The Chop

Cut down and brought indoors because
the weather was being a bit wet.
Harvesting your Hops

Before you harvest your hops, it’s worth considering this:

Do you want to dry and store them for bittering and flavouring your beer later in the year, or do you want to make a batch of delicious Harvest Ale and use wet hops?
 
Not sure, then read this first.
 
Pick ‘em. When the nights start drawing in and thoughts turn from salads and lager to pies and proper pints, it’s time to look at your hop. Most hops growers in the northern hemisphere pick their crop around the 6th September every year. This isn’t an exact date, and your own growing season and experience will be a better guide, but it’s not a bad place to start. For Harvest Ale that means you’ll need your malts and copper hops ready to go by the beginning of September, a sick note from the doctor, and some good yeast raring to go!

The hops should be between a half-inch and 1½ inch long by picking time, variety dependent. Most will be, with any stragglers about the size of a small pea. You can pick from the bine and let the smaller ones continue to develop, or pick when the bulk are ready, rather than wait till they’ve all grown up. It's up to you, but if you're cutting your bine down to harvest, I guess the first isn't much of an option.

Drying your Hops:
Some sources merely recommend drying the hops in your hot press / airing cupboard for a few days, until papery crisp. Others use hairdryers set on cool, or in a mesh frame with air blowing through. You can get pretty inventive. Whatever you do, don't dry them in the sun. Let them sit somewhere airy and dry, with no direct sunlight. What you want to achieve is to remove the moisture without spoiling the volatile acids and oils in the hops themselves. If I'm blessed with hops this summer I'll be making a mesh gadget with a fan blowing air through, and weighing a sample occasionally, to ensure the correct dryness is achieved.

Storing your Hops:
You've come this far, don't spoil it now! Put your dried hops in as airtight a container as possible. In vacuum sealed bags if you have, or in a sandwich bag with all the air squeezed out. Then, once sealed, pop it in the freezer until the glorious brew-day arrives.

Brewing with your Hop Crop:

To brew with your hop crop you have two lovely options, to dry your hops and use them whenever you wish, provided you store them correctly, or, far more exotically, to brew using wet hops.

If you’ve read this far, you probably either know how to brew beer, or really want to. Try an all-grain recipe, or use unhopped malt extracts. Don’t waste your precious prize on a homebrew kit. If you’re short on inspiration, there’s a recipe page available here.