Come Harvest time there is a lot of work involved when tasked with harvesting hops. It can take a single person roughly an hour to hand pick would doesn't even possibly seem like a full pound of green deliciousness.
Once the hops are harvested, it is important to grade the hops so you do not send poor quality cones to the brewers. It also important to make sure that if you are harvested multiple varieties that you try and harvest as best you can one single variety at a time. This will reduce the risk of mixing hops, especially if you have lots of hop helpers out to pick with you.
Its a tradition now of sorts to let the girls grade some of the hops. I am not sure at what point my girls will no longer think its fun but until then its really cool to see them have fun with it.
My girls like the crazy smells of Virginia Nugget and Chinook hops the best! Nothing like sticky, green fingers after working with all the hop buckets.
Its also important to document exactly the date and time of the harvest as well as if any of the rows where the hops are harvested had any chemical sprays used to combat things like mildew or mites. The reason for this is chemical sprays will leave a residual impact on the leaves of the hop and brewers should be informed of this fact as "wet" hops are thrown directly in the boil while brewing.
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