Tess Weigand Joshua Brock
Happy Valley Hop Yard is a one
acre yard in Coburn that has been
providing local breweries with hops
for three years. Currently growing
Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook.
Tess has a degree in agronomy from
Penn State and works as an
inspector and certification specialist
for PCO.
Joshua is the owner-operator of
Hoffman Appalachian Farm, located
in Saint Marys (Elk County), PA.
Starting in 2015 with 30 hops
rhizomes, and now with a recently
completed 1 acre/450+ plant
expansion, Hoffman Appalachian
Farm is entering their 3rd year of
growing five varieties of hops all for
their local brewery Straub Brewery.

Commonwealth Hops
We want to bring hop Farmer’s finished products to the
Commonwealth’s growing number of craft breweries efficiently and
cost-effectively.
We Provide…
Capital-intensive infrastructure and expertise
To Reduce…
Instability in local hops supply
And…
To bolster the growth of a locally sourced, consistent and
quality hop market in Pennsylvania!
Take the Hassel Out of Harvesting! Let us:
Harvest, Pelletize, Package, Consult, and bulk order your hopyard
supplies

Set yourself up for success!
 Site selection
 Soil testing
 Varietal pre-planning with
clients
 Networking
 Trellis design

From: http://www.organarchyhops.com/pages/managed-growers

Establishing Your Yard
 Soil preferences- pH of 5.5-8, well drained, lots of organic
matter, inter-row planning (soil testing!)
 Planting- plant spacing within your trellis and by variety
 Soil amendments pre-planting
 Irrigation

Growing Season
 Training bines-(usually mid-April in central PA), clockwise
 Pruning/disease prevention- bine selection and leaf removal
 Weed suppression- fabrics, torches, tilling
 Constant scouting for pest/disease
 Fertility/irrigation- need 30inches during the growing
season (16gallons/week/plant)
 A mature yard of 1 acre can consume between 100 and 240
pounds of N during the growing season, but only 10% before
May. Most occurs during June.

Harvest
 Knowing when to harvest is key. This will differ by variety
 Know your moisture content/test for DM
 Cone development will help you learn when you should
start testing
 Mechanical vs. Hand Harvest

Take a break to enjoy!

Post-Harvest
 Drying
 Packaging
 Pelletizing
 Storage

Drying
 Unless you (or your buddy or your favorite brewery) is
using your hops fresh / wet / green, they must be dried
 Capturing the essence of that 80% moisture level is critical!
 Need to be dried quickly and in a controlled fashion
 Heat, light, oxygen are our enemies
 Drying for whole cone form or pellets?

Drying – Testing for
Harvest
 Hops should be dried to a moisture content of 8% - 10%
 Too much moisture = spoilage and mold growth
 Over drying = lose aroma compounds, cones shatter,
spontaneous combustion
 Beneficial to remove moisture quickly with relatively low
heat
 Roughly 135F for approximately 8-10 hours
 We are seeking a uniformly dry hop bed

Drying – Testing for
Harvest

Drying – Testing for
Harvest
 Testing moisture content while drying
 Collect fresh sample (100g, several side arms), weigh them and
dry down to 0% moisture.
 NOTE: As noted, each variety is ready at different times. Do not mix
samples when testing for moisture content. You can dry then
concurrently, just in different trays
 When weighing, use a scale that goes to 10ths of a gram
 Either “tare out” the weight of the container of hops or remember
to subtract that weight out from your calculation
 Drying hops…
 Overnight in a food dehydrator at 140 – 150F
 In a Koster Moisture Tester
 Microwave oven (remove and stir contents every minute or so to
prevent scorching)

Drying – Testing for
Harvest
 Once at stable weight, hops are at 0% moisture
 Weigh dry hops, record in grams, calculate % dry matter…
 Hops should be dried down to 8-12% moisture (88-92% dry
matter)

Drying – Testing In Oast

Drying – Testing In Oast
 Small subsample used to determine moisture content of a
large oast
 Use porous, mesh bag – large enough for several handfuls of
hop cones
 Weigh bag in grams, record
 Subsample to equal 100g
 Place mesh bag into center of oast
 As we know weight of sample, we can calculate eight at 92%
dry matter (8% moisture)

Drying – Testing In Oast

Drying – Testing In Oast
UVM - Determining Hop Harvest Moisture and Ideal Storage Dry Matter

Packaging
 How long will hops last?
 ”It depends” ;-)
 Kept cold and oxygen free, can last 1-2 years
 Hops brokers will sell pelletized and vacuum-sealed hops from 2-
3 seasons ago
 Commercial breweries can use last year’s crop into current harvest
 Hops considered “bad” until they get below 50% or original a-acid
value…”cheesy” aroma
 Storage stability is determined by measuring the loss of alpha-
acids after a set standard temperature and time

Packaging – Home brewing
or small brewery
 Vacuum packing / inert-gas with oxygen barrier
 “Boiling bag” – clear, lamination of two type of plastic
 Inner layer food-grade polyethylene
 Not a great oxygen barrier, but does seal well with heat
 Outer layer mylar or nylon
 Multi-layered aluminum pack (“foil bag” or “pouch”)
 Protects hops from exposure to light and oxygen
 Layer of aluminum, increases barrier protection
 Doubles cost

Packaging – Home brewing
or small brewery

Packaging – Baling

Pelletizing
 Pellets prevalent in brewing as they deteriorate more slowly
than whole hops
 Microbrewers prefer them because…
 Easier to remove from the wort (whirlpool separator)
 Take up less storage space
 Hammer-milled into a powder and the powder
subsequently pelletized by passing through a conventional
pellet die
 One pound of hop cones can yield about 10 to 12 ounces of
pellets

Pelletizing
 Contain all the vegetative and lupulin material of raw leaf
hops
 Can be used as a full replacement for leaf hops in the
brewing process
 On average the equivalent amount of hops pellets can
impart 10-15% more bitterness than whole leaf hops
 Hops pellets are generally packaged under vacuum or in an
inert gas such as nitrogen to reduce the rate of deterioration
 Their lighter weight and compressed state also make them
easier to store and less susceptible to spoilage

Pelletizing

Storage
 For optimum preservation of hop’s qualities, they should be
stored as cold as possible (30 to -5 degrees F)
 Slows oxidation process
 Precious hop oils including both aromatic and bittering oils
tend to break down over time, and old hops will lose aroma,
flavor and bitterness as they age
 Stale hops will take on a cheesy or skunky flavor that can
ruin your beer
 Remember thy enemies: heat, light and oxygen
Source: Beersmith.com

Storage
 The speed of aging varies by hop variety
 The aging rate for a particular variety is measures using the
Hop Storage Index (HSI) - amount of hops alpha acid
potential lost in 6 months when the hops are stored at a
constant temperature of 68F
 Hops will last over three times as long as their HSI would
indicate if frozen and stored properly
 For example a hops with a starting alpha of 10% and HSI of
25% stored for 6 months would lose 25% of its alpha potential,
resulting in an new alpha rating of 7.5% if stored at 68F
 The same hops stored for 6 months at 28F (-2C) would only
lose 10% of its alpha acids leaving it at 9% alpha content
Source: Beersmith.com

Sources
 “Hops Harvest Moisture Determination"
 http://www.uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/wp-
content/uploads/Hop_harvest_fact_sheet.pdf
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfUYXu4-0-s
 ”Brewing Hops Storage: Preserving Precious Hops”
 http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/04/15/brewing-hops-
storage-preserving-precious-hops/
 “Hop Storage: How to Get - and Keep - Your Hops'
Optimum Value”
 https://www.morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/bac
kissues/issue2.1/garetz.html

Sources
 “Post-Harvest Hop Quality”
 Tim Kostelecky, John I. Haas, Inc. – Yakima, WA
 http://www.uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/wp-
content/uploads/VT-Hop-Conf-Kostelecky.pdf
 “3 Things Every Brewer Should Know About Hops and Food
Safety”
 https://hopdoctor.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/3-things-every-
brewer-should-know-about-hops-and-food-safety/
 “The Business of Hops: Craft Professionals Share Advice From
Farming to Contracting”
 https://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/ingredients-
supplies/business-hops-beer-advice-farming-contracting/

Sources
 Disease/Pest Photos and info-
http://careyinstitute.org/wp-
content/uploads/Alison_Identifying-and-Managing-
Diseases-of-Hops.pptx.pdf
 Spider Mite photo:
http://www.uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/wp-
content/uploads/Millerspidermite11.pdf