Hop Growing 2015

[Wonkydonkey]

This may sound blunt, I don't know how ready your hops are, but if your away for a few weeks yo could lose your hops or not. depending on if they are a late or early type, and the weather we are having this yr. I cant say it's normal.

mine have come along well In the last few weeks. although the casgade, I don't know cos this the first yr of hops from them.
An they are small at the mo.

But hops is hops, and if you had hops from that plant before, my guess is that that they are normal or a week either way. After that they go down hill very quickly

The. Books say lower brackets going brown, there ready, andd you only have about week to pick

[jmc]

You need to have made a few posts before the site shows your images, to minimise spam.

It's not letting me post an image (is that a new user thing?), but here is my first year cascade, very happy to be getting some cones from it already! http://s29.postimg.org/o0fv3r4uv/20150827_131034.jpg

[tourer]

This may sound blunt, I don't know how ready your hops are, but if your away for a few weeks yo could lose your hops or not. depending on if they are a late or early type, and the weather we are having this yr. I cant say it's normal.

mine have come along well In the last few weeks. although the casgade, I don't know cos this the first yr of hops from them.
An they are small at the mo.

But hops is hops, and if you had hops from that plant before, my guess is that that they are normal or a week either way. After that they go down hill very quickly

The. Books say lower brackets going brown, there ready, andd you only have about week to pick

Thanks for the reply, i think i'll pick what i can and bung them in the freezer and see whats left when i get back

[Hogarth]

What sort of yield did everyone get this year? Just asking, because mine was well down. Both my 6-year-old Fuggles and the 3-year-old EKGs in my sister's garden across London had less than half their usual amounts. Has it been a bad year in general?

[pottolom]

Picked my Prima Donna / First Gold today. Rhizome planted spring 2015, so only one growing season old. North east of England. Not sure what the weight of this harvest is, but seems quite a lot to me. Air drying them with the aid of a dehumidifier.

[BenB]

Its my first year and I planted very late so I got some but they're tiny and don't have any smell at all. I even made a hop tea to see if some heat helped but nope! Aroma free hops....

[seymour]

pottolom: Wow! I'd say that is a remarkably successful first harvest, very well done!

BebB: Which hop variety are they? Also, if the cones are small and odorless, it's entirely possibly you picked them too early. As you surely know there are early-season, mid-season, and late-season hop varieties. Perhaps yours is a late-season one, at least where you live anyway? When you rub them back and forth between your palms until they break open, can you see any bright yellow resin? That forms late in the season, and really only builds up to the point we're used to shortly before harvest.

[Wonkydonkey]

What sort of yield did everyone get this year? Just asking, because mine was well down. Both my 6-year-old Fuggles and the 3-year-old EKGs in my sister's garden across London had less than half their usual amounts. Has it been a bad year in general?

I got challenger, 5th-ish yr, very good crop
Santium 5th-ish yr very poor, it's got/gets wilt
Uk cascade 2nd yr very good but a lot of small cones
Nugget 2nd yr nothing , it almost died, I must give it more TLC
And some other hop plant that I can't remember the name of, which a friend gave me a few yrs back, not bad crop/average crop.

So dried weight was about 1.2 kg. and that's not counting that a friend help me and he got about 500g dry weight

But as Seymour says early late etc, as it was the 1st yr picking the cascade, I'm not to sure on the best time to pick yet, and I think I did pick them a bit early.
But I have brewed with them (about 100g late additions in the boil and still in the fv) so time will tell on the beer with or without an aroma

[BenB]

I think they're just confused after being planted late. The fuggles flowered the other varieties didn't- the cones feel quite dry. I'll leave the other four cones (!) to see what happens. I just think they're building up reserves for next year.

[scuppeteer]

Cascade are a very late hop here. My friends only picked theirs last Saturday and could really have done with a few more days. Their farm is in East Sussex.

[Wonkydonkey]

Cascade are a very late hop here. My friends only picked theirs last Saturday and could really have done with a few more days. Their farm is in East Sussex.

Thanks,
So I picked them about 2-and a bit wks early, but that's the thing with the first crop, you never really know the best time, so I guess I'll more than likely have to rescue it with some dry hopping, but not before I taste it

[pottolom]

Right, I'm finished with my hop growing for the year now.

My previous post from a couple of days back showed my Prima Donna plant and the picked hops. One of the photos below shows them drying in my porch, which might give a better idea of how many cones there were. I left them there for a couple of days with a dehumidifier, after which they seemed to have dried very nicely.

I've now put them into two freezer bags (compressed by kneeling on them!) and put them into my freezer for storage until I get time to do some brewing.

Total dry weight: about 350g (12 oz.). No idea if this is good for a first year Prima Donna plant.

They smell *very* good - with a strong aroma, very orange-like.

[VesPacelli]

Pottolom: It must be nice to get those harvested, dried and into freezer bags. Well done.

I'm hoping to pick mine over the next few days, one Fuggles and a Northern Brewer which were planted from a rhizome in Feb. Hope the weather stays fine, I'll post some pics when I harvest them.

[jmc]

What sort of yield did everyone get this year? Just asking, because mine was well down. Both my 6-year-old Fuggles and the 3-year-old EKGs in my sister's garden across London had less than half their usual amounts. Has it been a bad year in general?

My crop was awful, mainly due to aphids but I don't think weather helped.

I only took a crop off my cascade (3 year's old).

Progress produced just a few cones, and same with first gold, neither worth cropping

Worst was a Cobb (Golding) , nearly killed by aphids and some sort of leaf disease that got hold afterwards.

[andyCo]

Poor crop here too.

700g of cascade wet, which was only off two bines as like a numb nut I went a bit cutting back crazy ......doh
Sazz, challenger, northdown and diva sod all really.My American Chinock was planted really late on and didn't produce any cones but I didn't expect any tbh.
Mine got attacked early with aphids too.
All plants except for the chinock are 2nd year.
Sazz plant went off like rocket and but smashed by the little buggers.

Andy