Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

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floydmeddler
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Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by floydmeddler » Fri Aug 27, 2021 9:51 am

Hi guys,

I planted a Prima Donna / First Gold rhizome in my front garden a few yrs back for decorative purposes so I didn't do the usual cutting back to 4 bines. I just let them grow wild. It looks lovely this year. There are a load of hops on there. Because I didn't cut back to 4 bines, are these hops not as good quality as a result? Or are they worth brewing with?

Prob a stupid question but worth asking all the same!

Cheers,
Floyd

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Hanglow
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Hanglow » Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:56 pm

Hops are cut back to a few bines for ease of harvest in commercial hop yards, or to train them in a neat fashion where you want them to grow. You can just let them grow however they want too.

What you may find is that they mature at slightly different rates, but this can be handy for picking as you can pick them at peak condition over the course of a week or so.

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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Rookie » Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:33 pm

Definitely worth brewing with. You have to guess at the AA%, but if used mostly near the end of the boil, or after, it's not a big deal.
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Northern Brewer » Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:00 pm

Hanglow wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:56 pm
What you may find is that they mature at slightly different rates, but this can be handy for picking as you can pick them at peak condition over the course of a week or so.
Although that's not much help if you're not drying them but are wanting to use them immediately as green hops - they need to go into wort within 24 hours, ideally sooner. Kent breweries will start the boil, and then go to the hop farm to pick up their green hops.

It can work to have two pickings though - one used on brewday, and one for dry-hopping a week or two later.

And remember that you need a much greater weight of green hops compared to dry hops due to the extra water content - multiplying recipes by 7x should get you in about the right ballpark.

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floydmeddler
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by floydmeddler » Fri Aug 27, 2021 6:06 pm

Cheers guys. :-) Just what I wanted to hear. Plan is to use them green at 'flame out'. No need to worry about AA%. What are your thoughts on picking them as and when they're ripe then freezing them until I've picked them all?

Cheers,
Floyd

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An Ankoù
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by An Ankoù » Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:53 pm

I've got a few bines producing at the moment and I'm looking towards a few really days brewing. All my hops go in as late and flameout additions, using a neutral hop like magum or a hop of the same variety of known alpha content for bittering. I don't bother trying to keep any to use later. It tends to make great beer and Centennial, in particular, makes a perfumed beer when hopped this way. I haven't got First Gold, but I wouldn't hesitate to use them if I had.
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barneey
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by barneey » Sun Aug 29, 2021 7:56 pm

Green hop beers are IMHO well worth brewing, for a "proper" green hop brew nothing but green hops should be used. If you fancy cheating a little use a dried non distinct bittering hop (Magnum or similar) so you will at least get the bittering correct and use most your green hops late in the boil. I have found that 5 or 6 times seems to work in hop weight so if the recipe calls for say 50g of late hops x it by 5 or 6 for green. Also worth noting is to get the brew going and then picking the hops to throw in.

I have in the past dried my own hops & several members do dry their own, I prefer to use them green.

Hops are funny things in the past I have giving them lots of TLC but have found on a "home" growing level I've had better results by leaving them alone. In previous years the thing that kills /damages my hops the most is the wind / being surround on 3 sides by the N Sea or Channel doesn't help. At the end of last year I didn't cut the bines down after the growing season and this year I didnt touch them at all. They still managed to make their way up the strings. Not saying its the correct way to grow hops but there are plenty of wild hops in Kent that seem to grow just fine without human interaction.

One last thing make sure your boiler is big enough :)
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by floydmeddler » Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:36 am

Cheers Barneey. Some nice advice there. I'll prob do a 10L BIAB beer for this one. 100% MO, Magnum to bitter then late and hopefully secondary. Have you ever dry hopped with them?

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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by barneey » Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:58 am

I have personally never dried hopped with green, its quite remarkable the amount of bugs and other foreign natural matter that are in Green hops, that I wouldn't really want to put in the FV. My second concern would be the amount / scale of green hop volume in the FV.

So its not for me, maybe other members have dried hopped with green successfully or might have dried them before use, but in my mind a nice boil / or steep in hot liquor would kill off anything nasty contained in the hops.

I try to save as many ladybugs as possible before the hops go into the boiler if I spot anything else I remove them but I would imagine a lot of bugs still end up in the boiler.

Personally when brewing a green beer I normally go for a very simple pale ale recipe to let whatever green hops shine through.

I think I have enough hops this year to brew, I have just been out to pick a few (weather here is dull drizzle) whilst my fingers now smell of hops and there is some lupulin coating my fingers its going to be at least another week or two before they are ready. I hope the weather is hot and sunny over this period that and I am only able to brew at the weekends. IMHO if you pick / use the hops too early the results are poor and vegetable favours prominent.

I once bought some green hops from a supplier that were then shipped to me by courier, they had been picked too early and being in the transport system for 24+ hours hadn't done them any favours.

Pick and use on the same day :lol:
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An Ankoù
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by An Ankoù » Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:42 am

I have the same reservations about dry hopping with green hops. Cool the wort to 80C and chuck them in is as close as I get, but that's because they go straight from the bine and into the beer without saving any for later.
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Maldon John » Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:15 pm

I usually make a " hop tea" with some of mine. I draw off some boiling wort, cool -80c and add to 3 or 4 hop loaded large cafetiere's(acquired over the years). After steeping the resulting hop tea is added back post boil minus hop debris .

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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Cobnut » Tue Aug 31, 2021 1:57 pm

I have been given hops from a relative's allotment the past 2 years and have had reasonable success in drying them using a mesh lined box, fan heater (on cold) and a desk fan. The combined efforts of the 2 fans and a stir of the pile of hops a few times over a couple of days gets them down to the right sort of moisture content (not precisely measured).

This year I will be harvesting my own hops and plan to use the same methodology to dry them before vacuum packing and freezing.
Fermenting: Sunshine Marmalade
Conditioning: Festbier, Helles Bock
Drinking: Smoky, lager beer, Irish Export Stout, Hazelweiss 2023:2, Cascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, and more!

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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Rookie » Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:23 pm

Cobnut wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 1:57 pm
I have been given hops from a relative's allotment the past 2 years and have had reasonable success in drying them using a mesh lined box, fan heater (on cold) and a desk fan. The combined efforts of the 2 fans and a stir of the pile of hops a few times over a couple of days gets them down to the right sort of moisture content (not precisely measured).

This year I will be harvesting my own hops and plan to use the same methodology to dry them before vacuum packing and freezing.
Air drying was used for many years.
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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by MashBag » Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:48 pm

Don't you find its a lot of work though, for the weights required?

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Re: Are my homegrown hops worth brewing with?

Post by Cobnut » Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:28 am

MashBag wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:48 pm
Don't you find its a lot of work though, for the weights required?
Not really when the hops were donated.

I'll let you know how I find harvesting and drying my own hops later in the autumn.

I have a small crop of Challenger to pick and dry and what looks like quite a significant (for their first year) crop of Cascade.
Fermenting: Sunshine Marmalade
Conditioning: Festbier, Helles Bock
Drinking: Smoky, lager beer, Irish Export Stout, Hazelweiss 2023:2, Cascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, and more!

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