Homegrown Hop Storage

The Barn has been almost dead lately. Maybe it's broken? Yesterday was a good day to store homegrown hops and felt it worthy to share a storage technique that worked very nicely. First step was to air dry the hops. I used a large window screen suspended in my outside shed. The building is very dry and gathers significant heat when closed. In about 4 days, the fresh hops were ready for "bailing." We have a vacuum sealing machine and it seemed very logical to see how it worked. I started by making a fairly long bag possibly 2+feet long. I stuffed and stuffed as many hops as I could into the bag and connected it to the vacuum machine. Using the "jog" button, I pulled a great vacuum on the hops and made a mini brick. The jog cycle doesn't seal the bag so I stuffed in more hops. My harvest this year was about two 5 gallon buckets of hops. When dry and compact, I ended up with a flat sack about 2 feet and less than 2 inches thick. I'll be using this process again! Sincerely, Rick Oftel This electronic message including any attachments ("Message") may contain information that is privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under trade secret and other applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, notify the sender immediately, permanently delete all copies of this Message, and be aware that examination, use, dissemination, duplication or disclosure of this Message is strictly prohibited.