2007 Fuggles harvested

[SteveD]

Today was the day. So, a couple of pics to set the scene. Fuggles. On this first one, you can clearly see the yellow lupulin at the top of the cones




Here's the fuggles harvest. 1.209Kg, half a bin bag full, which would translate to about 300g dry - about 10oz. They'll do as aroma/flavour additions for a few brews (IPA's excepted ) It took about 1.5hrs with a pair of scissors to get 'em all.


The Black Pig Brewery oast house It's from 'The Homebrewer's Garden' by Joe & Dennis Fisher. It's two stackable boxes 2' square and 6" high each. The bottoms of the boxes are 13mm chicken wire. The top is 12mm ply with a hole in the centre for the hairdryer hose. The base is 12mm ply with sides of 3"x2" Cls timber (studwork timber). The sides of the base are drilled with 4 x 10mm holes each, to let the warm air out once it's percolated through the layers of hops. I finished building it today, having bought a lavatory flush pipe from the hardware shop which made a perfect duct for the hot air from the hairdryer to the oast. The hairdryer is Jen's granny hairdryer that I modified by removing the hood and using gaffer tape to seal around the hose. Set to 'warm' it produces a nice flow of air through the oast at around 55c. The preferred range is 45c-70c, so we're good there. The hops should be dry in 24hrs.


Inside the oast. The fuggles are in the lower box. Tomorrow I'll harvest the goldings and put them in the top layer if the fuggles aren't done by then.


Well, that was fun. The shed smells of hops, my hands were sticky with hop resin and the aroma from the bin bag of hops was lovely. So far so good. Once they're dry, it's into ziplock freezer bags, compressed, and into the freezer. As to wether it's worth it - the proof of the pudding will be when the home-hop beers are drunk.

Cheers,

Steve

[Bigster]

Excellent pictures - shiny and green.

Keep us posted

[spearmint-wino]

Loving your work . Hats off for taking it to the next level, looks like a great harvest there

[Andy]

Nice work Steve!

[toplad]

nice m8

[oblivious]

Enough for two pint of IPA there I think

[Vossy1]

Those hops look mahoosive, great pics

[DRB]

I Take my hat off to you,I dont think I could be bothered doing all that work for 300g of hops.

[Wobbler]

Nice photos, thanks for sharing. Got a few tips from the process too.

[SteveD]

Cheers chaps,

Goldings harvest completed on Wdnesday. The yield was much lower anyway and as I'd left it late I then rejected a lot that were turning brown so I got 684g which should dry down to about 150-170g

They're dry now, and I'm off to get freezer bags to bag 'em up.

DRB - You can look at it like that, but...it was great to grow the plants and watch the hops developing, plus harvesting and drying is all good wholesome fun...and I got to build another piece of kit. All very satisfying and somehow 'right'.

Also, you have to remember these are only first year plants. I think I got a very good result considering that. Next year the growth will be more vigourous and the yield bigger.....but with a lot less work.. The plants are in and established, the supporting wires in place, and the oast built Then you have to consider the fact that you can't beat fresh hops. All being well so far, the flavour and aroma will be considerably better than shop bought hops.

[anomalous_result]

Fantastic, I've often thought 'Wouldn't it be nice?' but somehow could never quite get off my arse. All this leaves one question:

When's the 2-row barley going in?

[mysterio]

Amazing looking hops, my Fuggles are a joke!

[bandit]

Looks like Ive found a new use for my empty bee supers, drying hops. Hmmm hop growing in 2008????

[SteveD]

That's that for my 2007 crop. Bagged, tagged, and in the freezer

Lessons learnt..

(1) build a deflector plate under the spot where the hose comes into the oast to prevent the jet of warm air over-doing the hops directly under. As you can see from the pic, the goldings in the centre form a brown tinged circle. If I disperse the warm air as it comes in, they should all dry the same.


Here is the dried harvest. 2 x 72g bags of Goldings and 3x 72g bags fuggles plus one of 48g, so 144g Goldings and 264g fuggles.
Lesson 2 - possibly a bit over-dried. Less than 25% of the wet yield. The Leader of The Opposition was unhappy about the hairdryer running overninght, so it was hard to calculate drying time with stoppages, and also the fact that the goldings went in a day later. Reduce drying time next time.


This was the base afterwards, you can see the yellow lupulin glands clearly, and that was after gentle handling. The stuff falls out of the hops so easily. The aroma was gorgeous.


Roll on next year! There's enough capacity in the oast for 3x that ammount of goldings and twice the ammount of fuggles, plus, I can always build another layer

Cheers,

Steve

[DRB]

DRB - You can look at it like that, but...it was great to grow the plants and watch the hops developing, plus harvesting and drying is all good wholesome fun...and I got to build another piece of kit. All very satisfying and somehow 'right'.

Also, you have to remember these are only first year plants. I think I got a very good result considering that. Next year the growth will be more vigourous and the yield bigger.....but with a lot less work.. The plants are in and established, the supporting wires in place, and the oast built Then you have to consider the fact that you can't beat fresh hops. All being well so far, the flavour and aroma will be considerably better than shop bought hops.


I can see where you are comming from,but for me a little to much extra work for a beer.
How do you work out what aa are.