Wild Hops

I've tracked down a source of wild hops in our area. I've yet to check out the plants myself, but it sounds to me like these are pretty citrusy (from another brewer I know ?cascade variant?).

I'm planning on harvesting some this year, and packaging. .

Several issues here. . .

Anyone know of a way (like leaf or cone morphology) that I could use to figure out what variety/family these are, and. . .

any suggestions on food dryers, and . . .

any suggestions on vacuum sealers to package these things. . .

If they turn out good, I think I'll steal a rhizome and let them go crazy out on the edge of my woods.

I'm also thinking of doing some column chromatography on them to figure out AA content. I might also send them to my old lab and let them run them on their old HPLC or GC machines. . .

There used to be over 23 different breweries in our area (so the lore has it--starting from pre-prohibition to now), and it is rumored that some of the old time breweries maintained their own hop fields. I'm wondering if these are remnants of that era.

sounds fantastic. My best mates dad has hops growing in his back yard from when he home brewed, he forgot what variety they are, so we call the beer we make with em "secretivale" (See-crit-e-vale)

I say, GO FOR IT!

Biermann said:

There used to be over 23 different breweries in our area (so the lore has it--starting from pre-prohibition to now), and it is rumored that some of the old time breweries maintained their own hop fields. I'm wondering if these are remnants of that era.

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Most likely, yes. You never know, it could be an interesting undiscovered cross. The fact that it is surviving in the wild is a good indicator it is a hardy strain. Take it in and nurture it and see what it does. Oftentimes things brought in from the wild and cultivated do swimmingly. And, since you can propogate it from rhizomes there is no need to worry about getting it to seed.

Speaking of things found in the wild...I recently found an awesome Peppermint strain, one of the things I have been looking for. It is so strong that when I picked it off the road I had nowhere to put it, so I stuck the plants in my swimming pants pocket. I could feel the 'coolness' on my leg .

Biermann said:

any suggestions on food dryers, and . . .

any suggestions on vacuum sealers to package these things. . .

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I havn't tried it yet but most places I have read say you can dry the hops by placing them on window screens in a dry room or garage. A week or so is sufficient. I hope to be drying some this fall.

I use a food saver for vacuum sealing leftover grains and hops while brewing. Its pretty easy to use and seems to do a good job. My crushed grains are compressed into a brick like the vacuum sealed coffee you can find in the store. Hops are similarly reduced in size.

Craig

Sounds great! Keep us posted on their progress!!!

I live in IN... I want to find wild hops... how do I find them? Where??

Moderately good chance they are Bullion. It's an old hop that is very tough. Might also be Brewer's Gold. Neither of these store well at room temperature, so they aren't grown much commercially.

I've seen a few pictures, here and there of various hops, but not anything I would call a good reference.

Biermann said:

any suggestions on food dryers, and . . .

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I saw an Alton Brown show where he dried herbs by laying them out on central AC filters and then bungee cording the stack of filters to a cheap box fan. He flipped the fan to the other side of the filters at either 12 or 24 hours (can't remember for sure) and let the whole thing go for either 24 or 48 hours.

Sounds like a neat find! Keep us posted on how this works out for you.

zoebisch01 said:

Speaking of things found in the wild...I recently found an awesome Peppermint strain, one of the things I have been looking for. It is so strong that when I picked it off the road I had nowhere to put it, so I stuck the plants in my swimming pants pocket. I could feel the 'coolness' on my leg .

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How did SWMBO react to "minting" your area?

olllllo said:

How did SWMBO react to "minting" your area?

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Roflmao. The other leg.

Several years ago I grew some Cascade and Fuggles. I simply laid them out on a towel and placed them in the attic... hot and dry... for 24 hours. After that I just put them in baggies and squeezed the air out. Works well for short storage.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll keep you all posted. I actually know of one location where there are an abundance of hops, and I have heard of at least one other potential location (haven't yet found it).

I can't wait to see those little cones. Pictures will be forthcoming.

I have a book on building your own brew equipment, and it discusses making a food dryer, but looking it over, it looks like a good way to electrocute myself.

I'll stick to getting something commercial, or as many of you have suggested, drying them in a more primitive manner.

The Pol said:

I live in IN... I want to find wild hops... how do I find them? Where??

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I got my leads from other brewers in the area. Most often, I've found other homebrewers are more than willing to share in the stash, especially since you can cut some rhizomes if you really want to.

Any suggestions on a first time brew with these once harvest and processing is complete?

I was thinking on a single hop pale ale, but I'm open to ideas.

Biermann - Did you ever do anything with this?