Growing Hops

After heavily watering my thirsty hops, I had a near disaster. The string supporting everything broke. Luckily, everyone seems to have come through it unharmed and they are within a week of picking. This is my first hop crop. I was planning on laying them on screens with a fan blowing across them until they dry. Anybody have experience with this and/or have a better idea?

I was going to freeze them in airtight bags. Any other suggestions?

Looks like I've have a couple pounds of Cascade soon.

- Hare

Wowzahz dude!
I wish I had a plant that looked like that.
I've got a coneless tangle for the first five feet, the a single bine with pairs of cones going up the next five.

I don't have the technology for posting pics or I would.
I was ready to buy a digital camera but the power company did an upgrade and blew out a thousand dollars worth of appliances.
They are only liable for what a lawyer I can afford will prove them liable, or in other words I'm saving my money to buy a new stove.

Good lord. How does one blow out a stove? (Don't tell me. I'm sure it's not pretty.)

I have two stands of about 30 plants each. I have 3 plants per vertical string (more or less) and 10 vertical strings tied to a horizontal string. (Get the idea?) One set is about 15 feet tall and the other set is about 10 feet tall. With that as background...

The long shot you see is the side of my garage where the horizontal string gave way. That is about half the length of the horizontal strong hanging down AFTER the string broke.

The closeup is just the top of one vertical string at the top of the horizontal string on the shorter set which did not give way. (Yet.)

I should have broken out the macro lens and taken a closeup of one flower. The lupin glands are big, yellow and, as yet, unbroken.

Hope that makes you feel better.

Tim

Here's what they looked like when they were growing on unbroken string. Of course, this was quit a lot earlier in the season...

http://flickr.com/photos/harebaremi/2588076846/

- Hare

Good lord. How does one blow out a stove? (Don't tell me. I'm sure it's not pretty.)

Click to expand...

They put 19,000V into a transformer rated for 7,000V.
I'm pretty fortunate, I'm only out $800.  The folks across the street lost almost everything but their stove.  Probably $10K worth.

However since I cannot afford a lawyer and they have more money than God...

On the hop subject, I'm totally psyched for you.  Do you plan on measuring the Alpha levels and if so how?