Fresh/Wet hop IPA recipe, comments please

Hi all: going to brew up this weekend using a bunch of fresh hops off the vine that I have. I really have no idea what variety this is, but they have a nice hoppy smell to them. To hedge my bet, I am going to use an ounce of Cascade pellets for bittering, and another ounce for flavor, and hop over the top with a bunch of fresh stuff off the vine, then dry hop later in the car boy with some of these hops I already picked and dried.





I plan to use the fresh hops as say 1lb @bittering hop, 1 lb flavoring, 1lb @5, 1lb @dry hop in the car boy.

My extract recipe is:
9lbs Light DME
1lb. Crystal 20L

1 oz. Cascade pellet bittering
1lb. fresh hops at same time
1 oz. Cascade flavoring.
1lb. fresh flavoring.
1lb. fresh aroma
1lb. dry hop.

Wyeast American Ale yeast
1 pack champagne yeast to make sure fermentation finishes off (a habit I got into way back in the 90s from my first homebrew shop).
Irish moss.

Thoughts? Hints please!

I wouldn't use the fresh hops for bittering. Most flavor/aroma will boil off. You also have very little idea how much bittering they will add.

You don't need the champagne yeast. You will need a starter for the liquid yeast though.

Okay thanks The original IPA recipe I was following called for 8 pounds of DME but I have an extra pound so I was just going to throw it in. Do you think I should just use 8 pounds? Also if I do not use any fresh chops for buttering should I bump up the amount of pellets I am using?

sunvalleylaw said:

Okay thanks The original IPAA recipe I was following called for 8 pounds of DME but I have an extra pound so I was just going to throw it in. Do you think I should just use 8 pounds? Also if I do not use any fresh chops for petering should I bump up the amount of pellets I am using two better ?

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I fixed the above post now. I meant bitteriing not petering. Siri screwed up the first post.

Don't use the wet hops.
You have a lot of good ingredients there to waste.
I think that the next step for you would be to get the hops dehydrated. Ask around and see if anyone you know has a food dehydrator. Then when it's dehydrated you can weigh it and use it in modest amounts in more conservative experiments.

Are you in need of an extract IPA recipe?
I think that you'd be better off using your ingredients on something that isn't so very very risky. It sucks to have 5 G of undrinkable beer.
I think that homebrewing is a great place for creativity but....
As the actor Christopher Walken has said, "To improvise you have to know what you are doing."

Thanks for the concern, but to me, experimentation is the joy of homebrewing. I am going to go for it. The hops I have harvested and dried smell lovely in their zip loc when I open the bag, and I have the pellets to use for the earlier hops, so I will be relying on the wet hops more for aroma, etc. I think it will be good. If anyone has any positive thoughts or tips for success, let me know.

Wet hop beers are awesome. Go for it.

Generally you use a ratio of 5:1 for wet hops vs dry hops (meaning if you'd normally use 1oz dry, you'd need 5oz wet). But since you've already picked them and they're drying on the screen, they'll be significantly more dry. So 2:1 or 3:1 may be better. Doesn't really matter though when using them late in the boil.

I would do your bittering with pellets as planned, then start adding your wet hops during the last 10-15 mins of boil. Add them by the handful continuously; it's a TON of hop material...by the handful has worked better for me than discrete increments. Keep adding them during chilling too. A lot of guys do a "hop stand" - chill to 170/160ish, add more hops, then let it steep at that temp for 30 mins or so, then continue chilling. It's a good technique.

And I would definitely save a few oz for dry hopping. Rub the fresh hops between your hands and take a big whiff - that's what the beer will taste like if you add wet/fresh hops post-fermentation. All that fresh/grassy/greenness comes through. I love it, but a lot of people don't. Up to you. If you plan on going that route, get the hops in the freezer until you're ready to add. And, they're dried hops, I don't think I'd use a full pound in the dry hop. Maybe 4-8oz.

Happy brewing!!

The ones I already dried I plan to dry hop with. I have about 3 gallon size ziploc bags full. They smell awesome! Again, I do not know exactly where the rhyzomes that I planted originated from, or the variety, but they did come from Oregon.


I am storing these in the freezer until time for use.

I plan on picking the fresh/wet stuff just before brewing. Any left over after the batch, I plan on drying for later use. Though I did not do comparative weighing, they dried out very nicely in our high desert environment with low humidity, using an oscillating fan pointed at the screen for 3 days, stirring the hops around each day. Thanks for the advice. That helps! And I do like the flavor/aroma of these when I crush and roll them, and have liked other wet hopped beers, so I am hopeful this will come out to something that I like quite well!

Awesome. Your process sounds great. Let us know how it goes!

ok. I am very curious to hear how this goes. I have hops growing right now.
I wonder if you'll need to calculate your fermentation water with extra water for what the massive amount of hops will absorb in the trub.

Sir-Hops-A-Lot said:

ok. I am very curious to hear how this goes. I have hops growing right now.
I wonder if you'll need to calculate your fermentation water with extra water for what the massive amount of hops will absorb in the trub.

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Good point that I am figuring out now. Though I am dialing back from putting in pounds of hops at a time. More likely will go with 5:1 ratios with 5 oz going in at 30, 5 at 45, 5 at 58, and 5 more during the chill before the water hits 190. I will be using a friend's big brew kettle with a spigot and screen so plan to squeeze as much wort out as I can. I may have to add water to get to 5 gallons, and that could affect the OG. I plan to pre-boil some water to be ready.

Also, my brew supplies arrived last night, and I am bummed. The 1056 Wyeast smack pack seems compromised. I could find no inner seal to smack, and it seemed already partially expanded. I would not smack right now anyway as I am not brewing until tomorrow. Now I don't trust it. I have an email into my friends at the Sawtooth Brewery to see if I can purchase some of their White Labs 001 Californial Ale yeast to replace it. It is a bummer to not have a home brew shop right in the area so you can go get what you need at the last minute. There always seems to be something.

Holy crap dude. You need at least 2 smack packs(maybe 3) or a starer for a recipe that big. One would be way underpitching. You could also go with 2 packs of US-05. Similar strain to the other 2 you mentioned.

Well, I suppose things like this come from not brewing often enough. I may put off my brew until next week and make sure I have enough yeast etc. I am going to find an OG calculator and re-work my recipe, and make sure I have enough yeast on hand.

My 2013 wet hop ale turned out killer. I used about .75 oz mosaic pellets at 60 min, and another 0.25 oz at 30 min.

Then I did something like 10 oz wet hops at 20 min, 10 oz at 10 min, 15 oz at 5 min, and 10 oz at knockout. I let the knockout hops steep for about 45 minutes after knockout.

Dry hopped with 2 oz mosaic, then 3 days later added 1.6 oz citra and 1 oz amarillo. Total dry hop time was 7 days.

Used WLP001, which fermented my 1.058 OG down to like 1.009. I think about 6.3% ABV? Phenomenal beer.

Ok, that sounds good. I will take some ideas from that. Later add on the fresh, but maybe higher amounts. I plan on dry hopping with the fresh hops I dried that are in the bag shown above. But what is knockout?

I use Beersmith 2 at home and on my phone. I use Brewtoad when I am at work. I forget what it used to be called.

sunvalleylaw said:

Ok, that sounds good. I will take some ideas from that. Later add on the fresh, but maybe higher amounts. I plan on dry hopping with the fresh hops I dried that are in the bag shown above. But what is knockout?

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Knockout is when you turn the heat off. Also I saw some discussion above of the hops absorbing water. Wet hops actually contribute water to the boil. Your boil off rate will be lower because of the moisture in the hops.

(Double post. I also posted this in Yeast and fermentation, but since it is about this recipe, I posted it here too.)

In the "how to make a starter - pictorial thread ( https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-make-yeast-starter-pictorial-76101/ )it was said

"This method can be used the day of brewing. It's best to do it the night before, but getting a starter going in the morning or even a few hours before you brew will ensure that your yeast are awake and ready to rock once you're ready to pitch."


I am planning to go ahead and do this. I can pitch late in the afternoon and get 8 or 9 hours on the starter. I do not have one of those stir things so it will have to be a traditional starter, probably using one of my growlers. On brewer's friend, it says I am between 13 Bil and 61 Bil short depending on if I am using mfr's recommended rate or rate plus 0.5, so hopefully I will get enough cells over that 8 or 9 hours. Anyone think this is a horrible idea? My OG is estimated by Brewer's friend to be 1.063.

sunvalleylaw said:

Thanks for the concern, but to me, experimentation is the joy of homebrewing. I am going to go for it. The hops I have harvested and dried smell lovely in their zip loc when I open the bag, and I have the pellets to use for the earlier hops, so I will be relying on the wet hops more for aroma, etc. I think it will be good. If anyone has any positive thoughts or tips for success, let me know.

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Personally I would just use the wet hops, but that's me! Go for it, you got pellets, and some LOVELY looking leaf hops. It WILL be good.

I'm picking a bunch of fresh hops today for a brew, using them exclusively in a saison. Probably pick a couple of pounds. Got Cascade, Mt. Hood, Willamette, Sterling, and Tetts.

Belay that thought on the late starter. I am going to reduce the OG to within the smack pack's capabilities and focus on hop flavor rather than a higher gravity. 7 lbs of DME now for a starting OG of 1.056.

I would go with the 9 lbs DME. You want a lot of malt to balance out your hop bomb or it will taste acidic and unpleasant.

Here is the link to the yeast calculator
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
At 1.063 OG you'll need 1 smack pack with a 1.5 litre starter. Do this: boil 1.5 L of water for 15 minutes with 3/4 cup of DME. Then put the put in some ice water to cool it. When the wort is cool, pour it into an empty plaster 2L (cleaned with sanitizer) and add the expanded smackpack (left 3 hours after smacking). Put the lid loose on the bottle so air can escape. Every time you walk past it, screw the lid on tight, shake it up, then loosen the lid. You should have this starter ideally 12-24 hours before brewing.

Safale US 05 would be very good for this brew. Now you know to keep some packets on hand. Dry yeast keeps for years so have a few packets in the fridge.

Well here is the revised recipe. Hopefully it will work out. I may back off a bit on the hops in light of what SirHopsalot pointed out. I don't think I can really wait very well, or the fresh hops will be gone.

I'd probably switch the last chinook addition for the cascades. Cascades are great in a fresh/wet hop beer, and will go nicely with the chinook. I know it's only 2 ounces, but I'd still add them at the end instead of for bittering. I'd lower the IBUs (of course, we don't know if your guestimate is close at all, but I'd still go with no more than 60 IBUs for an-under 1.060 beer).

Keep in mind one smack pack is still probably under-pitching even at 1.056. One pack of US-05, properly rehydrated, would be better.

8-9 hours isn't much time for a starter. A lot of the time a starter will barely be getting started. 2 days would be much better. I like to give it a week so I can cold crash and pour off the excess liquid.

Ok, today after about three weeks in the primary, I transferred into a glass secondary and dry hopped with an ounce of the fresh dried hops from my yard.



The sample from the hydrometer tube tasted really good. Maybe a hint of fruitiness, but basically like a really nice pale ale. The gravity was at 1.011 so it fermented out pretty well from 1.064 OG. It's color looks pretty good too. Not too clear yet, but it may settle some in the secondary.

The color in person is a bit more vibrant gold than this phone pic.

And here it is! First bottle after aging 3 weeks from bottling! I bottled one week after dry hopping as posted above. Tastes really good and compares well to the Deschutes Chasing Freshies fresh hops offering I had last night, which to me is a pretty good thing. No excess fruitiness. Crisp, good fresh hops aroma but not overpowering, nice crisp hop finish, but again not overpowering. Like a fresh hop pale. Nice and carbonated, good head with aroma. Clean finish. I am pleased!

Also, looks like I need to clean the lens cover on my life proof phone case. My phone takes better pictures than this.