Any issues for next year with hops?

**lurker18** · 11-14-2011, 03:56 PM

Just brewed with this past years hops and found what I think are seeds coming out of one of the varieties. For a note, this year was a terrible growing year in my area, with torrential rain all spring, and then no rain at all for the summer, with higher temperatures. I was not on top of things and didn't add very much moisture, so I am sure these were pretty stressed out plants, and I know stress does strange things to hops.
I noticed yellow seeds floating in the wort after adding the first wort hops, looked like little mustard seeds.
Question is, will there be any carry over problems that I have to watch out for next spring. I have 10 varieties growing, with one rope per variety, and can narrow the problem plant down to 2 of the 10, but not sure which one.

Skyforger · 11-14-2011, 08:31 PM

Um, unless you have some rogue males floating around, there shouldn't be any seeds. From your description it sounds like you just had free humo-lupulene glands in the wort. They look very like mustard seeds. Did you try picking any out? Did they have a smooth, outer shell? Or were they kind of soft?

**david_42** · 11-14-2011, 08:33 PM

One of the weird things that can happen is a female plant putting out male flowers. That would have resulted in seeds on the other bines' cones. They should revert to pure female in the Spring.

**lurker18** · 11-14-2011, 10:48 PM

Thanks for the help. I thought I read somewhere that under stress the hop plant will do some funny things.

As for the free lupus in glands, I really don't think that is what they were, as I noticed the floating around in the first wort addition, and they were still there after a vigorous 90 minute boil. Would the
glands not break up during the boil?

Northjerzyg · 11-14-2011, 10:52 PM

I actually pulled some male flowers off my columbus this year. Luckily I got to them early........

**BBL_Brewer** · 11-14-2011, 11:10 PM

I have three varieties growing. Cascade, Centennial and CTZ. My CTZ is a hermaphrodite. Has been since the first year and seeds as a result. Check your plants for pollen sacks next year. They can grow cones and pollen sacks on the same branch. They look like clusters of little tiny footballs. The seeds don't hurt the hops any but does add a little weight. But, unless your sending samples to the lab you don't know what your AAU's are so recipe formulation is a little different from crop to crop anyway.

Here's a pic of pollen sacks on my plant.