Hop Harvesting 2013

by Jim Vondracek on 08/31/13

I harvested our 2013 hops crop today.  This is our third year of growing hops, with three hops hills, all with the Cascade variety of hop, a typically American hop with citrus aroma and flavors.  Here is a photo of the hop bines looking down from our second-story window:

The bines climb twine each summer that I string from an anchor near the hill to a stay on the second story window. 

I was planning on having a hop-picking party on the day we brewed with them - that's called wet hopping, because usually hops are dried for storage before brewers use them.  But, we are leaving town for ten days and the hops would not have lasted another couple of weeks, they needed to be picked. 

You can see some brown spots on the cones (which is good, as long as there is not too much brown), the cones were papery to the touch, and you could see and smell the lupilin in the hops. I ended up putting the picked hops in freezer bags and we'll do a group brew day with them in three weeks. 

Here's the complicated method I use to take the bines down:

This how the bines looked after being cut down:

I find hop leaves to be exceptionally irritating to my skin - they feel a little like velcro - so wore a long sleeve shirt and my fancy brewing gloves:

This is a shot of an open cone and you can see the golden yellow spots at the center - that is the luplin.  It includes resins and essential oils that convey the hop bitterness, flavor and aroma. 

I filled a large mixing bowl with hop cones, then transferred them to heavy duty freezer bags for their brief three week visit to the freezer.  Our total harvest was 1 lb 2 ounces. 

I'll put together an American Pale Ale recipe using these fresh, wet hops for a group brew day.  One challenge, I'm told, using wet hops is that a grassy flavor is sometimes imparted to the beer.  We'll combat that in two ways.  First, in the recipe formulation, we'll emphasize late hopping, reducing the amount of time the hops are boiled.  Secondly, as we add the hops to the boiling wort, we'll purposefully tear the hops apart a little, exposing as much of the luplin as possible to the wort, as quickly as possible.