So the months seem to have dragged on. But like most of the country the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger. With reports of devastation around the world destroying hop crops with floods and storms, I’m feeling very lucky farming away in my indoor hop yard. It reminds me of the scene from Forrest Gump with Lieutenant Dan Taylor and the shrimp boat. Sadly we are still way off feeding the world with hops, but one can dream. 

But saying that, we are extremely happy with this year’s harvest. The hops have all grown strong and healthy. The plants are now (beginning of August) sending out new growth in burrs on which the hop flowers will develop. We will soon find out whether our temporary hop shelter has done its job.

In a few weeks, we have to make a decision on how to treat our harvest this year. If the harvest goes well, it will be too large for our own drying equipment, but too small to dry commercially. One idea we are considering, and will definitely be doing one way or another, is extracting oil from our hops.

We’ve been working closely with a company that specialises in distilling equipment to help develop a system to fit onto our Brew Tank. Allowing our customers to brew something with a little more kick using steam distillation. 

My plan is to adapt this equipment to extract oil from our harvest. This is done by boiling water in a Brew Tank full of hops; the steam then passes through the hops, breaking down the oil compounds. This steam carries the oils up and out of the Brew Tank. Then the steam travels through a condenser. A condenser simply cools the steam down to liquid form. The liquid is then collected and as oil always floats to the top, you can then siphon off the oil. Sounds simple, right? Well, I’ll tell you how it goes in the next issue...

A quick shout out to all our customers who have pre-ordered our Brew Tank. It has been an amazing and humbling experience talking to a lot of you. Sharing stories of homebrewing and the passion we all share. We have now pre-sold over fifty percent of our stock and it hasn’t even arrived yet! It’s been great to hear that the concept behind the Brew Tank design is what a lot of you have been looking for. There is still plenty more to come from us - we have huge plans for the Brew Tank and are developing accessories to allow you full control over how you brew. 

I’m off to enjoy my lovely German Doppelbock - though at 7.8% it’ll probably just be the one. Well, maybe two... :)