Pictured just before harvest, bines late in the growing season can resemble curtains as they are thick and full. Hops also attach at the top of the trellis, resulting in a crossover in the canopy shown in the distance.
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A closeup of a galena hop close to harvest – looking closely, lupulin specs are visible.
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Pictured just before harvest, bines late in the growing season can resemble curtains as they are thick and full. Hops also attach at the top of the trellis, resulting in a crossover in the canopy shown in the distance.
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Before they take on their cone shape, hops start off as burrs. Here is a hop cone in early August, harvested in September.
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Growers are always reinvesting in their equipment to bring the best possible hops to consumers – pictured here is a brand new facility in its first harvest. This is a new system where large heaps of hops are loaded up and the bines get chopped into smaller pieces and the cones are stripped and separated from the leaves.
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When the bines are stripped of the cones, the leaves come off as well. Having the hops and leaves go through a number of belts, gravity naturally separates the two, ensuring bales are packed full with hops.
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After hops are separated, they make their way to a conveyor belt where they then move on to the kiln to be dried.
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More traditional picking machines see employees loading up each bine to go through the harvesting process.
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A top cutter disconnects from a truck full of hops so it can drive off to the picking facility and an empty truck ready to be filled up can take its place.
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A top cutter disconnects from a truck full of hops so it can drive off to the picking facility and an empty truck ready to be filled up can take its place.
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Each hop bale is hand sewn to seal in freshness. In the background, a hop baler presses 200 pounds of hops into a dense bale.
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Hops going through a gravity-driven filtering process, separating hops from leaves.
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A full load of hops is off to be picked on this picturesque hillside in Yakima Valley
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Most farms have harvesting facilities on-site, so this truck does not have far to go before picking these cones at their optimal freshness and getting them to a brew kettle near you!
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Split cone closeup in field – these cones within a few weeks of harvest are bursting with lupulin.
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