Growing Hops with Jason Perrault – BeerSmith Podcast 41

by Brad Smith on June 29, 2012 · 7 comments

This week my guest is Jason Perrault, a fourth generation hop grower from Perrault Farms. Jason joins us to talk about how to grow hops at home, and along the way we also talk about how to store and use fresh hops to enhance your homebrew.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (37:48)

  • Jason Perrault is my guest this week. Jason is a fourth generation hop grower who works for his family run business Perrault Farms in the Yakima valley. Perrault farms specializes in both conventional and organically grown craft beer hops including Simcoe, Summit, Ahtanum, Cascade, Citra, Palisade and the new Mosaic hops. Jason is also a hop breeder for Select Botanicals Group LLC, and a member of Hop Breeding Co, LLC
  • Jason starts with a bit about his family business Perrault farms which was established in 1902 (102 years ago) in the Yakima valley
  • We discuss how the high desert makes Yakima valley a very good location for growing hops
  • Jason tells us how you can get started growing hops at home
  • He shares his tips for planting rhizomes and fertilizing them
  • We discuss how much to water them, when to feed them, and how to care for them
  • Jason tells us how to train the hop bines to grow up a trellis
  • We talk about how to determine when the hop cones are ready to harvest
  • Jason talks about how to dry and then store your hop cones after picking them
  • He shares a few of his favorite hops as well as which hops he sells the most of (Simcoe!)
  • Jason shares a few of his tips for homebrewers

Thanks to Jason Perrault for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!

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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

Gary July 17, 2012 at 5:58 am

Jason really knows his stuff, I enjoyed listening and hope to try out some of those home growing tips.

Very interesting, thanks guys!

Ron July 25, 2012 at 9:12 am

I might not have been listening intently enough, but what was the type of fertilizer Jason uses for growing organic hops?

Brad Smith August 11, 2012 at 1:26 pm

I don’t think he said specifically but something nitrogen rich like manure would probably work great.

Maplehead74 February 26, 2013 at 8:08 pm

He said a ” balanced fertilizer” that in plant speak means 20-20-20, 10-10-10 , 5-5-5 …I would tend towards a 10-10-10 to much N ( nitrogen the first number can burn plants ) he also said during times of high growth you can do an extra ( N) application that would look like 10- 0-0 or similar . Manure would be fine , but needs to be composted first . Fresh manure will also burn plants. Also , you don’t know the analysis on it making it hard to know how much to use.
If trying to grow organic I would try fish emulsion for your extra (N) it commonly comes in 5-1-1 and is available at most garden departments or online ( amazon, eBay ..)

Happy growing 🙂

Bill April 14, 2016 at 4:56 pm

At less than 130 degrees in the dehydrator as Jason suggests, how many hours would it need to reach the recommended 10% dryness?

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