Unknown Single Hop IPA

This is a bit of an unusual question, but I just wanted someone to tell me if I'm doing something completely crazy. A friend of mine has some hops growing at his house, and I want to take full advantage of this. The problem is, they were planted before he bought the house, and neither of us have any idea the variety of the hops. What I'd love to do is make a single, fresh-hop IPA with these unknown hops. I also realize that it may turn out great or poorly, but am willing to take the chance. Here's the plan (will be an extract brew):

6 lb light LME
1 lb light DME
8 oz Crystal 60L steeping grain for 30 mins @~150

6 oz unknown fresh hops @60 min
12 oz hops @15 min
6 oz hops @5 min
6 oz hops @flameout

Us-05 dry yeast

Didn't bother doing any calculations really because I have no idea the AA% of the hops, but I'd say the OG will be around 1.055-ish. If anyone has any comments or critique of what I'm doing, or has done something similar, I'd love to hear about it!

I've been down this road before. My advice is make a small 1 or 2 gallon batch. Don't waste alot of cash on malt extract and yeast in hopes that it produces a decent beer. I would experiment with several small batches. And take alot of notes.

Update, this is in Primary now. I followed basically the same recipe that I posed earlier, with the addition of 1lb dextrose I had lying around to dry it out a little bit and let the hops come through a bit more crisply. I managed to harvest 24oz of fresh hops from my friend's plant, so here's how I did it:

6lb gold LME (added @ 15min left in boil)
1lb Light DME
1lb Dextrose

1oz Warrior (17.7%AA) @60min (Just so that I could have a predictable bitterness)

5oz "fresh hops" @15, 10, 5 min
9oz "fresh hops" @ 0min (Just because that's how much I had left)

1 tab whirlfloc @ 15min

Pitched 1 pack Us-05 @ ~70f

I had all of the ingredients already, so I didn't go out and spend any money per-se on this recipe.

its about 3 days in now and fermenting very well, making the room smell great. I'm thinking the hops are a North American variety (cascade possibly) because of the citrus-y smell they're putting out.

Going with smaller batches is a great idea, but after harvesting the hops at about 5pm on Wednesday, I didn't really have the time to do more than one batch that evening, and I really wanted it to be a fresh hopped harvest ale.

I'll keep the thread updated with how it turns out!

liamw said:

1oz Warrior (17.7%AA) @60min (Just so that I could have a predictable bitterness)

!

Click to expand...

That was wise. This was a 5 gallon batch? Lot of fresh hops, hopefully they are not too high of AA% or it could be palette wrecking bitter

I did use a lot I agree, although most were at flameout to avoid adding IBUs. I used the ratio of 5:1 fresh:dry that I had read about on the forum. So I kind of figured it would equal rougly 1ox dry @15,10,5 and ~2ozdry @flameout.

I tasted the wort before pitching and it wasn't exceedingly bitter, although I know that would have been balanced by the sweetness.

A lot of variables, so I figured the only way to be sure is to wait and see! I just didn't want to waste the opportunity of the fresh hops, so I went for it! I'll post again in 3 weeks or so with the outcome!

I have never worked with fresh hops so you are probably right. Fun experiment regardless, I really need to start growing my own, fresh hop ales are awesome.

Update: I kegged this one yesterday. I force carbed it by shaking because I couldn't wait! Had my first glass today and it is fantastic. By the taste of it I'm thinking that the unknown hops were probably cascade or something similar. The addition of the dextrose dried it out to let the hops shine. It finished at 1.008!

The only complaint I have is that I had huge yeast rafts from the s05 yeast that just wouldn't sink. I did add 2g or so of yeast nutrient which probably wasn't necessary. Some careful racking took care of that mostly, and a few days of cold crashing in the keg should clear it up I think.

Overall worth the two hours I spent harvesting the hops!

So, here we are, about a week and a half into kegging. The beer has cleared up very nicely, but is quite bitter. The next time I do this one, I may forego the 15 minute addition completely and add all the hops after ten minutes. I was really looking to make the fresh hops a flavour addition, and not add to bittering.

That being said, the beer certainly isn't bad (it will be all consumed for sure), but is a little too bitter. Will give it another go next year! Thanks for all the input along the way