IPA with fresh hop flowers

[Glengine]

A mate of mine has given me 120g of 'fresh' chinook hop flowers (picked last season, been in the freezer since). I want to use some of these in an IPA. It will be my first IPA and first time using fresh hop flowers. I plan to use the chinook as a late addition and dry hop as I don't know the AA.

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 16.0
Total Grain (kg): 2.900
Total Hops (g): 120.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.061 (°P): 15.0
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012 (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 6.39 %
Colour (SRM): 14.4 (EBC): 28.3
Bitterness (IBU): 55.5 (Average)
Boil Time (Minutes): 30

Grain Bill
----------------
1.750 kg Dry Malt Extract - Light (60.34%)
0.650 kg Crystal 60 (22.41%)
0.500 kg Dextrose (17.24%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Northern Brewer Pellet (10% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (1.9 g/L)
30.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.6% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1.9 g/L)
30.0 g Chinook Leaf (11.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (1.9 g/L)
30.0 g Chinook Leaf (11.4% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop) (1.9 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
250.0 g Malto-Dextrine @ 10 Minutes (Boil)


Will reuse danstar belle saison yeast that I will get from the fermenter tomorrow after bottling a blonde.


I haven't used any of these hops before, so opinions on the varieties and use of the leaf would be appreciated. I'm trying to get that big hop flavour / aroma rather than a huge bitterness hence the shorter boil with bigger quantities. Also, should I be worried about 'grassiness' dry hopping with fresh hop flowers?

Cheers.

edit: Added yeast

 

[stakka82]

That's a shitload of crystal. I wouldnt be going above 5% personally in a beer that size.

Hops look fine, brew and adjust next time depending on results/preference. If it were me I would add 10 ibu from more late additions.

 

[Bizier]

Remember to contain your hops or have a straining mechanism on the outlet of your kettle. One of the few infections I have had was from immersion chilling and getting the outlet blocked by hop flowers.

 

[yum beer]

You will not make an IPA with a saison yeast.
Get the crystal down, my first IPA had around 17% crystal, english hops to 52IBU and was a tad on the sweet side,
maybe swap 1/2 the crystal for munich...or if as it looks you are doing extract maybe replace with some amber malt if you can.

 

[Glengine]

Thanks guys.
I'll drop the crystal to 200g. I just had a bunch already cracked and wanted to use it up (LHBS only sells in 1kg bags or bigger). Unfortunately I don't have any other malts or extract on hand and won't have time to make it to the LHBS.

I don't have a chiller, but I chill the pot cold water bath. I thought this probably gives me slightly higher IBUs than the recipe, but can still add some cascade to the 5 minute addition.

Point taken with the saison yeast, though I'm not too concerned about being technically within a style. I'm just trying to create a big beer that tastes good.

 

[bum]

You keep saying "fresh" for a product that has been frozen. Does this mean you are referring to flowers that were not dried before freezing?

 

[hoppy2B]

I think he means they were picked recently and maybe also he is referring to the fact they're not pellets.

 

[Glengine]

That's right bum, the flowers were picked from a mate's garden and frozen straight away without being dried. He said he has used them in the past in this state with success, just by adding the appropriate weight to the boil. Is there something I should be looking out for if they're not dried?

 

[hoppy2B]

I've used frozen wet hops in the boil with good results. They're not recommended for dry hopping as the flavour can be a bit vegetative. I haven't dry hopped with fresh frozen stuff but Batz tried it with Cascade and said it tasted like cabbage.

 

[Glengine]

Hmm, cabbage doesn't sound good. I'll avoid dry hopping with the chinook then. Might put more chinook in but at 10 minutes, and move the cascade up to 5 mins instead. I'll then dry hop with cascade,

Northern Brewer (pellets) 30g @ 30mins
Chinook (flowers) 50g @ 10mins
Cascade (pellets) 20g @ 5 minutes

IBU ~62.
Dry hop with 30g of cascade.

 

[sinkas]

ive used fresh or frozen home grown chinook at about 3x what you might use for pellet hops, pretty tasty results

 

[ash2]

Decided to go & buy some pantyhose to dry hop in.( the hops not me before someone says it ).Now how hard can it be to buy pantyhose,just walk past the lingerie without looking to closely .Got a nice pair 2 for $3.25 jobs done. Get home & read the pack they have built in moisturiser ,lasts up to 6 washes.I'am pretty sure if you dry hop you don't need to wrap them in moisturiser. :angry:

 

[manticle]

Wet hopping is a popular technique.

 

[GalBrew]

Hope you know what you are getting into with a saison yeast. Wouldn't be my first choice for a hoppy IPA.

 

[Glengine]

This actually turned out very nice. My wife loves it and I'd have to say it's probably one of my best brews yet. The saison definitely made it interesting, but everyone who has tried it has enjoyed it. I wish I hadn't cut the crystal quite so much though. Somewhere around 350g might have been the sweet spot.

I ended up using about 50g of the home grown chinook flowers (due to what sinkas said) and it definitely came out the dominant hop flavour. And as he said, pretty tasty results =)