(Not my) backyard hops

One of the crappy things about leaving Vancouver so unexpectedly was that I couldn't harvest the hops I'd planted on the roof of our coop this spring.

On the advice of a coworker, one of the first things I did upon moving to Burlington was to join Front Porch Forum, a daily emailed digest of news and offerings in the neighborhood. Is this a great place or what?! To my good fortune, someone down the street posted that they had hops to give away. Yes, please.

These friendly folks had been using them as a cover for their backyard chicken coop and it was time to make things sunny again. This was some of the "before".

 This is what I harvested:

 About three hours and ten very sticky fingers later, this was my haul:

The engineer in me had to measure their moisture content and be sure that I dried and stored them at the recommended 8-12% moisture range. I hit the middle. A few days later I tallied the finished product at 2lbs, 15oz. Enough for 3-5 batches of beer. Now, if only I knew which varieties I was working with! The kitchen smelled amazing.