Calculating AAU's

I was wondering how those of you who grow your hops at home are able to calculate the AAU's in your home grown hops?

Is it really no big deal, and you just go by weight and what you would expect that particular hop variaty to have?

Thanks so much,

Adam

The only way to accurately calculate AAU's for homegrown hops is to have them tested, and that is a bit spendy.

You really only have a couple options when using HG hops.

1) You could look at the normal AA range for the variety and just use the average AAU, then brew up a batch or two and see if it's what you expect.

2) More commonly: Just use the homegrown hops for dry-hopping and late addition aroma hops, and stick with the store bought hops, with a known AAU as your bittering hops.

I use my home grown hops all the time for bittering as well as flavor and aroma. I use the published averages for each variety when I formulate the recipe. Keep good notes and adjust future batches as needed.

Brewing is as much art as science. Brewers were bittering beer using hops for hundreds of years before anybody knew about alpha acids or how to measure them.