Dehydrated Hops

My friend, I'll call him "Joe", grew cascade hops on his family's farm in Illinois. His harvest filled a 5 gallon bucket, which wasn't weighed. "Joe" used a food dehydrator to dry the hops for storage, and they now fit in about a quart sized baggie, and weigh 1.35 oz. Considering that these once filled a 5 gallon bucket, "Joe" still views these as a lot of hops. How would we determine how much of these dried hops equals the usual amount of harvested hops? Is rehydrating them prior to use a good idea?

The dry weight is what is used in recipes so that is the only weight that matters. "Joe" now has 1.35 oz of cascade hops which will make a nice 5 gallon batch of lightly hopped beer. When you get ready to use them, just toss them in the boil as you normally would. That will "rehydrate" them for you. Great job to "Joe". His work generated about 2 dollars in profit!

Also, if it was a typical food dehydrator, these hops may be more useful for lambics.

The risk isn't that they are too dry. Hops should be stored with very low moisture levels. The risk is that the dehydrator used heat. Heat destroys hop flavor.

dcarter said:

Great job to "Joe". His work generated about 2 dollars in profit!

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Ha ha ha ha! That's awesome!! I can't wait to tell him!
Thanks for the response!

BigRob said:

Also, if it was a typical food dehydrator, these hops may be more useful for lambics.

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Oh boy, I don't like the sound of that. I've tried one lambic in my life. Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic. ('scuse me while I gag a little, remembering that..)

Thanks for your response!

bobot said:

Oh boy, I don't like the sound of that. I've tried one lambic in my life. Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic. ('scuse me while I gag a little, remembering that..)

Thanks for your response!

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That's not a lambic. That's like drinking J Roget and saying you don't like champagne or having some steak-ums at Hardee's and saying you don't like steak.