Hop harvest

My hops were finally ready to pick Sunday. I was afraid the days of rain we've had would ruin them, but no such thing. When we finally had a dry day, my hops were fine, and just ready for harvesting.

I shot this same branch in an earlier post. You can see how much the cones have grown in a week.


I picked more than 5 oz. of Sterling hops, and about 3 oz. of Cascade. Here's the Sterling. Btw, I didn't do anything to enhance the colors. Hops are really this beautiful.


I added my Cascade hops fresh into a pale ale I was brewing. I'd already added bittering hops (Super styrians) – you can tell by the hop gunk on the spoon and the sides of the brewpot. The fresh hops are just for aroma.


And there it goes. I've never had fresh hop beer, so I'm really looking forward to this.


As for the Sterling hops, they went into my new food dehydrator so I could ready them for later use. They'll be going into the Oktoberfest I brew later this month.


Here are the Sterling hops in a one-ounce, vacuum-sealed bag. I froze them for later. Once the hops were dried, they only weighed two ounces, so I have one more bag frozen with this one.

As for my fresh-hop pale, I tossed in Safale-04 Ale Yeast, and when I woke up for work 6 hours later, it was already happily bubbling away. That should have been a hint.

When I got home, the airlock was filled with green bubbles, and it was starting to bubble through the holes in the cover. As I was getting some sanitary solution together, I heard a hiss. It was spraying straight up against the ceiling of my closet, and onto my clothes, too.

I'm not sure why it overflowed. I had a gallon of empty space in my carboy, and it wasn't a high-gravity beer. But I do have a lot of beers that start fermenting vigorously, then die off almost completely after a few days. I'm not sure why.