My hops are not verry hoppy

I pulled some hops off of my cascade rhizome as they met the characteristics of being ready for brewing, but unfortunately they don't have the same pungent hop aroma that the freezer packed whole leaf hops have. Does the aroma become stronger when you dry them out or is this just me getting weak aroma from the hops?

Not sure, but it sounds reasonable that once you cure them they will change. This happens to a lot of stuff when you dry/cure it. What happens when you crush them?

I don't think that in Boston these are quite ready yet, but your conditions could be different. My Cascade in MI is still no quite ready. They feel plenty crispy, smell good when rolled between my fingers, but they are still too green. It's close, really close, but we're not there yet. The browning of the leaf tips hasn't quite started. Most of the harvests I've seen on here were taken too early. They will look the same for quite some time before suddenly feeling VERY dry and browning quickly as the plant stops supplying nutrients. You'll know it if you've seen it. It's still hard for me to leave the cones packed with bright yellow glands and papery leaves on the bine, but it has to be done. I intend to take pictures of the bracts when I harvest to help out for future harvests for others.

They smell somewhat hoppy when crushed, and while the majority of the hop cones are not ready yet, I had about a handful maybee 15 or 20 that had just started to change color on the tips and felt papery so I pulled them off. If you are saying that I should wait longer, perhaps I'll do that for the rest of the hops that are still growing.

Drying seems to release the aroma oils.

I have a feeling I harvested some of mine a little too soon but the ones I pulled today were definitely ready. Dry papery cones, resinous, slightly browning.

Well, if you saw my thread (I got lucky) you can see what not to pick. Wet/off the bine, they will smell piney and..well..Cascadey...which then turns quite vegetal as the water is released from the bracts. My first harvest is just about dried...will seal them tomorrow. Anyway, now that they've been drying for a few days, they smell a LOT more like what you'd expect when you sniff a freshly cut open bag of wholeleaf, but still somewhat vegetal, which i believe is just the residual water in the bracts, and your nose picking up the aromas of truly fresh hops.

I was thinking as well, you don't need to harvest them all at once. Just pick the ones that are papery and starting to just brown on the edges.

On second thought, i sealed up my hops tonight. During the sealing, i used a book under my knee to compress them to fit in a bag & push as much air out as possible. Result? Broken lupulin glands, creating that smell you're looking for.

Donasay said:

I pulled some hops off of my cascade rhizome as they met the characteristics of being ready for brewing, but unfortunately they don't have the same pungent hop aroma that the freezer packed whole leaf hops have. Does the aroma become stronger when you dry them out or is this just me getting weak aroma from the hops?

Click to expand...

Most definitely. I've done 3 small harvests of my 1st year cascade now and just last night after about 4-5 days of air drying on some screens vacuum sealed them. I dropped a couple on the floor during bagging, so after sealing I crushed them between my hands and was AMAZED at the pungent aroma. After picking I crushed some between my hands and while you could get the faint aroma of hops it was much more like you crushed some grass between your hands (vegetable smell). I was concerned since I got these plants from a friend who has never used them for beer making (thinking maybe they were not really that good), but I'm convinced now they are legit cascade hops you'd get from a supplier.