Wild hops.

Endless amounts of these growing at my folks place. Any idea what there are?

i see a mystery ipa in your future. just use a lot of them.

Do you think tweaking a Coopers Draught kit with these would turn out?

I dont't know.... just try it.... and if it's good... send to my address

I've heard rumors of wild hops growing here on the east coast as well, although I've never been quite so luck as to have found any!

Check out youtube for videos on how to dry the hops and then you could try dry hopping a Coopers Draught kit or perhaps find an extract recipe that uses only one variety of hops and substitute the variety in the recipe for your wild hops.

If there tons of them there, annually, and you intend to use them in the future, it might not be a bad idea to try to figure out what they are... You could start with fairly simple stuff like their aroma, etc. and then use the AA% of the center of the range typical for that hop.

But I'm sure there is also some place that you can send them to have them tested also... ?? Anyone?

Making mystery beer with mystery hops is a fine idea and you may figure something out by trial and error but creating an IPA with all 3% AA hops is going to be drastically different from creating one with 14% AA hops or even something like 6-8% AA hops... It would really help to know what they were.

Dry hopping with them is a fine idea (as long as they are a good aroma variety) if you don't want to go through the hassle to determine what they are in terms of alpha acids...

Make hop teas with the wild hops and compare to hop teas made with hops of know AA% values (perhaps some with 3%, 6%, 9% and 12% so u have a good range to compare with).

A couple questions:

Are all of the hops single cones at the end of stems? Most modern hops grow in clusters.

How old are the plants? Feral hops are likely to be old types like Bullion, Brewer's Gold or Fuggles.

david_42 said:

A couple questions:

Are all of the hops single cones at the end of stems? Most modern hops grow in clusters.

How old are the plants? Feral hops are likely to be old types like Bullion, Brewer's Gold or Fuggles.

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I'll try to get some good pictures of the plants today. I know the plants are VERY old...like planted in the late 20's or 30's I believe. They are growing all over the foliage in the lower yard and there is literally tons of them. Picking and vacuum sealing some more today.

Picture of the leaf and the 2nd haul I made. Still haven't even scratched the surface as to what is growing there.

Take them to your local college's agriculture department and see if they will analyze them for you.

Why not just make a really hoppy smash?Then you'll know what they taste like.If you like them then use em.

I have a coopers draught kit that I'm going to add these to. Full boil 60/15/5 minute additions using light DME. Really my first step past basic kits. I have grain/hop bags now and it's probably the start of moving on.

Good for you. Keep rockin. Check out deathbrewers stovetop partial mashing technique. Easy to move up from extract brewing.

universe said:

I have a coopers draught kit that I'm going to add these to. Full boil 60/15/5 minute additions using light DME. Really my first step past basic kits. I have grain/hop bags now and it's probably the start of moving on.

Click to expand...

If you're using a can of Cooper's pre-hopped malt from a can be sure to end it at the end of the boil using the method below. Otherwise it could end up getting really bitter, which wouldn't give you a good idea of how useful the hops are.

http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/02/20/better-beer-with-late-malt-extract-additions/

Dude you hit the jackpot!!!!