|
18th Century Oast House - Bed and Breakfast |
|
|
|
|
OAST HOUSE
THE HISTORY OF BISHOPSDALE OAST
|
Bishopsdale Oast was a working oast until the 1950's. It was then empty for thirty years, and became a ruin, as can be seen from the picture. In 1984 it was converted to a house, whilst still retaining many of the features of the original building. |
OAST HOUSES - DESCRIPTION AND USE
Oast
Houses were used for drying hops, which are
the most important ingredient of beer after barley.
|
The oast houses were used for the drying process, which involved spreading the hops on horse hair blankets over the drying room floors. The drying process took approximately eight hours, and was monitored very carefully by the Dryer, who had to ensure that the water content of the dried hop was very small. The value of the dried hop for brewing purposes would drop if the hops were not dried correctly. Once the hops were dried and cooled, they had to be packed into six foot high 'pockets'. Each hop pocket had to be packed tightly, and prior to the introduction of the hop press this job was carried out by the Bagster. When the pockets were filled they were sewn up, leaving two 'ears' for easier handling. The pockets were weighed, stencilled showing the year, origin, grower and sack number to avoid fraud amongst hop growers. |