Do I need to dry my hops?

Hello

Can I brew with my hops fresh off the vine or do they need to be dried first? Last year I dried them and then used them. Thanks

You can brew with wet hops.
I'd be interested to hear from folks about the differences in flavor/aroma/bitterness though.

Of course you can. But like many fine herbs, heh, allowing them to dry and lightly age makes them a fair bit smoother. What can't wait a week or two?

HenryHill said:

Of course you can. But like many fine herbs, heh, allowing them to dry and lightly age makes them a fair bit smoother. What can't wait a week or two?

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Smoother in bitterness? What about flavor/aroma?

You are really better off to use home hops as flavor/aroma only, because of the unknown bittering units. Every season and every location will produce different final results. Testing them on a home scale is out of the question. You could use them to bitter but if your estimation of the actual content is off, so is your finished beer. If yo grow enough and can experiment with a smaller batch to judge the perceived bitterness level, then creep up on it-hard to unbitter a finished beer, but you could add hop oil to counteract insufficient bittering. Use a known bittering content to insure a correct final IBU, or you are really just stabbing into the dark. Flavor and aroma are more forgiving.

If its a cascade rhizome....it will be close to what the typical AA% for all other cascades. If you want to make a beer and absolutely must know the final IBUs for contest purposes...then see above.

I have Nugget, Saaz, Willamette, Centinnial and Cascade plants... I will use most of them in some bittering cpacity. It will make good beer, and I like good beer.

Thanks for all the feedback. Last year was my first time growing hops and I dried them and used them the next day. Thought maybe I could cut out one step. I planted 14 more this year and they are not doing so great but the 2 from last year are doing great.

HoppyDaze said:

If its a cascade rhizome....it will be close to what the typical AA% for all other cascades. If you want to make a beer and absolutely must know the final IBUs for contest purposes...then see above.

I have Nugget, Saaz, Willamette, Centinnial and Cascade plants... I will use most of them in some bittering capacity. It will make good beer, and I like good beer.

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Not to argue, but for the sake of reference: I've bought pounds of whole hops that varied by over 20% in bittering units from Hops Direct, from one year to the next, so if you are making an IPA, or even bigger beer with proportionally bigger AA, you can have vastly different results. Columbus comes to mind, being an all-around use hop, as it is both a big AA that can contribute significant bittering in early additions, or a flavor and aroma hop. Use this as an unknown to bitter and flavor in an IIPA and you'll need to cross your fingers...

Ultimately, it depends what hop you are using, what you are making, and what time you make the addition.

And as to the original 'can you' question: I just saw a pic of Papazian brewing with fresh home hops on his deck. You can do damn near anything in this hobby, and still make good beer. The difficulty in using them fresh off the bine is they contain significant moisture, so not only do you not know accurately how high of AA you have, you do not know what quantity of hops you are using, when they are not dried first.

In younger times, friends of friends of friends would want to rush their illicit harvest to the pipe, which invariably resulted in a green grassy flavor and guaranteed headache. It is with this recollection in mind that I personally only want to add dried home hops to my beers.