Re: Harvesting hops

John Longballa writes: If they are getting to have yellow resin and a little crisp they are ready to pick. I dry mine in a thin layer on a window screen (fiberglass/plastic) laying in the rafters of the garage. Commercial dryers for hops heat them over 100F but they are blowing a lot of air through the hops at the same time which keeps them from rotting.. You can pack the dry hops in glass (I use wide mouth canning jars) and store them in the freezer for a long time. I also store my commercial hops that way. If you compress them you can get around a half pound in a quart jar. Alternatively, you could wet hop a beer. This is popular in the west coast areas near the hop fields. Don't dry the hops but use them fresh and green. Obviously you need way more (by weight) than regular since most of the fresh cones are water. Try searching HDB, Brew Your Own, and Zymurgy for stuff on the technique. Maybe even a Google search would find the stuff. I think for wet hopping you could just freeze the whole and fresh undried hops in plastic bags until you were ready to use them. -- Steve Piatz piatz(a)cray.com Cray Inc. 651-605-9049 1340 Mendota Heights Road cell: 651-428-1417 Mendota Heights, MN 55120