Home Grown Hops score!!!

So my father calls me the other night and proceeds to tell me that he works with a lady who, for whatever reason, grows her own hops. I told him that was pretty cool and to see if he could get any for me. A few days later, he lets me know that he has 3-1 gallon zip lock bags full of them. According to this lady, they're nugget hops. I have no idea what to expect, but hopefully they'll be good. He vacuum sealed the bags and sent them to me today (I live in Texas and he lives in Michigan) so I should get them on Wednesday. The lady who gave them to him did say that she wanted a 12-pack in return.

I've always used pellet hops in all my brews thus far. Any tips for using whole leaf hops? Also, without knowing the AA% - any tips for planning a recipe?

I'm quite excited to see what arrives.

I know with wet hops at least you need to use more to be equivalent to one ounce of dry pellets, not sure if there's much difference between dry pellets vs dry whole hops.

If you don't know the AA% I'd suggest using them more for flavor/aroma additions since it will have less impact.

I use the following conversion factors.

Whole Wetellet=5:1
Whole dryellet=1.1:1

These are approximate but they are what I use and it seems to be fine.

Also, factor in some wort absorption for the use of whole hops (versus pellets).

I noticed that the wort absorption was a pretty big factor in my first batch using whole leaf. Could that cause a loss of OG? I did strain the water I added to make up loss through the hops to try to "rinse" them.

Chris

Just factor it into your calcs, as in what you expect into the fermenter, and you should be fine. My actual value i've been getting is about 0.42 quarts of wort per ounce of whole, dry hops.

Not a big deal with one or two oz, but an IPA at 5oz you're losing quite a bit of wort.

Thanks.. I had 2.5 oz of Nugget and 2oz of Cascade.. so it was packed with cones. I guess that explains where some of my missing Wort was..

Chris

UPDATE:

I received the hops today and they're AWESOME. They look and smell wonderful.

Check out the last few pictures in my facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029455&id=1555583227&l=3a653d5606


Now here's a question:

Nugget hops are listed as being from 11% - 15% AA. Will Nugget hops (regardless of where/how they're grown) always be around this level? I can understand a professional hop farmer slaving over his hops to ensure the best quality...but these are home-grown. Does that even matter? Will home grown hops yeild the same range of AAs as professionally grown hops of the same variety?

Some or most people select an aa value in the middle for home-grown, but i'm a bit more "pessimistic" in my value. I choose a value on the bottom end for the reason you're suggesting - i don't slave over mine, regimented water, fertilize, etc., so i expect my "quality" to be on the low end.

I don't why you'd assume they'd have lower AA% without understanding how the hop plant makes AA% (which I don't). I'm thinking that proper care of plant produces more hope flowers, not necessarily more bitter hops. Does anyone have a scientific answer on this? I plan to grow some hops next spring.

I assume that because i'm a pessimist and planning for lower aa% than higher seems more practical to me. It's more of an issue of impact assessment with relation to how i use them in my recipes.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, as I dont have any experience with home grown hops, but you could end up with more IBU's than you planned. I think you want to considering, depending on the recipe, would you rather have it overly bitter or overly sweet. I think that's why most people would shoot for the middle.

I dont think there's any reason to assume these hops would be inferior. My neighbors apple are sweeter than store bought apples. Maybe these hops will impart more IBUs.