Using My Home Grown Hops

[Tony]

Hey folks.

I dried the last harvest from my first year PoR plant today and i ended up with 300g dried all up. Not a bad haul considering the heat wave stunted a lot of the hops.

Now i have high hopes for these hops.......... the aim is another state title in an Aussie ale with home grown hops! A tall ask but what the hell...... it can only get worse from there hey

Now my queastion for any in the know is re. the moisture contest of my hops. The hops are bitter..... they pucker the mouth when you chew up a bit but we add hops to brew by weight, and if i have dried mine more than comercial flower hops, i will add more hops than i need cause they weigh less.

Mine ended up quite dry and crisp but my hands ended up quite yellow and sticky after i finnished packing them tight into air tight bags with minimal air in there. Mmmmmmm RESIN

anyway...... how dry do you dry your hops and do you think this affects your IBU calculations?

cheers

 

[raven19]

Tony, I tend to use a factor of 5 or 6 to 1 when wet converting back to dry - but your are already dried by reading the OP.

But when using late in the boil its all about the aroma in any case - imo.

I tend to dry mine on flyscreens in the shed for a few days then ziplock bags into the freezer (no vacuum sealer here!). However this season for me, they went from bine to kettle wet.

 

[proudscum]

i would still work on a 10%AAU + the leaf hop factor meaning you need to up the quantity.
From memory its plus 25% on what you would use if pellets where employed.
i would use 25 gram on a 90min boil for 25lt batch in both Canberra and Melbourne,the same plants have traveled to many houses.Need to pick my POR tomorrow.

 

[raven19]

The IBU seems to vary from season to season and location to location. Soil type also has an effect.

I tend to use them late in the boil as do a number of fellow brewers.

In saying that Philip and DrSmurto did a 10min IPA with home grown Chinook with great results.

 

[beersatan]

Not really experienced but using high AA% hops for bittering and accidentally overdoing it is one of my specialties that I'm trying to curb.
I'm assuming you'll be using POR as your bittering addition. I'd probably throw in 110% of hops normally used and see how it goes.
300g of 10% as bittering should go a fair way - congrats on your first year crop!!

 

[kelbygreen]

give me some ya theft haha congrats tony wish I had paid the same love and care to mine as you did to yours. oh well I got about 20 leafs back on them so they are not entirely dead (yet)

 

[Cocko]

Sorry Tony slightly OT but.. We were brewing your LCBA...

Beersatan knows how to grow hops!

This was our 15 addition today:

God, I am hanging for this to ferment!




Sorry complete OT but LOOK at the fresh hops! CASCADE! soo hangin...

 

[kelbygreen]

tony cant brew or grow hops he just sucks but if I could get half that good id be happy haha

 

[Cocko]

tony cant brew or grow hops he just sucks but if I could get half that good id be happy haha

He can take good photos of his crystal clear, obviously kit, beers tho!


:lol:

 

[kelbygreen]

yeah I have seen his setup its just a 5lt pot a can opener and this massive brew rig for some bling factor

 

[Cocko]

Yep, his brew rig is for growing chillies apparently...

Who knows what he does with the smoker...

 

[Wolfy]

anyway...... how dry do you dry your hops and do you think this affects your IBU calculations?

I consider using home grown hops more an art than a science.
You don't know their exact AA%, how dry they are, or what the best adjustment is for whole hops vs pellets, and to be honest even hop calculations are a bit of guess work anyway. In addition, some people suggest that home-grown hops taste/smell different to commercial ones.
ALL of those are unknown factors UNTIL you brew with them.

Brew with them (keeping careful records), using default values for the current seasons crop, or just an average.
Once that's done you can then adjust based on how the beer turns out - it's a bit hit or miss I know, but that's why its more art than science.

 

[drsmurto]

Hey folks.

I dried the last harvest from my first year PoR plant today and i ended up with 300g dried all up. Not a bad haul considering the heat wave stunted a lot of the hops.

Now i have high hopes for these hops.......... the aim is another state title in an Aussie ale with home grown hops! A tall ask but what the hell...... it can only get worse from there hey

Now my queastion for any in the know is re. the moisture contest of my hops. The hops are bitter..... they pucker the mouth when you chew up a bit but we add hops to brew by weight, and if i have dried mine more than comercial flower hops, i will add more hops than i need cause they weigh less.

Mine ended up quite dry and crisp but my hands ended up quite yellow and sticky after i finnished packing them tight into air tight bags with minimal air in there. Mmmmmmm RESIN

anyway...... how dry do you dry your hops and do you think this affects your IBU calculations?

cheers

First time around Tony I'd suggest using a known AA bittering hop and use the POR in late additions.

Each subsequent batch get more of the total IBU from the home grown hops.

I use 9.0% as the AA for my homegrown POR. The last batch had half the total IBU coming from the homegrown hops and i felt i was pretty close to the 30 IBU i was aiming for.

Next use of POR is in an Aussie IPA.

I dry my hops on a fly wire screen for 7 days before vac packing and freezing them.

 

[agorganic]

Cool, how much land did you use to grow the hops?

 

[Tony]

I consider using home grown hops more an art than a science.
You don't know their exact AA%, how dry they are, or what the best adjustment is for whole hops vs pellets, and to be honest even hop calculations are a bit of guess work anyway. In addition, some people suggest that home-grown hops taste/smell different to commercial ones.
ALL of those are unknown factors UNTIL you brew with them.

Brew with them (keeping careful records), using default values for the current seasons crop, or just an average.
Once that's done you can then adjust based on how the beer turns out - it's a bit hit or miss I know, but that's why its more art than science.

Wolfy....... im hearing ay mate........ Art v's Science...... the prfect clash for something great

running a small trial batch is a good idea. I might make a keg of a coopers mild clone to see how they go without using too much.

I may also take all the dry hops picked over 3 different periods and mix em all right up to average out any differences of flavours, making the subsiquent differences negligable.

Cool, how much land did you use to grow the hops?

about 4 foot x 1.5 foot and dug down 4 feet.

one hop plant.... not more than a few months old



Oh and Kelby........ you gave it to me but i swapped it for bags of malt...... and in the end. its how you raise them.

I fed it lots

 

[kelbygreen]

haha yeah I was only joking. I am not good with plants but will get it right next year I hope. Let us know how the brew goes

 

[agorganic]

TONY> I'm studying agriculture and the uni runs wine courses, plus they have land for cropping (lucerne mainly)/running stock (angus, sheep & horses). So I might look into it a bit more for next semester when we have more plant based subjects....will run it past the lecturers!

Cheers

Jesse

 

[Lecterfan]

Dredging this up so I can use the title of the thread without starting a whole new one.

I made an AIPA that had a huge amount of homegrown hops chucked in at flameout (literally about 300gms), it's been in the bottle about 5 weeks and I've been enjoying it for the last 3 weeks or so (as it carbed nice and quickly).

The aroma was fantastic and it has been my pride and joy over the last few weekends with friends etc., but I opened one last night and a lot of the fruitiness (the flowers were cascade and chinook) had significantly dissipated and left behind some slightly vegetal flavours - not unpleasant, but not as nice as what it was.

I bottled a second AIPA a week after this one - in the firs few tastings I preferred the homegrown hop beer so much more, but now the other one (a citra, NS and centential combo) is starting to improve while the other is dropping off.

Having said that, the flowers were from my first year of growing hops and may have all been picked a bit too early...

Has anyone experienced anything similar with homegrown flowers (I have never used commercial flowers)?

Thanks.

 

[Vanoontour]

This may be a dumb and completely noob idea but could your make a 'tea' from some home grown hops and a 'tea' from a known AA% to compare and then adjust from there?

Dan

 

[Malted]

The way I see it is that Lecterfan is saying that the flavour/aroma of homegrown hops appears to have degraded but as yet he has not noticed this in commercial hops he has used?