2010 Hop Harvest, v1.0

[Hawkeye]

Went up to my family friends farm last weekend to harvest our first real harvest of hops (this is the second year for the plants). Last year it barely weighed on the scale. This year is a little different! Still have to go up again in a few weeks to do the second harvest of the still maturing hops.









Wet hop ale later that night:



Drying the remainder of the hops for vacuum sealing and freezer (ended up with 28 OZ after wet hop ale):


Cheers!

Hawkeye






Did my first wet hop ale the night of harvesting.

[dunleav1]

Wow those hops look fantastic!

I did a wet hop ale Satruday night with a 1# of 1 st year Centennial and 1/4# of second year Cascade.
My Cascade plant had some kind of issue right before harvest.

What was your hop schedule ?

[bcmaui]

Very clean (fungus and disease free) harvest of homegrown hops there - and without chemicals for pest control or plant feeding if I understand the Organic moniker correctly.

I thought you might be in wine country based on the background in one photo, but after seeing the Iowa T-shirt, I guessed it was corn instead.

Good job and are you planning on growing and drying more next season?

Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Florida and Georgia are the few states I have yet to visit. Alaska too, but I lived in Norway for a year so that sorta counts. Rhode Island I'm sure I have seen from a distance, and that should count as well.

I barely crossed the border on the ground into Kansas for this first time this year around Memorial Day Weekend and allergies hit me hard for the first time in many, many years.

[Bugeater]

Yeah, I'm allergic to Kansas too.

Wayne

[Hawkeye]

I used one oz of cascade from a commercial supply and used about a pound of our cascade towards the end. Added four ounces with ten minutes left and the rest at flameout. I'll taste it as soon as fermentation has slowed down and decide if I want to dry hop with the stuff now in the freezer. Looking forward to it!

Our family friends are also master gardeners (and organic at that), and they planted some hops after enjoying the homebrews over the course of year or so. They support my habit just like my wife. Life is good.

Yeah, we are in Iowa. I'll be headed back up in two weeks to do the last harvest. Most likely will get another similar yield.

At least for right now, we will probably keep at the number of plants. This is just half the harvest from a second year hops though, so we might have even more last year. Half of our plants are cascade (the big yielder), and the other half are northern brewer. Those barely yielded. Hope next year is better.

Hope to be throwing those hops into a 2050 next year, with even more headspace. Cheers!

[dunleav1]

I'm from PA and I've hit Iowa once and Missouri twice for archery hunting. I love that area of the country.
Kansas is a hard draw for non residents so I haven't been there.
But everything just seems a little bigger and better there - hops, deer, steaks, and of course the lovely cornfed midwestern ladies...

[ResQ]

Holy Shiz! How many vines is that off? Im stoked for that kind of harvest! wow. Nice work. What was the recipe for your fresh hop ale?

[Hawkeye]

We have twelve cascade and twelve northern brewer plants. Can't even imagine what our yield will be in year three.

For the 5 gallon recipe I used the following:
6 lbs Briess amber LME
Munton & Fison (UK) Light DME- 3 lbs

Steeps the following speciality grains at 155 degrees for 30 min:
Crystal 50-60L (Simpson's) 1 lb.
Carapils (Briess) 1/2 lb.
Munich 10L (Briess) 1/2 lb.

1 OZ cascade pellets for 60 min
Wyeast nutrient and irish moss at 15 min
4 OZ wet hop CASCADE at 10 min
12 OZ wet hop CASCADE at 0 min knockout

Used WLP001, built up as a starter.

God willing it will turn out OK. Based it on another beer I had made before, but tweaked slightly.

JMC