I am almost recovered from Yakimania. Hosted by Ralph Olson at the Hop Union this is an event for homebrewers to come together, taste each others brews, tour hop fields and see how hops are processed. This years event began on a saturday morning and finished fairly late that night. I learned quite a bit, drank a few beers and met some great people.
The day started at the Hop Union. Harvested hops are brought there to be pelletized and shipped to
commercial brewers. We checked in around 11am and had a chance to mingle and sample each others beers before
lunch was rolled out. This was happening in a big warehouse full of machinery not in use at the time. Ralph Olson gave a very nice presentation on hops and many of the homebrewers grilled him for additional information. When you have the king of hops in front of you, that's the time to ask questions!
We split up into small groups and mine went on a walking tour around the pelletizing equipment. The hops look like little green pine cones. The magical part of hops is the lupulin which appears
as little yellow powder inside the cone. The goal of the
pelletizer is to chew up the cones and then push the material through a mold to produce what looks like rabbit food
pellets but smells like the strongest flowers imaginable.
Pelletized hops have many advantages over hop cones. They store longer, take up less space and their chemical composition is a tested and known factor which makes beer production easier. The pellets are stored in foil bags and purged with nitrogen before they are shipped out.
We then moved on to the unloading dock where the hops arrive on a flatbed
truck in 200 pound bales. The first thing that happens, once the bales are unloaded, is a temperature check. Some varieties of hops have a nasty habit of spontaneously catching fire if they get too hot. You don't want that happening inside the warehouse! They also check the water content. There are two reasons for that. One is the hops need to be dry enough to run through the pelletizer and the other is that hops are purchased by weight. Nobody wants to buy water stored in the hops! Next a core sample is taken and sent to the lab. This is where they determine the alpha acid (bittering capability) which can affect the price. A brewer wouldn't pay as much per pound for hops with a 7% alpha acid rating as they would for 9% since they would have to use more hops to make the beer.
The hops are then stored in a warehouse until they are ready to
be processed. Walking into one of these warehouses is
something like walking into heaven for a home brewer. The aroma of hops is heavy in theair. I've seen more than one person hug a bale of hops. Here is the question of the century, why don't they sell hop aromas for the house? Mine house just smells like sage. Ralph reminded us that storing hops in the warehouse requires constant monitoring to ensure a hop bale doesn't catch fire as happened two years ago in a nearby warehouse. Two million pounds of hops were lost in that fire.
Our tour continued to follow the life of the hop in a backwards fashion.
After seeing how it would be processed at the end of it's life we went out to Mike Smith's ranch to see how the hops are handled prior to being shipped to the Hop Union. Walking into the warehouse we saw dozens of vines hanging upside down from hooks. These vines go through a machine that strips off the cones and the leaves, leaving the vine looking like a shredded green...vine. This machine looks like a huge grater
so don't stick your arm in. Next the cones and leaves go over a series of belts at a particular angle. This causes the cones to roll down the belts and the leaves to sit flat on the belt, thus separating them. This goes on for several iterations until the cones are all by themselves and ready to be dried. They follow a belt high above the ground from this building into the drying plant. The leaves follow a different belt and are composted and used for fertilizer.
So now our merry band moved on to the drying plant. This place is huge.
The first floor is made up of the most massive drying machines I have ever seen. Think of a hair blow dryer that is 32x32ft and there were a bunch of them shooting hot air up through a grate to the hops. On the second floor the hops are piled two feet (it varies) high but don't jump in, hops will scratch the heck out of you. The hops are dried to around
10% of their original weight in this room.
As all of the moisture comes out of the hops the room becomes a sauna. The heat was unbelievable and fogged everyone's glasses and camera lenses. There is some risk of fire at this point as the hops will combust at a fairly low temperature. While the aroma was wonderful it was a short visit and we ushered ourselves fairly quickly through this section.
The last part of our tour took us to the
hop field itself. We learned that the hop root is perennial (it survives the winter) while the vine itself is an annual. The length of daylight in Yakima is perfect to signal the vine to grow and then produce cones at just the right time. We talked at great length regarding mites and other predators. We broke the cones, rubbed them on our hands and smelled the wonderful wonderful aroma of hops as fresh as they possibly can be. Then came the machinery.
Imagine a group of men all grunting like Tim The Toolman. First comes the cutter on a small truck. This machine cuts the vines off about 3-4ft above
the ground. The energy stored in the remaining vine will flow back into the roots and preserve it for the winter. Then comes the harvesting machine in two parts. In front is a simple pickup truck with a flatbed and tall sides. The engine isn't turned on. Behind is a tractor pushing the truck but also holding up high a cutting device that removes the hop vine from the twine. You can watch a movie of this in action by clicking here.
Wrapping up the day we headed back to the Hop Union
were we enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by Rob Brown from the YEAST home brew club. BBQ chicken, brats, and corn on the cob. A few beers and cigars later the evening was over. I was tired but very satisfied.
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