Highly doubt i will ever buy leaf hops again.

I bought some leaf belma and centennial hops from hops direct and was excited cause I always pellets. Come to find out they are a pain in the a$$ to weight out due to volume and I am dreading clean up. I think I will stick to pellets from now on.


Yay 100th post I am moving up in the world.

I'm with ya'. I don't care for the cleanup either - good cold crash can clear things up enough for me. Yay you on 100 - have a beer and celebrate!

I have brewed so, so much beer in my life and I have never brewed with whole leaf hops. One day I'm a gonna do it just to say I did.

I am currently drinking a zombie dust clone that I used 9 ounces of citra leaf hops in - it is one of the 10 best beers I have brewed in my 18 years. It is great. I used a huge mesh bag in the boil to keep adding the hops, and I used a big muslin bag to add the 3 ounces of dry hops. Leaf hops are a pain if you just dump them in. Bag them and they are not. Make sure the bag is big enough to give them some room though.

just place a bowl on the scale and zero it out (mine I just hit the on button again) the scale will read zero and you can add your hops to the bowl to weight them. This is how I weight grains I'm guessing you don't use grain yet?

For clean up just use a large mesh bag to hold the hops (like the ones poeple use for BIAB mashes) they cost about $2 and are reusable. Pull it out when done and discard the hops. You will want to dunk it up and down a every few minutes during your boil as well to make sure the wort is getting inside.

But pellet hops are probably just easier. I always use a hop bag, the one time I didn't I ended up with a hop leaf in nearly every glass.

My dumb ass didn't even think to look to see if they had pellets for the same price. Oh well you live you learn. It is kinda cool to put whole leaf hops in a glass and pour a beer over them. And thank god I built a hop spider before doing this batch.

I have a triple beam scale and use that to weight hops I have my grains measured and milled at the hbs. I do want to get a digital scale I hated triple beams in high school and I hate them now can't seam to zero it out to anything big enough to hold the hops.

I would just use a hop bag

I've brewed with whole leaf hops precisely once in my brewing career. I'm sure there are techniques that make them easier to use, but if I have a choice, I will always choose pellets. So much better not only for manageability, but for utilization. Much more surface area.

Nightshade said:

I would just use a hop bag

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But then I don't get to build any thing.

I boil in a keggle with a false bottom (from NorCal brewing, it's awesome), and I actually like leaf hops more because they act as a better filter (kind of like a grain bed) when draining the wort off into the CFC.

I like pellet hops when dry hopping/keg hopping. During brewing it doesn't really matter much but leaf is a MUST for the hop back!

I've done a few APA's and one IPA with all home grown hops. it's a damn mess. the brews came out awesome though. sometimes, IMO, the PITA is part of the fun. next year I plan on some APA's & IPA's with all home grown. Nugget, Fuggles, Cascade, Willamette. all on their second year (next year ).

I am going to try and build something that will fit on the front of my keggerator so you can watch the beer flow through whole leaf hops as you pour a pint. I think it would be interesting and have a cool wow factor when people come over.

I have dogs. Hops and dogs don't mix. Leaf hops get little bits everywhere and I have to spend ages cleaning it all up. Pellets are better for me.

Whole leaf hops are THE reason why pellet hops were invented.

Think about that one.

pcollins said:

Whole leaf hops are THE reason why pellet hops were invented.

Think about that one.

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Touche

I'm going to reiterate my feelings: sometimes the PITA is part of the fun. I'm done.

I just started using leaf. IMO it's much easier to pull a hop bag out of my kettle than trying to filter out the pellets with a strainer.

Also I was reading an interview with sierra Nevada where they said they really prefer leaf, their theory is that processing the leafs causes a change for the worse in the character of the hops.

Regardless, go with what works.

I prefer whole leaf. Don't use a bag, just dump them in. 2 to 6 ounces in the boil and then after the boil I just dump into the bucket through a wire mesh stainer. Sometimes I have to empty half way through, but overall a piece of cake. I also have dogs so I let the hops finish dripping and then simply empty them into the garbage bag. I do sometimes use pellets, but just use the same process. With pellets I seem to get more particles that fall through into the wort. No big deal - it all settles out in the end.

A digital kitchen scale & a plastic bowl - easy to weigh. A false bottom in the boil pot, with a mesh tube - no problems draining the wort. Toxic to dogs? Maybe - little science to back it up; probably because our dogs show no interest in them. By the way, I'm a veterinarian...

hell yeah - more for me!

Sometimes I have to use leaf hops when my LHBS doesn't have what I want in pellets.

Sometimes I have to use pellets when my LHBS doesn't have what I want in whole leaf.

True.

Unless I'm proven wrong, the only benefit I see with whole leaf hops is that you are able to more accurately gauge their quality with your eyes. Pellets are so compact and ground up that it's difficult to gauge their quality. Price may be a factor, but not always.

And as the above two posters said, if you want a specific varietal, sometimes you're forced to buy what they have in stock.

I've been using only leaf hops for the last 4 brews or so. I'm not sure why you think clean up is so much harder. I'm really happy with the leaves and find them just as easy to work with.

I'll still use pellet once in a while, but I'm really happy with how my system is setup for leafs.

I go back and forth. Both have their upsides IMO. I like leaf hops for post-chill aroma additions; easy to pull the bag out after they've steeped for awhile. If I had to choose one to brew with forever it would probably be leaf.

BulldogBrewer said:

I'm not sure why you think clean up is so much harder.

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Well using them in general is messier / more of a hassle.

From the amount of freezer space they take up, to re-sealing the package, weighing them, adding/removing them to the boil, adding/removing them to the carboy, bagging them or even tossing them in loose.

There's just more debris. I find leaf hop bits all over my apartment after a brew session and I'm not a messy brewer. Leaf hops also take up a lot of space in the carboy when dryhopping.

Plus - you can't (or aren't supposed to) use pellets in a hop rocket ;-)

I'm an equal-opportunity hop slinger. If they're green, smell funky, and sitting in front of me while I'm brewing then I throw them in. It doesn't matter your shape or size - you're going in the brewpot

bobbrews said:

Well using them in general is messier / more of a hassle.

From the amount of freezer space they take up, to re-sealing the package, weighing them, adding/removing them to the boil, adding/removing them to the carboy, bagging them or even tossing them in loose.

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To each their own, but I see all of these (with this exception of storage space - which is really a non issue for me) as advantages for leafs. Getting pellet gunk out of the boil is such a pain I would normally just let as much get into the carboy as possible. Now I don't have all that stuff getting in and taking up space in the fermenter.

Plus you can't grow pellet hops.

BulldogBrewer said:

Getting pellet gunk out of the boil is such a pain I would normally just let as much get into the carboy as possible. Now I don't have all that stuff getting in and taking up space in the fermenter.

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That problem is easy to work around if you bag your kettle hops, then whirlpool, then siphon with a bag wrapped around your auto siphon. Hell, you can wrap another bag around the opening of your bucket if you want to go extra far with filtering.

I typically use about 8-12 oz. or more pellet hops in the boil for my IIPAs, and using these methods, there isn't much kettle hop trub left in the primary.

bobbrews said:

That problem is easy to work around if you bag your kettle hops, then whirlpool, then siphon with a bag wrapped around your auto siphon. Hell, you can wrap another bag around the opening of your bucket if you want to go extra far with filtering.

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To me - all that bagging was what I found to be a pain. A nice false bottom in the kettle - leafs - and quick clean wort

I'll still use both though, mostly based on availability. I'm just very pleased with how the whole hops work in my system. Most of my brewing friends are still on pellets and make amazing beers. So they all work!

logdrum said:

Plus you can't grow pellet hops.

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Has this been confirmed? I'd like to understand the science behind this.

Pellets in the pot and bagged whole hops for dry hopping.

There's a lot I like about whole leaf. I use a large BIAB type bag to add them during the boil. The problem for me is managing my bulk ordered hops when they're in leaf form. 6 pounds of leaf hops takes up a ton of space. You basically need a dedicated chest freezer for them.

Does anyone have an opinion on the best way to package leaf hops. The first year I used mason jars that I vacuum sealed with a foodsaver. I was putting 2oz of hops in a quart size jar. Just silly. This year I just used foodsaver bags but haven't opened most of my bulk bags from hops direct. Is it okay to use a foodsaver bag and let it crush the hops? Also the foodsaver bags aren't the best O2 barrier, so will that be a problem?

I think I'm going back to pellets next year.

Gameface said:

This year I just used foodsaver bags but haven't opened most of my bulk bags from hops direct. Is it okay to use a foodsaver bag and let it crush the hops? Also the foodsaver bags aren't the best O2 barrier, so will that be a problem?

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I leave them in the Hops Direct bag until I need them, then open, use what I need on brew day, and re-seal the rest in Food Saver Bags. I can't imagine that "crushing" them with a Food Saver is worse than pelletizing Why do you think oxygen is getting through your Food Saver bag? It's hard for me to understand how anything bad could happen to hops sealed and frozen.

pcollins said:

Whole leaf hops are THE reason why pellet hops were invented.

Think about that one.

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I love this statement.

TrubDog said:

I prefer whole leaf. Don't use a bag, just dump them in. 2 to 6 ounces in the boil and then after the boil I just dump into the bucket through a wire mesh stainer. Sometimes I have to empty half way through, but overall a piece of cake. I also have dogs so I let the hops finish dripping and then simply empty them into the garbage bag. I do sometimes use pellets, but just use the same process. With pellets I seem to get more particles that fall through into the wort. No big deal - it all settles out in the end.

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I think we're a bit lucky though living in OR/WA region where you can get a large variety of fresh whole leaf hops for the same price as pellets.

I dont know if i would get whole leaf hops if i was ordering them online from some pallet sitting in a warehouse for the last 6 months.

Ive even gotten FreshHops cascade hops that were so new the bag didnt even have AA% written on them yet because the testing wasnt complete.

As for difficulty using them, i just dont see it. I have a strainer, i stick it on my fermentation bucket and pour my wort in.
Not only does it aerate the hell out of my wort, but it catches all the hops.