Sunday, September 16, 2012

Storing fresh hops

After the hops are harvested two things need to be done:  drying them and storing them.
I'd heard about the simple process of laying the fresh hops out on a window screen in a dark room with a fan and that was easy for me.
So I put a spare window screen on a couple of sawhorses in the spare bedroom and spread out the hops on it.  I put a tower fan next to the screen to blow across the hop cones:
After 2 days the cones were dry enough and now needed to be packaged.  Fortunately we have a vacuum sealer thanks to Grandpa Dick so I was able to vacuum seal the dried hop cones in plastic bags for future use.
Ironically the beer I was to brew the next day, my Honey Basil Ale, made with homegrown hops and basil could have been made with fresh "wet" hops but I had dried the whole batch!

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