Hops Harvest 2009

Hops Harvest 2009
by Mel Smith

It's Thursday, September 10th 2009 and the hops harvest is just beginning here in Sauk County, Wisconsin. My Hallertauer were the first to be ready to pick. I only have two vines and they are in their second year. I only harvested 2.1 oz. of those on Saturday, dried weight. A friend from the DUFF club shared some more Hallertauer with me - from the parent stock of my Hallertauer - and that amounted to 5.3 oz, so my total of Hallertauer for 2009 will be 7.4 oz! Wonderful!

The big harvest will be the Cascade. I planted three varieties of hops around the 21st of April, 2005. The Cascade have always grown the best, so I moved a few rhizomes (three each) of the Willamette (east side below the house) and the Glacier (West side below the house) up the hill near the Cascades to see if they would do better at that location. That move was made in 2008. I also expanded the Cascade plantings with a dozen more rhizomes taken from my own plants and I added Hallertauer hops from the father of a friend I work with. I also cleaned out the tree row and trellised the original Willamette and Glaciers a little better and they have done better this year, so I expect a little harvest from three varieties and big harvest from the cascade.

I picked cascade for several hours this evening. In the photos above you can see the mountain of hops growing around the tv tower and this was the main place where I picked. I put two buckets full of hops in the dehydrator which is actually two dehydrator trays stacked together. They've been drying since 5:00pm this evening at about 100 degrees. I'm never sure when the hops are really ready to pick. In the bucket, you can see some of the outer leaves beginning to turn brown and I think that's a good indication that they are ready. In some of the hops, I'm more sure that they are ready because they are light and papery. I'm concerned that I don't pick them too early and get a grassy taste.

After I put the two buckets full in the dehydrator, I picked 6 or 8 more buckets. I lost count. I put all of these extra hops on a plastic mesh over some wire shelving suspended between a table and the window ledge. I have a fan blowing underneath and another blowing over the top but no heat of course. I wanted to get these started drying, at least, and I'll finish them in the dehydrator. There's a lot more to pick.

Last year I made the mistake of cutting the vines and bringing them indoors in plastic containers. I didn't get to them as quickly as I had planned and when I finally did, many of the hops had developed mold. Even loosing those, I still harvested over four pounds in 2008 and I have hops left over. I want to be more careful this year and bring the whole crop to harvest, so I have more hops to share.

I really love the smell as I pick the hops, and when I go down in the basement... ahhh! It makes me want to brew a big IPA.