Rather excitingly, we have recently invested over £100,000 into our facilities on the back of customer feedback and encouragement, purchasing a much sought after hop pellet mill.
Since launching last year, business has boomed due to the popularity of not just home grown, locally sourced hops but also the unique aromas that come from our hops which are grown in the rich, red, Herefordshire soil.
We have been asked a lot by customers to provide pelleted hops alongside our whole leaf offerings. Being a business which prides itself on its care for customers, we readily invested in the new pellet mill which was just installed at our farm in Bromyard, just outside the Malvern Hills in Herefordshire.
“Our main goal is to serve the needs of brewers, so we are building relationships with them and trading in ways that benefit both parties.” says Sales Manager, Sebastian Nielsen, “that means selling hops directly and sourcing interesting and unique varieties, which we can do thanks to our farm relationships across the globe. When customers started asking for our hops in pellet form, we took the decision to seriously consider the request.”
So last month, we decided to take the plunge and made a 6 figure investment into a state of the art, low-temperature pellet processing facility. It was fundamental to us that no corners were cut on this project, so the equipment we sourced had to be strictly top of the line.
Brook House hops going in to the pellet mill to be transformed into pellets
Owner Will Kirby notes: “the key to the pellet creation process is cooling and making sure the pellets do not reach high temperatures, as this would mean they lose their vitality, flavour and aroma. Brewers want the freshest hops and we wanted a solution which gave us pellets but maintained that Brook House freshness.
“Happily, we have achieved that with this investment! The pellets crumble beautifully when rubbed in your hand but are not so soft that they can’t withhold storage, handling and transportation activity. Our pellets also go straight into a cold store after being nitrogen flushed and vacuum sealed, where they are stored between 0-5 centigrade to maintain freshness. Quality is so important to us and we think we have invested in the perfect solution.”
Farm Worker Robert Demczuk with the laser temperature gun, monitoring temperatures
After a week of setting up the equipment and testing the process, the team are now in full production. Pellets are going through industry leading processing procedures at low temperatures and then going straight to the cold store.
“This investment symbolises our commitment to quality” Sebastian adds, “brewers want high-quality pellets that dissolve properly in their brewing process. This is a state of the art pellet mill and our goal is to make the best pellets on the market.”
In the spirit of collaboration, we initially sent out samples to a few select few customers who volunteered to help them get the consistency spot on, now they are available for sale on our online shop and via their sales team.
