Growing your own hops for home brewing is easy and fun. In this video we give a brief overview of where we grew our cascade hop vine, how we brought the vine down and how we harvested the flowers.
A rope was provided for the vine to grow upward. We strung a rope from a stake in the ground up through 2 eye hooks in the peak of the roof and back down to a second stake in the ground. There were originally 2 hop rhizomes, but the other variety (chinook) did not mature.
By mid August in our area (mid west US) our hop flowers had fully matured to the point that the tips of the flower leaves had turned yellowish brown and became almost papery.
We cut the rope from the peak of the house and from the stake and cut all of the small hop vines from the ground. We plucked all of the flowers from the vines and laid the hops on furnace filters to promote air flow while the hops are drying. The furnace filters were placed in a dark cool spot in the basement in order to dry for several days. After drying the hops can be added to an in process brew or froze for future use.