Hops: How To Harvest, Process, and Store Hops - with original photos
Are you ready? It’s hop harvest time! Here’s how I harvest my homegrown hop crop. I also show how I process and store them to use later. What do I use my hops for? Brewing beer, hop chocolate, hop tea, hop mac & cheese, and even more. But first we have to hop to it and get to picking!
Verification: These are my own original photos based on my 2015 harvest. You can verify me by going to my YouTube video on hop harvesting and check in the video description for a statement that I have a blog on Steemit. Feel free to say howdy from a Steemit user in the comments to any of my videos and subscribe to my channel.
Picking Hops
How Can I Tell When It’s Time to Pick Hops?
As the summer comes to an end, I check on my hop flowers. Hop flowers look like little pine cones. They are even called hop cones, but they are flowers - the mature seedhead of the female flowers. There won’t be any seeds unless there is a male hop plant around, and those are hard to come by.
If the hop flowers are green and tight, I leave them alone. I’m waiting until the hop cones become light, dry, like parchment. I’m waiting until they spring back to their original shape when I lightly compress them between my fingers. Then then they are ready to pick.
What Am I Harvesting?
It's not the hop cone that I'm really after in my harvest. I’m after the oils and resins hidden with each flower. But the only way to get that is to pick the whole hop cone.
When the hop resin in the flowers is a pretty yellow-gold, it’s time to get to picking! Some folks are adamant that it's better to pick hops too early than too late. But other folks have had fine results using even the brown hops as long as the resin is yellow and smells good.
I have had no trouble with hops that have turned brown, as long as the weather has been dry and only warm, not hot, like in the 90s (F). But if the weather is forecast to be wet, I get out and harvest everything. Wet hops are not top hops – wet hops rot.
How Do Hops Grow?
Hops are absolute monsters of the plant world – they grow fast and they grow a lot! They will grow over anything that is around them and their roots will spread runners underground to expand their territory.
Commercial hop growers and good gardeners grow their hops on tall supports that let the plant reach its full potential of 20 to 25 feet of growth in just a few months. Even after more than a decade, I still haven’t built my hops such a nice setup. They do fine growing in a larger mass on a 7-foot high trellis system.
Technically, hops are not a vine, but a bine because they don’t have tendrils or thorns. Instead, they climb by constricting around their support like a boa constrictor.
How Do I Pick Hop Cones?
Commercial hop growers cut their hop bines all the way down to the ground and haul them into a big processing center. But I like to leave my vines standing until winter because they are pretty and I have a lot of other homestead projects going in the fall. So I don’t cut my hop bines down to ground level until the winter.
That means I pick my hop cones out where they grow. Hops have scratchy hairs on their vines and some people are really sensitive to that. I wear long sleeves to keep from getting all cut up by the vines.
I use my camping cookpot tied to a cord and hang that from my neck to make picking efficient. Then I dump each cookpot load into baskets. It would be a lot harder to pick if my hop vines were 25 feet tall. But then I would just cut them down and pick at my leisure in the shade. But with my short hops, I can pick easily. So I guess there is a bonus for being haphazard!
Can I Eat Hops While I Pick?
Do you have trouble eating too many strawberries, blackberries, or other fruits and vegetables while you are picking them? Picking hops is great for learning to NOT eat what you are picking. They are so bitter! They make even bitter dandelions seem sweet by comparison!
Processing Hops
What’s the Reason for Drying Hops?
Once the hops are picked, you can’t waste any time in getting them processed for storage. You have got to hop on it! The goal in storing hops is to keep their oils and resins stable. The short-term enemies are heat and oxidation. The first step is to get the hops cones dry!
Can I Dry Hops Without A Lot of Equipment?
I put my hops cones on big trays to dry. That works fine when we have cool, dry weather. Big window screens work even better. But here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, my hops often are ready just when our fall rains return. In that case, air drying isn't quite enough to dry the hop cones down all the way. I have to transfer the hop cones to some dehydrator trays to finish drying them down.
Commercial hop dryers may go up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, but I keep my dehydrators set to about 105 degrees Fahrenheit and let them go for a day or two. My goal is to dry them without heating the oils and resins.
When Are My Hops Are Dry Enough?
I check my hop cones after at least 24 hours. The center stem of the hop cone should be brittle and break apart when it's bent. The entire hop cone should be crispy. It doesn’t have to fall apart when it’s handled, but it should stay crushed when it’s compressed.
Storing Hops
How Long Will Hops Keep?
Once my hops are dried, I have to do something to keep the oils and resins from oxidizing. The long-term enemies are heat, oxygen, and light. If I just put them loosely in a jar on my kitchen counter, they will lose a lot of their great smell within even a month. They can even go rancid. And nobody wants rancid hops! So my hop harvest still isn’t over. I have to keep hopping and get them in long-term storage.
Where Do I Keep My Hops?
I keep my hops the freezer. That's right, the freezer! The freezer is great for keeping the hop oils and resins cold and in the dark. But I have to work to keep their oxygen exposure low. If I vacuum packed my hops and put them in the freezer, they keep great for at least 18 months. They probably will be fine even two or three years later, although I haven’t tested the limits of the vacuum packs.
My approach is low tech because I don’t have a vacuum machine. I store my hops in canning jars and put the jars in the freezer. I do keep some jars of my hops in my old, double-walled pumphouse that covers my irrigation well and, like a root cellar, holds all my jars of homegrown and foraged produce that I preserve. But I use those hops pretty quickly, during the winter and certainly by the next year.
How Do I Can My Hops?
I’m trying to avoid exposing the hops to the air while they are in the freezer or my pumphouse. So I need to get as much air as I can out of the jars. I don't want to vacuum pack the hops with the heat of a canner.
Commercial hop operations compress their dried hops into big bales. I just compress my hops directly into the jar. The more hops I get in the jar, the less air can be in there. So I keep stuffing hops into each jar until I can’t fit any more in. I use a cutout circle from a yogurt or cottage cheese lid to compress my hops down into the jar.
How Do I Clean Up My Hop Processing Mess?
That all important hop resin is super sticky! So everything it touches – the dehydrator tray, other tools, and my hands – have to be washed well before they get used for anything else. Thankfully, the resin is easily cleaned up with hot water and soap.
Using Hops
I use my hops for a bunch of different things. In brewing beer at home, a lot of people buy hop pellets and pick out specific varieties for either their aromatic qualities or their bittering qualities. My hops are “dual use, whole leaf hops”.
I’m partial to using hops for brewing beer. But they I use them for a lot more, too! I really like Hop Tea. And hops make even cheap hot chocolate packets into a nice Hop Chocolate with IPA-lovers will appreciate. Hop soda and hop popsicles are good. I cook with hops, too – hop macaroni and cheese, and a little bit in with a stew or roast, and more. And a little hop sack makes for great sleeping.
Want to See More Hops Posts?
I’ll be posting more on growing and using hops. And I harvest an entirely different hop crop in the spring! So be sure to follow me, if you don’t want to miss seeing any of those posts in your feed.
foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land
Im glad I found this post, though not wuickly enough to resteem it.
We have a hops bine in for its second year and were wondering how to handle the hops. Youve given me all the info we need. Thanks!
That's neat that you have a hops bine! They are such monsters. They want to grow! After they are established, they will put on a lot of runners. You might be interested in eating your spring hop shoots, too. They are really good in a lot of ways. Here's a post I wrote: 5 Ways to Eat Hop Shoots. I like hops, too, because they die back every winter. So every year starts new. Enjoy all your hops! Maybe you will make a post about them! :D
Thanks. Ill look at the post on shoots. We put put hops bine in between us and the afternoon sun as a pergola. The theiry being that we have an edible plant that will shade us in summer and die back in winter to allow the sun ro reach the house. We griw it also for its medicinal uses.
That seems like a good way to use hops. They grow so fast in the summer!
Wow! Thanks, everyone for your upvotes. What a surprise -- and I hope you all get to enjoy some hops in the near future, in one form or another! Special thanks to @pfunk and @justtryme90, who both promoted this in some chat rooms.
Just takes a bit of a spark to get things going here sometimes. Great to see content like this - going to try to make some hoppy mac and cheese, but starting from a box of Annie's Mac and Cheese. Any quick advice? Boil hops in water used to cook the macaroni to extract the oils?
I am so sad this wonderful post didn't get more exposure. I have tried to put it out there a little bit for you.
Thanks for your appreciation of my post and helping get the word out there. I haven't made very many posts and don't have many followers, so I don't expect much. I figure it's part of a longer process. It's up to me to figure out how to build on all my posts elsewhere, too. I'll be writing more about hops -- there' a lot more to them than most people think. And most people don't even think about hops, haha -- I'm a deep-niche writer, I guess. : )
Well I gave you a follow, I enjoyed this posting. Look forward to your future content.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy what you see on my posts.
Hops are great for so many things!
Great post that is very well composed. Your information is very clear and conveyed in a very easy to grasp manner. I like how you shared multiple views on what to do with and how to harvest hops and not just your own methodology.
Thanks for your review and comments - I appreciate it. Hops are more of a niche topic than beer, so it's nice to meet another hop fan! I'll be writing about using hops and the other hop crop -- the hop shoots that I harvest in the spring make for great eating!
Ooo wonderful you should get much higher revenue! At least thanks @pfunk for sharing it on chat. Great! Can not wait to see a post about brewing. Would love to start, but we need...the impulse! :-)
Thanks! And thanks for pointing out the role @pfunk had in sharing it! I probably won't start brewing until August, but I'll be sure to post about it here. Home brew can be worth something... a single bottle of a nice, dark porter that I made ended up getting me five years of free housing in Tucson, Arizona. At minimum, that was a $30,000 bottle of beer.
I am currently growing Cascade and Chinook!
Cascade must be a really versatile variety of hops. I've read of people planting it in so many locations. Here, where I can look at the Cascade Mountains on any non-cloudy day, they seem like a local variety, lol. Do you eat the hop shoots in the spring?
I have started with 3 Chinook rhizomes about 3 years ago. Tough vine and it's always great to see them emerge as one of the first things I notice breaking ground in Denver. I usually put 3 to 5" of leaves over them in the winter to help keep them from drying out/freezing too solidly.
Thanks for sharing. I may mulch mine for the winter too!
Fantastic post. I jave some hop plants i need to over winter. They're in 5 gallon pots and i have a greenhouse to keep them protected. Going to plant them is spring. Any tips? Thanks. Upvoted and followed
Thanks -- glad you found this to be an interesting post. And I'm always happy to meet another hop grower! Depending on your climate, you could sink the 5-gallon pots into the ground and mulch them heavily. Most hops like a cold period. But hops are a tough plant and they aren't that particular, as long as there is good drainage in the soil.
My biggest tip for your spring planting is to give them room to grow up and out. They will want to run and spread over time, but your yields will be better if you thin them out. That's OK because the spring shoots are really tasty!
Cool. I have plenty of room for them and full, all day sun. I'm in Washington state. I'm thinking of making a tee pee style trellis with wire staked down in a big circle and attached to a tall center pole set in the ground. They should grow up the wire to the center pole, right?
🆙
They want to grow UP, for sure! I"m on Oregon's Willamette Valley, which is region with the 2nd largest hop acreage in the US. But Washington is number 1, mostly in the Yakima Valley. But Kent, Washington, near Seattle, used to grow a lot of hops, early in its agricultural history. I'll look forward to seeing your hop harvest in 2017 or 2018! : )
Im in Snohomish! Maybe we'll meet at a Steemit Meetup.
That would be neat, @luzcypher!
This is great! We make homemade fruit wine regularly, but we don't frequently have access to hops. This is obviously a labor of love for you!
Thanks! I'm in hop country here in Oregon's Willamette Valley. It's part of this region's agricultural heritage. I like that connection -- and they are so easy to grow. Gotta love that! And yay for fruit wine, too! : )
Thanks i started growing hops last year my neighbor had them growing when her husband was alive now just a waste of space to her ..but mine look like the pic hanging on the 7 foot pole but alas no hops .does it take a few years before they start to get the fruit ,,
It does take a few years to get good production, although some varieties in a good situation can produce the first year. And then the plants will spread so thickly that it's good to divide them every few years. I thin my hop shoots in the spring, so the few vines that are left get all the soil nutrients and light. Otherwise, they can get too crowded. But the spring shoots are really tasty, so there's a double benefit to thinning your vines! Hope that helps!
I don't drink beer but had a chance to visit a brewery - the large commercial kind. I think there's where I heard someone briefly mentioned hops. now, I know how it looks like. Thanks. :-)
That's neat that you went to a big brewery, even though you don't drink beer. I hope you get to see hops, sometime, on the vine, to appreciate their wonderful scent, too.