thisgoestoeleven

Recipes 

I conduct a community band, and one of the musicians knows I brew and mentioned that she has a whole bunch of hops growing on her property. She offered to let me come over and pick as many as I can bring home with me, and I'm naturally really excited for fresh hops. My question is what do I do with them once I get them? Should I dry them out? If so, how do I do that? What kind of shelf life do the fresh hops have, where if I brewed in the next week or so they'd still be good? I've never used fresh hops before, and I'd love any input you guys might have.

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Primary: Traditional dry mead (1gal)
Secondary: Simcoe IPA (5gal)
Kegged:
Bottled:
On Deck: Centennial/Marris Otter SMaSH; Hefeweizen

Pappers_

Recipes 

Hi Eleven. Great offer on the hops, congrats! You can either use the hops fresh (called wet hopping) or dry, package and freeze them. There 's a whole section here on HBT about growing hops, http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/ take a look and you'll find tons of info.

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http://www.singingboysbrewing.com

Freerent

Recipes 

So i would wet hop your beers in secondary Furthermore you should pick some to share w/ your home brewing community. What would you charge for a couple of large zip lock bags to California.

Mongrel

Recipes 

Brew as soon as you pick them. You don't want to let them sit.

gratus fermentatio

Recipes 

You might want to find out exactly which cultivar(s) those hops are; also,they might be ornamental hops, which are (far as I know) useless to brewers. Not trying to rain on your parade, just sayin'.
Regards, GF.