Homegrown hop drying

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Cheyne_brewer

Cheyne_brewer

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Oct 16, 2019
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Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire UK
My first year hops (only planted in June) have cropped really well. Looking for a convenient way to dry them for storage I hit on a cunning plan - a “ hack” In millennial parlance. I work in IT, the office has a redundant comms cabinet with fans blowing lukewarm air to the sky - perfect hop drying conditions. I gave the hops in new Aldi veg bags, again perfect for the task. 24 hours of sitting above one of the two fan arrays and the first bag is way lighter & crisper. Second bag now added. An eco friendly solution that cost me nowt - making my inner Yorkshireman happy 😀
 
I normally make a hammock out of a net curtain and hang the hops somewhere out of daylight but with a good air flow (shed or garage) and it does the job in a few days. I give the hops a stir around to ensure they dry at same pace.
Fuggles first on Saturday then EKG following weekend.
This is the EKG which is also ventured into next door’s garden!
IMG_1795.jpeg
 
Just done my first attempt in the air fryer.
Loaded up both sides of the air fryer & set to dehydrate for 3 hours at lowest temp (40c).
Outcome was each side produced about 40g of dried hops.
Aroma isn't up to commercial crops. They come from wild plants from a historical hop growing region.

But I'll try them in an experimental brew later.
 
I wonder if you are growing your own hops just because want everything done at home or because it works out notably cheaper? Thanks
 
But it does save quite a lot of money in the long run when you consider the price of hops. Just make sure you're growing the variety of hops you are going to want to use all the time.
 
I dry mine on the garage floor in plastic gardening trays, doesn't use any electricity, you need to turn them every day to ensure all the hops dry evenly but it works for me: only takes a few days thanks to the residual summer heat.
 
Omega said:
I wonder if you are growing your own hops just because want everything done at home or because it works out notably cheaper? Thanks
Click to expand...
It's not dissimilar to the arguments for growing any other crop at home - the cash costs are lower than buying from a retailer, but the economics don't work if you put a fair value on your time. At least hops are perennial so you only have a one-off acquisition cost, and most gardens have room to grow one or two against existing structures but if not, you have the cost of some kind of support structure.

But as with growing carrots or strawberries, it's more about the "quality" of the produce - specifically being able to make green hop beers with undried hops, which preserve all the volatile flavour compounds that are normally driven off in the drying process. It's almost impossible to make green hop beers as a homebrewer unless you grow your own.

And - this is a hobby, it's fun to explore the different aspects of it. If you don't like "gardening", you don't have to grow your own hops, for other people it adds an extra dimension in the same way that eg I've known people make their own fishing rods from carbon blanks.
 
I grow 3 hops, 2 use existing structures and the other uses somthing I knocked up out of cheap fence posts. So other than the costs of that, it was just the costs of the plants which were £7 each. I get about £40-£50 of hops off them all each year but that wasn't the reason for growing them, it was the challenge of doing something new plus the satisfaction of using my home-grown hops in my brews.

I tend to schedule my brews around my previous harvest: the Challenger were good last year so many of my brews used this, over the next 12 months it'll be Cascade as they seem to be the best this year.
 
Another one doing it for the wet hop beer, here. I also like to use some of the leftover dried hops in every brew to add a touch of 'terroir'.

As for drying, I've just hung a net sack full in a closet with a de-humidifier set on its clothes drying setting.
 
Cheyne_brewer said:
My first year hops (only planted in June) have cropped really well. Looking for a convenient way to dry them for storage I hit on a cunning plan - a “ hack” In millennial parlance. I work in IT, the office has a redundant comms cabinet with fans blowing lukewarm air to the sky - perfect hop drying conditions. I gave the hops in new Aldi veg bags, again perfect for the task. 24 hours of sitting above one of the two fan arrays and the first bag is way lighter & crisper. Second bag now added. An eco friendly solution that cost me nowt - making my inner Yorkshireman happy 😀
Click to expand...
What I've done in the past is to utilise a few extra window screens. Lay a box fan on a few blocks. Lay a window screen on it and layer on some hops. Add another window screen and layer on hops. . . . etc. Put your final screen on top and bungee cord everything together before turning on the fan on low speed. The hops will be dry in 2 or 3 days. Gather and bag them before putting them in the freezer.
 
Bit late, but I'm not going to use air fryer dehydrate again.
Lowest setting was really too hot, with slight browning to leaf.
And the fan blew it all around, so we were removing hop leaves for a few days
 

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