunch of plastic dishes that I had sitting around the kitchen.

Dummy or Genius??

jojo

 

[balrog]

doesn't look like the internal hops would get any airflow, thus drying the outer layer much better/faster.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Yeah, first post! I’d say that is a pretty creative approach to drying hops - all air no heat and no oast to build. As balrog said the center hops may not get as dry, so I suppose you could remove them and reroll the screen in the opposite direction so that the inner hops become the outer layer.

 

[NGD]

How awesome does your home smell!

Welcome and if the inner hops are getting dry, then genius. If not..then version 1.0 needs to be reworked. Lets see ver. 1.1

 

[Jayjay1976]

This idea is just off the top of my head so take it with a grain of salt......

Buy a piece of 4" diameter PVC piping that the rolled screen will fit inside and a couple of pipe caps. Cut/drill out the pipe caps almost completely just leaving a ring and glue screen across the ends to retain the hop cones. Rig this up to your vent to force airflow through the tube, or use one of those axial vent fans that people use to circulate air in a keezer and mount that on the end of the hop tube. Forcing air to flow through and out will be very effective, and the spiraled screen will hold the cones in layers which should eliminate dead flow spots.

Have more hops to dry? Connect another tube full to the blower inlet to pull room air through them. Still need more capacity? Add a Y-connector to the blower outlet and dry even more tubes at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Attwood-1749...4+inch+blower&qid=1567115811&s=gateway&sr=8-4

 

[LittleRiver]

NGD you edited your post, it originally said "...how awesome does your hope smell!"

That made me think hope doesn't make a smell, which made me think truth doesn't make a noise.

 

[NGD]

NGD you edited your post, it originally said "...how awesome does your hope smell!"

That made me think hope doesn't make a smell, which made me think truth doesn't make a noise.

Haha, guilty! Reread it and went “wtf, I haven’t even had a beer yet”.

Awesome song. White Stripes are great!

 

[jojo]

Ah! Thank you all for the replies. Definitely room for version 1.1. It seems that HVAC is a little to high flow and perhaps too low of temperature. I got my pool thermometer and measured it at 67°. So version 1.1 is put a 60 watt light bulb under it and move it away from directly in front of the HVAC vent. I will aim for 100 degrees and I'm not sure if one 60 watt bulb will do that yet. I set a piece of screen over a desk lamp and set the tower on top near a vent

Version 1.2 will be holding the screen shut with 3 Refrigeration thermometers that cost 5 bucks each at Ace Hardware. Just poke it through the screen and you'll have three different temperatures in the tower while the screen is being held closed. More later on how that tweaked turned out.

I did as you suggested and unrolled the screen and did s turns through the pile of hops moved them from top to bottom left to right and re-rolled it very Loosely. I think there should be plenty of air float on the inner ones but time will tell. I will update that. After 3 days they are still moist. No aroma in the house. Boo.

And one of you darlings is clearly an engineer! No fancy equipment required just wanted to use what was already in house. Do it and market it though. Great idea.

Still holding out for "genius" but I already got "dummy" when I posted I would use Cascade in a Zombie Dust clone. I meant Mirror Pond clone.