Hopfenernte - Tag 4: Duftsauna

Hop harvest - Day 4: Scented Sauna

Slowly but surely it's getting frightening how smoothly everything is working this year. The machinery clicks like clockwork and the weather is still perfect.

Today's blip finally shows my place of work - the kiln. It is made up of three layers, lying upon each other. Pictured is the top layer of the kiln, where the raw hop cones are filled in. The drying process runs at a constant temperature of 62-64°C. The humidity in the top chamber initially is close to 100% - basically a hop scented steam sauna. When the humidity is down to approximately 60% (after around 90 minutes) the hop cones are dumped down to the middle layer, where it sits another 90 minutes. The lowest layer is basically a huge drawer, so you can get the hop cones out of the kiln. The target water content (of the hop cones themselves that is) is 9.0-10.5% in the last chamber - rather tricky, especially because I don't have any fancy devices to measure the humidity or water content, besides my bare hands.

Also, I had half a day off today to attend a birthday party at Sylvensteinspeicher.