2009 Hop Plantations

[Darkman]

1st year Mt hood....thanks Barls

 

[goomboogo]

1st year Mt hood....thanks Barls
View attachment 35902

I need more coffee. I looked at the photo and thought, 'they're growing horizontally'. Then I realised.

 

[Yeldarb]

I only have a small freezer for my hops and one thing I have noticed is how much room the flowers take up! I need to get a vacuum sealer, just using ziplock bags currently. Does anyone compress the hops before packaging? I'm not thinking pellet type packed but thinking of compressing + vacuum sealing to save space.

My Chinook went crazy...two rhizomes turned into about 4kgs of wet cones...have so far dried, ziplocked and frozen 300g. I need some kind of vacuum sealer.

My POR produced much less...guessing about 150g dry (still drying), and Tettnang negligable, and what cones were produced got distroyed by some very hot weather.

Anyone interested in swapping something for some Chinook?

 

[barls]

1st year Mt hood....thanks Barls
View attachment 35902

not a problem mate glad 2 see its done well. Ill have some more later this year.

 

[Moray]

Harvested my hops yesterday.

Columbus


I made a first harvest ale and used 350 gms. probably a bit over the top, but I got excited with all the hops

Recipe is here
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...amp;recipe=1047


The columbus is on the flyscreen here, with the chinook in the box in front.

 

[Wolfy]

"And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared:"
... today is harvest day.

Cut the hay-bale-string from the top balcony and harvest them on the ground.
Not sure if dad or the dog was a better helper.

We misplaced the identity of a couple of the hop plants, they're either Goldings or Chinook.
If you grow either/both of these varieties would you mind taking a look to see if you can help identify which is which: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=42538

 

[Mantis]

great growing dudes. I hope for more next year from my now two plants

 

[dent]

So what is the plan post-harvest? With regards to pruning, water supply, etc?

 

[praxis178]

So what is the plan post-harvest? With regards to pruning, water supply, etc?

Something that has been on my mind too....

I picked the last of my Pearle hops last week (Friday) <yield was ~400g wet from 3 first year mounds, planted in December '09> and now I'm wondering what's next? Do I leave them till the bines start to seness and die back to prune or do I do it now? The other thing is IF I took some cuttings now is it too late in the season to get them to strike before winter?

I'm on the Sunshine Coast so "winter" might be stretching the concept a bit, but we do get light frosts, so on those nights might-en it be enough if I cover the mounds with crushed ice and some (shudder) foiled insulation? I'd really hate to have to dig up these plants to refrigerate them for their cold conditioning/winter cycle.

 

[Wolfy]

So what is the plan post-harvest? With regards to pruning, water supply, etc?

As you can see in the photos above, we cut mine down to harvest them, the bottom 1-2m had lots of small side shoots growing, so I cut them off at that height and will try to take some cuttings and hopefully grow them, by keeping the cuttings protected and growing over winter (mini-hot-house or something) I hope they'll be good in a year or two. Next year we may work out a better way to harvest them and leave the bines growing till later in the year, maybe even get a second crop.

 

[barls]

i use a pulley system to raise and lower to harvest. ive lost count of the harvests ive done this year.
ill post a final figure in late march after i cut them down.

 

[Wolfy]

Using the very technical method of kneeling on a phone book (the only use the YellowPages will get this year) while vacuum sealing, turned big fat bags of dried hops...

... into flat packs of hops to fit into the fridge.

A first year crop of just over 1.2kg probably didn't quite pay off the ebay-rhizome-prices, but it came close and did much better than I expected (especially since mom did all the hard work growing them). Besides they smell great and can't wait to start using them.

2 packs of Goldings, Chinook and Nugget, 1 of Mt Hood, and the bottom big bag is a lucky dip of "that-looks-ripe-pick-it-now" (plus the very-few Cluster and Hellertauer cones).

 

[drsmurto]

A first year crop of just over 1.2kg probably didn't quite pay off the ebay-rhizome-prices, but it came close and did much better than I expected (especially since mom did all the hard work growing them). Besides they smell great and can't wait to start using them.

2 packs of Goldings, Chinook and Nugget, 1 of Mt Hood, and the bottom big bag is a lucky dip of "that-looks-ripe-pick-it-now" (plus the very-few Cluster and Hellertauer cones).

1.2kg wet or dry?

 

[Wolfy]

1.2kg wet or dry?

The kindof dry they get by sitting on fly-wire screen next to an open sliding door for nearly a week until they feel pretty dry to me. No noticeable moisture when squeezed, but probably not as dry as they could be either.

 

[Hutch]

The kindof dry they get by sitting on fly-wire screen next to an open sliding door for nearly a week until they feel pretty dry to me. No noticeable moisture when squeezed, but probably not as dry as they could be either.

1st year crop!!!
I'm gob-smacked. What'd you feed them?

 

[drsmurto]

1.2kg dry :beerbang:

Jaysus mate, you need to teach us all.

My chinook is a 3rd year and if i am lucky i might get 1kg dry and its a bloody forest and a weed.

Spill the beans!

 

[Wolfy]

The 1.2kg is the total weight from the 5 prolific bines and the other 3 that didn't really produce anything (not a per plant count).

I suspect they liked growing in mum's vegie garden, I presume it was well fertilized and well watered, she's been doing compost/recycling/herbs and all that for as long as I can remember.
Unfortunately she's been complaining about how poorly her vegies (tomatoes, corn etc) have grown this year - I've been trying to blame it on the weather or poor-vegie-growing season, but I guess we'll see if the root-system on the hops has taken over the vegie garden later when they are dormant and that may determine if she lets me keep them there next year.

 

[MarkBastard]

Mums: surprisingly handy

 

[fraser_john]

Harvesting the

Part 2 uploading as I post......curse DoDo and its infinite slowness

 

[manticle]

Well I have a couple of flowers that need to grow a bit bigger but I got a grand total of 10 grams of wet hops. I don't even know what they are as my tett plant and chinook plant have grown into each other a bit. I'm guessing it's chinook because everyone seems to have success with that.

I was a bit slack with my plants (really just shoved some posts in the ground for them to climb up, two varieties are still in pots) as I like plants that look after themselves (herbs and cats are very alike).

However when I've finished gathering the other 6 grams worth am I able to cut the plants back so I can work out which is which without killing them off? Then I'll install a proper trellis for next season.