So this is my first year growing hops and the results have been pretty fantastic. My hops are ready to harvest and I built an oast using window screens, 2x4s, and a box fan but a friend just offered to let me use a dehydrator.
From what I’ve read the lower the temperature the better and the lowest setting on the dehydrator is 95 while the oast would sit in a room temperature of probably the upper 60s but would also take significantly longer than a dehydrator.
So I am looking for opinions on which I should use and why?
I think either way you’ll be fine and highly doubt that at 95F you’ll cause any appreciable damage to them but they’ll finish drying up a little quicker. If I had the option I’d dry half of them with the dehydrator and the other half with the fan to see for yourself!
Commercially, hops are dried at 120-130F. The faster the better as long as they don’t get too hot. I get far superior results using a dehydrator set to those temps than drying them more slowly.
Breaking the cones open and rubbing/sniffing is the way to do it. If the lupulin glands are in tact (unbroken), you really shouldn’t smell a whole lot. Mash them up in between your hands and you’ll get a good idea of what they hold.
Denny, at the event out there earlier in August, I think I remember hearing Perrault Farms mention they were at about 135F and a grower down near Woodburn, OR said they were trying to stay around 130F. It’s hard for them to go any lower due to the increased time it takes to get them dried coupled with the additional acreage that has to be dried. Adding drying capacity is a really hefty investment but it’ll have to be done if acreage continues to increase like it has recently. O-44. The effect of kilning air temperature on hop essential oil content and aroma
Yes, you’re drying them too slowly. Hops will start to compost themselves within an hour of being picked. That’s why it’s important to dry them quickly.
agreed that 130 is the normal temp. That’s what they were using when I was at Perrault last year. I fudged it into a range for homebrewing purposes. I’ll be up there again next week so I’ll ask more questions.
I harvested the first and smallest of my four plants last week and tried to dry them in the oast. I got it down from 113grams to 29 grams in 3 days (most of that happened in the first 24 hours then I lost a few more grams over the last 48 hours). Assuming I harvested my hops at 80% moisture that’s an end result of about 22% moisture and the central stem definitely didn’t snap when I bent it. They sat inside probably at a room temperature ranging from 60-75 throughout the day/evening.
The only thing I can think of to eliminate that last little bit of moisture would be warmer temperature. Any other suggestions?
How much can you fit in a food deyhdrator at once? I was thinking of building the box fan/air filter “oast” but if it only takes a few batches I’d buy a dehydrator.
depends on how many trays you have for your dehydrator. IIRC, I had 6-7 trays and could fit 2-3 wet lb. at a time. when I have a chance I’ll check my notes t be certain.
[quote]How much can you fit in a food deyhdrator at once? I was thinking of building the box fan/air filter “oast” but if it only takes a few batches I’d buy a dehydrator.
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This is kind of why I didn’t want to use the dehydrator, it only had a few trays where my oast can hold a lot more.
I figured out a solution though. Since I figured the problem was the low temperature I first tried adding a small space heater next to the oast. This didn’t work well enough but when I covered up most of the back of the fan (I put the fan on top facing down) so that only a small space near the space heater was open, it only pulled in the warm air and this raised the temp. So I rebuilt the back of the fan with $6 piece of plywood from Home Depot with an opening for a mini space heater and the power cord only and hooked the space heater up to a temp controller. Kept the temperature between 85-90 and got my next batch of hops down to a 1/5 of the original weight in less than 24 hrs.