My Hop Garden..

[Motorbikeman]

Been a while now ..  All plants are thriving in our environment.    The magnum hop plant seems to be the quickest up the lattice.  Its now reached the top and I have installed more twine for it to follow in a downward manor.   
The wind has done a little damage to the older leafs at the bottom, but it does not seem to be causing issue.   Plants have been sprayed with pesticide to keep the local aphids from laying and next on the list is slug pellets .   I am worried about caterpillars as they destroyed my veg from last year.   A keen eye will be kept.   

Although there is lots of time, I have started to wonder how I am going to dry and store my harvest.   I could buy stuff, but I like to get things done on a shoe string budget as it adds to the whole DIY aspect of beer making.   

Any suggestions welcomed.

[alealex]

You can dry or freeze your harvest.
Freezing fresh cones is handier as long as you have plenty space in the freezer 

[nigel_c]

That may go to mush because of the amount of water in them. Dry them out a bit first them freeze them.

[alealex]

Must ask Brenmurph (as he freezes fresh hops) if he noticed any problems.
Freezing fresh was my plan for this year harvest, but will ask someone with experience first.
Never thought of that, thanks Nigel.

[Shanna]

Must ask Brenmurph (as he freezes fresh hops) if he noticed any problems.
Freezing fresh was my plan for this year harvest, but will ask someone with experience first.
Never thought of that, thanks Nigel.

I dried mine by laying them on black plastic in my attic and turning them every 6 hours or so for 3-4 days. I squashed the hops in to zip locked bags to compress them as much as possible. I then put the zip lock bags & vacuum packed them. I found as long as the vacuum pack stayed sealed the hops stored very well. However some of the vacuum bags  did not stayed sealed and these tended to get wet.

Shanna

[alealex]

I dried them last year using my fermentation fridge set to 40*C, then zip lock bags etc
This year however I just want to cut the hassle down to minimum by freezing fresh and yet use as much hops as possible straight from the bush to the BK.

[delzep]

I put mine on a few sheets of kitchen paper in the hot press then froze them

[Will_D]

That may go to mush because of the amount of water in them. Dry them out a bit first them freeze them.

True Nigel, however once out of the freezer they are dropped into boiling wort at 102 to 104 C.
If they are mushey will they or you notice the difference?

Some Analysis:
Ok so cell walls are broken down by freezing/thawing (Just ask a frozen Strawberry). Leaves and all the rest bar the humulin glands/whatever contain a lot of water.

We don't want the leaves and the rest to break down and impart grassiness flavours. The essential things are the oils and other complex biochemicals that should not be affected by freezing and thawing.

So I rekon that using frozen green (undried) hops would be like brewing with green hops but more prone to grassy notes!

Aside: Freeze freash hops in LN2 and Bob is your father's bro!

[Jonnycheech]

Get one of these from IKEA for €4.

http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/70115578/

Hang it somewhere with ventilation, preferably a dark room, as this will break down any chlorophyll present which may impart grassy like tastes.

[johnrm]

I use these, they're a great job.

[delzep]

3 year old Fuggle 

[Shanna]

That may go to mush because of the amount of water in them. Dry them out a bit first them freeze them.

True Nigel, however once out of the freezer they are dropped into boiling wort at 102 to 104 C.
If they are mushey will they or you notice the difference?

Some Analysis:
Ok so cell walls are broken down by freezing/thawing (Just ask a frozen Strawberry). Leaves and all the rest bar the humulin glands/whatever contain a lot of water.

We don't want the leaves and the rest to break down and impart grassiness flavours. The essential things are the oils and other complex biochemicals that should not be affected by freezing and thawing.

So I rekon that using frozen green (undried) hops would be like brewing with green hops but more prone to grassy notes!

Aside: Freeze freash hops in LN2 and Bob is your father's bro!

Not even going to speculate where you would get your hands on Liquid nitrogen If by some miracle you actually can access it I would be willing to give it a try some of my 2015 crop.

Shanna

[molc]

Did a bit of gardening today and saved the rest of the plants from my random hop plant that I have. Before I started, everywhere in that pic was green Really must make a batch this year with them to see what it tastes like...

[Shanna]

Did a bit of gardening today and saved the rest of the plants from my random hop plant that I have. Before I started, everywhere in that pic was green Really must make a batch this year with them to see what it tastes like...

Get some carriage bolts in the wall and run some strings between them to give the hops more space to run on.

Shanna

[molc]

Yeah right now it's more of a weed in the back garden that I occasionally maintain. In the autumn I'm going to dig it up and break down the rhimzone to get a bit of control over it, then string it up the following spring properly.