Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hop Shortage? GROW YER OWN!

Howdy once more, dear readers.
I had a very rare opportunity this last week. As many of you know, hops are vital to brewing and said hops have become somewhat scare and very expensive. Well, a few years ago, I planted some hop vines around our brewery in Polson. I wanted them more for the visual impact than the actual hop cones. These vines have been, well, growing like a weed every summer. The oldest one achieving over a foot of growth per day at peak growing time! Well, these vines have also beer producing a respectable crop of hop cones every year so, of course, I thought "Why don't I harvest these and use them in a specialty beer?"
That's just what I'm doing. Before I use them in the brewkettle, however. I wanted to get them into a form that would allow me maximum utilization. Normally I use hops in a pelletized form. But I lack the equipment to force the whole hops into tight little pellets. I do have the ability to make the next best thing; hop plugs!
So, after I spent a couple of beautiful, Montana afternoons harvesting the hop cones, I began the process of converting them into plugs:
First. I dried the hop cones in my food dehyrators for about five hours.
Second, the dried hops needed to be pulverized into a powderized form for better access to the ever-elusive hop oils.
Third, the pulverized hops were loaded into the plug form (aka piece of PVC pipe!).
Fourth, I compressed the pulverized hops in the plug form using a custom-made hop plunger (I love my wood lathe!).
Fifth, a 12-pound sledge hammer gently compresses the hops in the form tighter and tighter.
Sixth, I left the plug form full overnight to ensure the hops would keep the shape.
Finally, the new hop plug is extracted from the form and vacuum sealed for future brews!








So far, this process, while being very labor-intensive, has yielded some surprisingly good plugs! I'm pretty anxious to get these guys into a brew sometime this fall or winter. It'll be like a pint of Montana summer in the winter duldrums! We're also planning on erecting some hop poles in our beer garden and utilize that space as a "hop garden". It's gonna be a lot of work but it'll pay off visually and hop-wize!
Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer!

6 comments:

Jason Hirsch said...

Awesome idea- Have you had any more luck doing this? Did you find a resource that described starting out on it?

Unknown said...

I started 3 rhizomes this spring hoping to have enough for a 5 gallon batch of home brew, but only had enough growth this year for a pint at best. a measly 4 hop cones!! maybe next year.
your Mohawked friend
James

Glacier Brewing Company said...

Hi Jason,
Nope, I didn't find any resource on this, I just figured out what I needed to do. It is actually quite easy. Luck to ya'!

Glacier Brewing Company said...

Hiya' James,
It's been my experience that hops will begin to produce a harvestable crop two to three years after planting, depending on species. Cut 'em back about five inches above the ground this winter and watch 'em go next year!
Dave

billvelek said...

Hi, Dave. Are you vacuum packaging the plugs? If so, I'm curious many many ounces you're able to get into what size bag (pint?, quart?, etc.), and how well the air seems to vacuum given that plugs are not going to be as compressible as loose hop cones. Also, I hope you will post a follow up to let us know if the plugs remain intact very well when moved around in the freezer, etc. I'm not criticizing the idea of making plugs or your methods; I'm just wondering if it will be worth the trouble for me to try it next year.

By the way, I hope you are a member of my 'Grow-Hops' group which now has 2,400 members, and is primarily about growing hops. If interested, please visit: www.tinyurl.com/29zr8r

Cheers.

Bill Velek

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