Cube hopping with whole hops

[RelaxedBrewer]

I have kindly been given a fair amount of hops from this years harvest from a friend. The hops have been dried and vacuum sealed and seem in good order.

I want to use them in some hoppy APA styles but I am a no chiller. I have been cube hopping with pellets a lot and have had great success.

I have never used whole hops before. I remember reading that the utilization of whole hops is reduced and my brewing software seems to account for that. But I also remember reading that using whole hops in the cube was not a good idea as the whole hops need the turbulence of the boil to help get their oils out.

Does anyone have any experience using whole hops for cube hopping? What was their method?
I was thinking that maybe I should cut the hops up and give the cubes a shake to help them out a bit.

Of coarse I don't know the actual AA% of the hops and I am just using the average for that hop so it is all a bit of guess work anyway.

 

[RelaxedBrewer]

No one has cubed hopped with flowers before?

 

[goatus]

Almost impossible to estimate the AA% in my experience, but luckily as its just the cube hop addition (roughly equilivant to a 5 - 10 minute addition on my equipment) it wont affect your brews IBUs all that much anyway. Make a guestimate and just go for it (I usually shave 25% off the standard AA% for the hop variety for homegrown flowers [no science behind this, but seems to work out]).

I have found that using wet flowers (I only have experience with cascade) as a dryhop gives off grassiness a lot quicker than dried, so I would suggest no more than 3 days as a dryhop. So perhaps dont leave it in the cube for too long before pitching also. All guesswork tho.. you will make beer either way =)

Edit: just read they were dried, ignore the last paragraph ;-)

Edit 2: dont shake a hot cube - oxegenation etc

 

[indica86]

Edit 2: dont shake a hot cube - oxegenation etc

A properly squeezed cube will not have air...

 

[manticle]

I've dry hopped with flowers. If they are home grown, they are an unknown so you'll just have to have a crack.

However flowers at any point will clog taps so use a bag or similar.

 

[kevo]

I've cube hopped with homegrown chinooks.

Not sure what went wrong - there was visible fermentation in the cube a few days later...

So - not sure if it was the cube that wasn't cleaned properly or an issue with the hops.
I bittered with pellets, then had whole hops in a 20 min whirlpool, then onto more hops in the cube. Maybe the wort wasn't still hot enough after the whirlpool to kill nasties on the hops? Who knows.

1060 Maris Otter and Chinook ... smelled of beans in the end.

Will be far more cautious next time!

Kev

 

[goatus]

A properly squeezed cube will not have air...

I may be using different cubes, but mine always has at least some air in the handle. I wouldnt want to shake that through hot wort.

 

[Aaron1.0]

I tried cube hopping recently and it is one week in the bottles, so looking forward to tasting it carbonated. It was an adaptation of the recipe from the old "Everyone should try this" thread.

The method I used was to do the initial additions as per the recipe and throw all hop additions 15mins and under into the cube.

Tasting the samples showed massive amounts of fruity hop flavour that I hadn't experienced before, but perhaps a little low in bitterness? That's OK though, I just need to tweak it on the next brew.

Things I will do differently next time will be perhaps using a hop sock (beer cleared nicely with gelatine and crash chill but small amounts of hops made it into the bottles) and up the earlier additions / boil them longer, and maybe even scale back the cube addition a bit to make it more subtle. But I think it is a great method and it works well for me.

I used pellets and your question is about whole hops, but my understanding is that people use whole hops in a "hop back" to extract flavour so it should be OK? I wouldn't worry about utilisation too much as its flavour you are after with this method rather than bitterness. Perhaps you could plan to do two similar brews in a row where you refine the second one with what you learned in the first one?