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Growing Hops At Home

Growing Hops At Home

by Greg Hawley <hawley@vbe.com>


Why this page?

The 1996 growing season was my first year growing hops. This page describes that experience. It isn't meant to be a definitive guide, but to augment other broader overviews with my personal, continuing experience. As the 1997 season unravels, I hope to add my second year's experience. Watch this page for more details.
Another Note: This was saved on this site because it hasent been updated sence 1997


News and Updates

8/11/97: Added the Beginner's Harvesting Tips section and Harvester's Results section. Slightly modified the General Harvesting Information section. I have a bunch of analog photographs from the '97 growing season that I hope to get on-line in the coming weeks (say by October). Stay tuned.


Hop Rhizome Selection

Hops are started from rhizomes (root cuttings) which can only be purchased in the spring. I purchased my rhizomes from Freshops. Having read Using Hops I learned that European hops grown in North America don't impart the same flavor and aroma profile to the beer as they would if they were grown in their native regions in Europe. This seems to be especially true of varieties like Hallertauer and Saaz. Hops with the same genetics but grown in a different environment yield a different beer. As a result I choose three American varieties for my hopyard: Willamette, Mt. Hood and Cascade. Just for fun, a coworker who lives a mile away purchased Goldings (usually grown in East Kent). We purchased our rhizomes on March 27th, 1996, and at that time all of the varieties Freshops sold were in stock. Hops are typically available from late-March through late-April.

Because most home hop growers do not have access to the lab equipment needed to determine alpha acid content (a measure of bitterness), authors advice the home growers to stick to aroma and finishing hops.


Planting

Most sources say you can plant hop rhizomes as soon as the frost leaves the ground. I live in Appleton which is in northeast Wisconsin. We are on the edge between USDA Hardiness Zones 4 and 5. While the frost had left the ground perhaps two weeks earlier, I planted my hops on April 13, 1996.


Building A Trellis

TrellsThe custom hops trellis. This picture was taken on August 5, 1996.

While professional hop trellises made of telephone polls, aviation cable and twine, every home situation is different. Since the chimney on my house faces south (hops like as much sun as they can get), I made a trellis that is attached to this chimney. Not wanting to put holes in the metal flashing at the top of the chimney I attached two members to the chimney with sub-floor construction adhesive. The trellis itself was made of a lattice of thin strips (2" wide and about a 1/4" thick) ripped for 2" x 4" x 8' dimensional lumber. I buried two pressure treated 4" x 4" posts into the ground leaving the posts sticking out of the ground 2 feet, and secured the trellis to these posts. Since the trellis is screwed to both the top members attached to the top of the chimney and to the buried posts, the trellis is removable for the winter months leaving only the 4" x 4" posts and the two top members riding out the winter. The trellis was installed in mid-May. By that point, the hop bines (no this is not a typo, hops technically grow on bines -- not vines) were 2 to 3' tall. If I had waited any longer, I would have been in trouble as by mid-May, the hops were growing an inch or two a day!

The hop bines really didn't like climbing the trellis. When the bine would come to the intersection in the lattices, the tip of the bine had a hard time wrapping around the trellis strips. As a result, the bine needed to be periodically trained onto the lattice. Also, because the plants didn't grown straight up their respective parts of the trellis, the plants became intertwined. At harvest time it became hard to figure out which bracts were, for example, Mt. Hood and which were Cascade. This year I will tie 3 pieces of twine to the top of the trellis and force the three hop plants to climb their respective pieces of twine.

On another experiment, we simply let the hop bine grow up a single piece of rope (note: don't try to use wires or cables, they're too slippery). In the end, this experiment worked fine, but not without some trial and error. Initially, the rope was pulled taut from the top of the chimney to the bottom in the ground, and the hop plants were allowed to wrap onto the rope from the bottom. Unfortunately, after a storm we realized that the rope contracted becoming shorter after it became wet. The yard dog chain holder (available at a pet store near you) holding the rope taut was pulled out of the ground, and the young hop shoot was ripped in two. We quickly learned that the that a bungee cord was needed between the chain holder and the rope and that the hops shouldn't be trained onto the rope until there was enough slack in the bines to keep them safe.


Growth

First Year Hops - 23 feet Even first year hop bines are gigantic. The picture on the right is of the Goldings hop plant.

My general philosophy for growing hops involves six words: Miracle Grow, Miracle Grow, Miracle Grow. Hops seem to need a lot of water. Every two days I filled a 2 US gallon watering can with double strength miracle grow watering my well mulched hop plants. The hop plants seemed strong all year and didn't seem to mind being watered that much.

First Year BineThe bottom of the bine at harvest time was 9/16 inch in diameter. When the plant is really in the peak of its growth stage, even in the first year, the bine can add 6 inches in a single day. Each day they make one wrap around their trellis or rope following the sun from east to west.


Pests

Hops harbor a whole host of pests. I had a limited infestation with what I believed were hop aphids. Since I didn't discover them until harvest time, I simply made sure that I checked the hops I harvested for aphids. Since this is a really time-consuming process, next year I'll be more alert and check early and take aggressive action.

It almost goes without saying that if you're in an area where hops are grown by professional growers and you find problems, you will want to notify others. Since I'm in Northeastern Wisconsin, that just isn't a problem.


Harvesting

General Harvesting Information

Hops almost ready to
         pick Hops almost ready to pick. This picture was taken on August 5, 1996.

About two weeks before hop plants produce recognizable bracts, hops flower. These flowers don't look like flowers but more like burrs that you'd find stuck to your socks after walking in a field during the fall.

Plenty of harvested hops Hops are plentiful at the harvest! Reading material about when to harvest and translating that printed advice into a decision of whether to harvest was tough. Two general rules of thumb seem to loosely indicate that hops are ready for harvesting: the hop bracts become papery and the lupilin glands turn bright yellow. These rules are helpful, but I was left trying to answer two questions: how papery is papery and how bright yellow is bright yellow. As the season evolves it becomes easy to notice when hops are just past their peak. Left to their own, hop bracts will naturally turn brown long before the first frost. I found that when some of the hops just start to turn brown at the tips of their bracts and a very small fraction have some brown spots, this is the time to harvest.

Beginner's Harvesting Tips

If you're anything like me, you'll be impatient to begin harvesting. Resist this temptation! If you harvest too soon, your hops won't have the potency you would expect. Watch your hop plants. When just a couple of the bracts (say a dozen) have a bracteole (leaf) tips just turning brown, pick about a third of the hops. Then, 5 to 7 days later go back and do the same. Though don't wait until the hops turn brown before you pick them. Use the bracteole tip color more as a guide than the 5 to 7 day rule.

You should get three or four harvesting sessions. By picking in sessions as a beginner, you'll gain two advantages. First, you'll pick hops as they rippen to their fullest. Second, you'll get a chance to see hops as they rippen. Leave a few hops on the vine. Watch them as they rippen and then go bad. Use this knowledge and experience to learn better when your hops have matured.

I made several harvests that are shown in the table below.


Drying

Hops Drying on a ScreenHops drying on a screen. I borrowed an unused window screen and placed the hops on it to dry. As I read the available literature I was a little more than confused about what to expect while drying my hops. Some say that hops can be dried in an attic in a day. Others claim in takes several days. This, of course, depends a lot on the climate in which they are dried. Here in Northeast Wisconsin, it took between ten days and two weeks to dry my hops. The key to knowing when hops are dried is how they break apart when split. Hold the top of a hop bract between the thumb and forefinger of one and hand and the bottom of the hop bract between the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, then flex the bract in a motion similar to what you might do if you were trying to break a pencil in half. The inner part of the bract, the strig, should break -- not bend -- when the hop is flexed with. If the hops don't break apart, they're not ready.

Another way hops can be judged dry is by weight. Some authors claim that the final weight of you're hops should be about one tenth of their initial weight. Other authors say less. My experience indicates that a value between one fifth and one sixth is more likely. (e.g.: 100 grams initial weight yields 17 to 20 grams of dry weight).

Once the hops were removed from the attic where they dried, I sat them in my cool basement letting the moisture level in the hops come to equilibrium. Arbitrarily I let them sit about five days. The reasons for doing this are less than clear, but some say it helps remove some of the greener, grassier tones from your hops.


Storing

Hops in a Canning JarHops in a Canning Jar. Once the hops have been properly dried, I placed them into a canning jar. Authors caution not to compress the hops too much. By overly compressing the hops, the lupulin glands are easily knocked loose. I found that this happened surprisingly easily. Nevertheless, I tired to fit an ounce or so of dried hops into each jar. An ounce and a half is probably, however, too much to attempt to fit into a 1 pint (500 mL) wide-mouthed canning jar.

After stuffing the dried hops into jars, they are placed into our chest freezer. There they sit at about -5 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius).


Using Your Hops

Use your dried hops just like you'd use hops from any other source. You may, however, be surprised how much fresher your hops will be when compared to those you buy from your other sources. Take the hops you buy from your home-brew store or mail-order catalog -- compare their aroma to that of your home-grown hops. I was amazed at how much fresher mine were!

I have used my home-grown hops on several batches. In some cases, I have noticed hay-like tones evolving from the brew kettle after pitching my home-grown hops. The first time this happened I was very concerned, but any off aromas seem to ultimately boil off. By the time I drank these beers all was fine. With good results, I have also dry-hopped home-grown hops.


Preparing for Winter

Preparing for winter isn't much of a big deal. At your leisure, cut the bine down to an inch or so above the ground. If you cut your bines just after you harvest (and there's nothing wrong with doing this), we found that the bine will sprout new shoots. After the first stiff frost comes, do, however, make sure that all these shoots are removed. Some say you can bury the thick, main bines in a shallow trench over the winter to use for rhizomes the next year. Since I don't have much room for more hops I didn't try this. I did mulch the area with about six inches of straw.

Greg's 1996 Harvest Log

Date Event
8/14/96 Chopped down the Goldings bine (23' long, 7/16" in diameter at the base. 177 gr. wet hops. Begin drying them in my garage attic.
8/14/96 Picked 224 gr. of Mt. Hood/Cascade Blend from my trellis.
8/16/96 Picked 125 gr. of Mt. Hood/Cascade blend from my trellis.
8/22/96 After days in the mid-70's to mid-80's, 50% cloudy removed Goldings from drying. Final weight 36 gr. (20% of original weight. Despite that, strigs weren't entirely brittle. Packing in one wide mouth pint canning jar, closed & left in basement at 68 degrees for 5 - 10 days.
8/25/96 190 gr. of Mt. Hood / Cascade mix picked. Hop aphids appeared in a small number of cones on right side of trellis.
8/29/96 Put 8/14 Goldings in Freezer, 8/14 Mt. Hood and 8/16 Mt. Hood now have brittle strings. 8/14 final weight = 37 grams, 8/16 final weight = 22 grams. Both batches put in the basement. 90 gr of Mt. Hood/Cascade/Willamette picked. Last harvest. Some have gone past ripe.
9/5/96 Froze 8/14 and 8/16 hops - both have hay like aroma - picked too early? Nevertheless, crushed cones still smell right. Removed 8/25 from attic (36gr = final weight).
9/12/96 Use 1/4 ounce in Belgian Abbey Ale (of 8/14). Order of magnitude fresher than what I normally buy.
9/15/96 Chopped down most of hop vine.
9/17/97 Froze 8/25 and 8/29 hops.

Greg's 1997 Growing Log

Date Event
3/5/97 After a spring thaw, two of the three plants have small numbs of growth near the end where last year's bines were cut down!
4/17/97 All 3 plants have many budding new bines. Some are up to 2 inches tall!
4/23/97 20 chutes on the Cascade plant, 13 on the Mt. Hood and 14 on the Willamette. The longest is 3 inches.
4/25/97 Cut back some of the shoots (5 or 6) from each plant.
5/3/97 Installed the hop trellis for the year. The longest vine is about 16 inches tall. The trellis definately couldn't have waited until next weekend.
5/6/97 Between the 3 plants, I have cut back between 40 and 50 small shoots.
5/19/97 Tallest plant is 44 inches (1.1 m). Shortest plant is 26 inches (0.75 m) tall.
5/21/97 Despite repeated frosts in the last 10 days (like last night), the bines keep growing.
6/8/97 The longest vines are now 8-10 feet tall. Lateral grown at the bottom is growing strong.
7/4/97 The Mt. Hood bines have just started to show burrs. This is the start of the formation of hops.
8/11/97 The Cascade hops are very near to being ready for harvest. Tomorrow it will probably rain. On Wednesday I think I'll make my first harvest.
9/8/97 Yesterday I put the last dried hops in jars and put them in the freezer. Total: 21 1/3 ounces dried weight!

Other Harvester's Results

If you grow hops and are willing to share yield results,
send me information on your harvest!

Name/Email Variety Growing Year Number of Plants/Rhizomes Age of Plants (years) "Wet" Weight "Dry" Weight Comments
Greg Hawley
hawley@vbe.com
Mt. Hood/Willamette/Cascade/Goldings 1996 4 1st year 25 oz.
(716 gr.)
5 1/3 oz.
(151 gr.)
Combined Data for 4 plants.
Greg Hawley
hawley@vbe.com
Mt. Hood 1997 1 2nd year 11 1/2 oz.
(335 gr.)
2 1/2 oz.
(69 gr.)
Greg Hawley
hawley@vbe.com
Willamette 1997 1 2nd year 34 1/2 oz.
(984 gr.)
6 3/4 oz.
(69 gr.)
Greg Hawley
hawley@vbe.com
Cascade 1997 1 2nd year 60 2/3 oz.
(1729 gr.)
12 oz.
(345 gr.)

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Over the last few years I would find a web site that I really liked only to find that either the author died, changed host, loose interest or just plain forgot about it. and it would disappear off the face of the earth. So... with not to many adjustments I have put some of these pages (ones which I deem useful) on my site. This is purely as reference material. I have not received a monetary benefit in any form. This way I know as long as I live, keep my host, have interest and don't get too old to forgot about it. This web site and others like it will stay alive. CAH