2017 Hop Harvest

A month or so ago, I posted about how I helped Neal train his hops. We were a little late in the season for training hops – ok a lot late, but thankfully – there was a yield! This past Sunday I went down to help pick – here are some pics from the day:

Of course, all the barn cats came out to say hello:

Couple of cuties followed us into the field:

Of course, we didn’t waste any time getting down to what was important.

You can see in the background, the bines didn’t quite grow as full as they’ve been in previous years – but they had cones!

One cone went immediately into my beer, and another packed into my cheek like chewing tobacco…

Cones of all different sizes:

Neal had already picked his Chinooks – these were all Cascade.

they make such a great garnish

There weren’t a ton, but it was about 4 hours of picking – and enough to get the fingers nice and resinated.

At the end of the day, the cones went into the dryer where they would be reduced to proper storage water weight.

Neal has a much more industrial sized dryer that he made, but unfortunately we only had enough to fill this one. All in all, Neal ended up with a little over 2lbs of dried hops – which is enough for a personal stash of brewing, but a bummer considering all the work that went into the field. He has his eye on the prize for next year though, talking about getting serious and trying to get some commercial grade yield out of his field. As always, I just enjoyed picking hops, but I never turn down any if he gives me some – so I took 4oz of fresh hops home to hop the IPA I have in my carboy. Should be delicious!

 

 

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