Brewing with homegrown hops

I am getting excited to have my first harvest of homegrown hops! looking like I will have at least a couple pounds of Cloumbus hops, and probably a half pound of Glacier hops. I am wondering what to expect from brewing with my own hops. Will I be let down? Totally stoked? I'd like to hear some feedback from folks who have brewed their own hops before.

Thanks!

homegrown hops are amazing because they are fresh, I have started using them exclusively for very late additions and dry hopping - because anything else is a complete waste of their glory. unless you are harvesting lots and lots of hops and you can afford to use them whenever you want willienillie.

another issue with homegrown hops is that they are of an unknown acid content, you can have them tested but it is a bit spendy.

I had my first harvest last year. I was delieghted with the flavoring and aroma from my centennial and cascade hops. I used commercially bought pellets for bittering though. This year, I'm going to use mine. Pretty stoked.

Congrats on a successful season.

I have only used them in late additions/dry hopping in the past 2 seasons. Partly becuase I only got a couple of oz, and partly because I don't know the Alpha Acid % to bitter with. My Orange pale ale with dry hopped cascade was pretty tasty. Used the Williamette in a brown ale, and the Hallertau in a Maibock, both turning out well.

Dang, first year and you got yields like that? Is that picture your hops? I'm on 3rd year Cascade, Hallertau, and Williamette at our lake place in N Central Mn. I figure I'll get maybe 3-4 dry oz of each this year if I'm lucky. Lots of them, but they are pretty small. Either its because I can only water once every week or two when I am north, or possibly too little soil ammendments/fertilizer.

That is pretty exciting! I remember doing a batch last year, and the few things I would change are:

Use a simple malt / extract bill. I complicated mine with crystal 15, acidulated, and a small amount of rye which kind of stole my hops "thunder".
Guessing the AA % on your hops will be difficult. I used mine as bitterring through aroma and ended up with a very mild bitterness. I would suggest using them as late hop additions, just so you have a better idea of what your actual IBUs will be.

Also keep in mind that if you don't dry them out, you'll want to use a lot more than usual. Four ounces of wet hops is probably just going to be a few cones, so you'll want to use 3-4x the amount you'd usually use on a batch.

This is all just personal preference, and I'd be interested to see what everyone else thinks that has done this before!

Here is a couple pics I took of them last week. I started with full crowns I ordered from Great Lakes Hops (I got my Avatar pic from their webstie). I think the full crown instead of starting with Rhyzomes really helped with first year results. Thanks for the input! anyone brew with homegrown Columbus??

Here's what I did (with preliminary results):
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/fresh-wet-hopped-beer-ideas-426802/

EDIT: You will be surprised how much volume half a pound of hops is!!! Better weigh your hops before you plan any beers...

Here is my plan for my first Homegrown Homebrew:

Coulumbus IPA

Bach Size 10 Gallons
Pre Boil Volume 12 Gallons
90 minute boil

Grain Bill
26 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Crystal 40
1 lb Cara Pils

Hop Schedule
2 OZ Warrior 60 min
2 OZ Columbus 15 min
2 OZ Columbus 10 min
2 OZ Columbus 5 min
4 OZ Columbus Dry Hop (2 OZ in each 6.5 Gallon Carboy)

Single Infusion Mash - 154 deg F

Yeast
Safale US-05 or Wyeast 1056
Ferment at 68 degrees
7 Days in Primary
14 Days dry hopping in Secondary

Keg or bottle, carbonate to 2.5 volumes Co2


Any thoughts? brewing this weekend.

Thanks!

It is amazing how much volume 1 ounce of dried hops actually is! I ended up with 2 Lbs of dried Columbus, & about 4 OZ of dried Glacier.

Cheers!

AndMan3030 said:

Here is my plan for my first Homegrown Homebrew:

Coulumbus IPA

Bach Size 10 Gallons
Pre Boil Volume 12 Gallons
90 minute boil

Grain Bill
26 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Crystal 40
1 lb Cara Pils

Hop Schedule
2 OZ Warrior 60 min
2 OZ Columbus 15 min
2 OZ Columbus 10 min
2 OZ Columbus 5 min
4 OZ Columbus Dry Hop (2 OZ in each 6.5 Gallon Carboy)

Single Infusion Mash - 154 deg F

Yeast
Safale US-05 or Wyeast 1056
Ferment at 68 degrees
7 Days in Primary
14 Days dry hopping in Secondary

Keg or bottle, carbonate to 2.5 volumes Co2

Any thoughts? brewing this weekend.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

How do you dry out the hops? Can u just brew them fresh off the vine I feel the smell would be stronger

I think there's a sticky on drying, but if not, spread the cones on a window screen propped up on whatever you have handy, and aim a fan at it. Dry them to where the cones end up in the vicinity of 20% of their original wet weight. Depending on your setup, when you picked the hops, and the ambient humidity, it could take a couple days or more.

As for wet hopping, folks do it, apparently successfully. You'd have to use the inverse of the dry-hop metric - ie: five times as much wet hops as dry - to get in the ballpark of a recipe's intended hop character...

Cheers!

Yeah, I built this driying screen in a few minutes. just some 2 x 2 and some screen material nailed to it. took 3 days to get down to 20% of the original weight.

Batch bewed accoring to plan. (Except I used White Labs English Ale Yeast)

OG 1.070

Racked 10/19

1.012

Dry Hopping with 2 oz of my own Columbs Hops in each fermenter.

The smell coming out of these carboys is magical.

(drool)
Jealous over here...
(drool)

Beautiful! On Saturday I brewed a hopbursted session IPA with homegrown Nugget and Cascade about 5 oz total in 5 gallons at 1.045 OG. the smell is amazing!

Nice....I can't wait for my next years yields.

Bottled 2 cases of this and kegged up the other 5 gallons. Bleeping Awesome! Seriously, the hop flavor and aroma is excellent, and the bittering from the warrior hops is just right. So stoked to finally be drinking beer made with my hops! BOOM!

Drank 3 pints of this last night. OMG!!! EVERY HOMEBREWER WHO CAN GROW HOPS, SHOULD!!! This is one of my best beers ever. Couldn't be happier. and at 50 bucks for ten gallons.... EFF YEAH! Brewing this again this weekend. Gonna add even more of the HOMEGROWN!!!

^True fact

I've just started sampling this year's edition of my all-home-grown IPA (Chinook/Cascade/Centennial) and it is really good. All three hops really shine and there's plenty of punch. It's only been cold conditioning/carbing for a week but it's going to be a good'un in plenty of time for the kids to enjoy at Thanksgiving.

With a freezer crammed with cones I'm going to be doing a lot of this recipe before next fall...

Cheers!

Just brewed my first all home-grown hop beer. Made an IIPA with columbus for bittering and a ton of Centennial at 20, 15, 10, 5, 0, and hop stand 170F. Will dry hop with Columbus and Centennial. The aroma in my ferm chamber is the best I've had in recent memory. I opened my vacuum sealed bag of Centennial and compared it to store bought Centennial. My hops had a far more potent aroma. A wonderful medley of sweet floral, lemony/grapefruit, and piney resin. :rockin:

It's a wonderful thing!

I did a home-grown Centennial SMaSH yesterday and it's percolating nicely this morning (next to an ESB with all bought nobles that was the second in a double-batch day). This time of year I'm brewing indoors my shop and the whole house smelled amazing by the time the spousal unit got home. Fortunately she digs the heady brew day smells as much as I do!

I have a metric crap ton of home grown hops literally crammed into one of my freezers and I'm committed to using every last ounce over the next year, one way or the other! :rockin:

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

It's a wonderful thing!

I did a home-grown Centennial SMaSH yesterday and it's percolating nicely this morning (next to an ESB with all bought nobles that was the second in a double-batch day). This time of year I'm brewing indoors my shop and the whole house smelled amazing by the time the spousal unit got home. Fortunately she digs the heady brew day smells as much as I do!

I have a metric crap ton of home grown hops literally crammed into one of my freezers and I'm committed to using every last ounce over the next year, one way or the other! :rockin:

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Same here. Those pounds of hops got to go somewhere, because there will be more looking for a home come next fall.

I was just reading in the latest issue of BYO on porters about a technique of taking the hops and cold break from the kettle and adding them to the mash of the next brew. This is a way to salvage the lost fermentables from hop absorption, as well as gaining a little hop flavor from late additions. I'm planning on giving my next IIPA a ton of late additions and then dump those hops into my next mash. Maybe freeze the hops-wort slurry, if the next brew is not soon enough.

day_trippr said:

I think there's a sticky on drying, but if not, spread the cones on a window screen propped up on whatever you have handy, and aim a fan at it. Dry them to where the cones end up in the vicinity of 20% of their original wet weight. Depending on your setup, when you picked the hops, and the ambient humidity, it could take a couple days or more.

As for wet hopping, folks do it, apparently successfully. You'd have to use the inverse of the dry-hop metric - ie: five times as much wet hops as dry - to get in the ballpark of a recipe's intended hop character...

Cheers!

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I used a dehydrator/jerky-maker and it took me about 30hrs.

Round two...

That right there is a thing of beauty
I hope you flushed the head space with something other than oxygen. I've seen too many pictures of whole-hopped brews grow molding on top of floating cones.

I'm just tasting the first fully-carbed draw from my latest all-home-grown-hop IPA (Chinook/Cascade/Centennial). It's just as good as the keg that my boys kicked over the holiday. Yummers!

The Centennial SMaSH is nearing the end of dry hopping and will be crashed and kegged this weekend. If I've ever brewed a batch that tempted me to do a "burst carb", this one might be it. It's going to take resolve not to succomb to such a shoddy practice...

Cheers!

Patience my friend! Stay the course!

day_trippr said:

It's a wonderful thing!

I did a home-grown Centennial SMaSH yesterday and it's percolating nicely this morning (next to an ESB with all bought nobles that was the second in a double-batch day). This time of year I'm brewing indoors my shop and the whole house smelled amazing by the time the spousal unit got home. Fortunately she digs the heady brew day smells as much as I do!

I have a metric crap ton of home grown hops literally crammed into one of my freezers and I'm committed to using every last ounce over the next year, one way or the other! :rockin:

Cheers!

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Please update after tasting the Centennial SMaSH. I love Centennial, and want to hear all about it!

This batch scored a 33.5 at the Upper Mississippi Mashout last weekend. I also entered it in the Saint Paul Beer Dabbler Winter Carnival... I will be sure to post results!

Congrats!

And apologies for totally forgetting to follow-up on my own Centennial SMaSH.
It came out excellent - the Centennial character is well represented. It has a nice balance of bitter and residual sweetness - something the spousal unit appreciates as I tend to be heavy-handed with IBUs (this batch on paper was 66 IBUs) - plenty of fruity flavors, and enough aroma to let you know what's going to follow.

I'm definitely going to put this in my brewing rotation as I'm still sitting on a crapload of hops (a high-class problem for sure )

Cheers!

AndMan3030 said:

This batch scored a 33.5 at the Upper Mississippi Mashout last weekend. I also entered it in the Saint Paul Beer Dabbler Winter Carnival... I will be sure to post results!

Click to expand...

Did you go to Winterfest this past Friday?

day_trippr said:

Congrats!

And apologies for totally forgetting to follow-up on my own Centennial SMaSH.
It came out excellent - the Centennial character is well represented. It has a nice balance of bitter and residual sweetness - something the spousal unit appreciates as I tend to be heavy-handed with IBUs (this batch on paper was 66 IBUs) - plenty of fruity flavors, and enough aroma to let you know what's going to follow.

I'm definitely going to put this in my brewing rotation as I'm still sitting on a crapload of hops (a high-class problem for sure )

Cheers!

Click to expand...

I know it's been 9 years(!) since this was posted, but I know you're still very active. This is my second year in growing hops (first to go into brewing), and it looks like I'll have a nice crop of Centennial, Cascade and Fuggle. I am interested in your Centennial whole hops recipe; I supposed you have refined it during the passing years. Also, how best do you manage all the hop matter? I know I must forego my plate chiller in lieu of immersion, but what other tips can you offer to avoid/minimize a potential mess of a process with the whole hops? (Including dry hopping, if you do that, and transfer into kegs). Many thanks!

Make sure there's no way for the pump in your kettle to suck in whole cones.
Hop spider or some kind of separation plate.
I use mine in a hop rocket from flameout and whirlpool stage.
I haven't used them to dry hop.

DuncB said:

Make sure there's no way for the pump in your kettle to suck in whole cones.
Hop spider or some kind of separation plate.
I use mine in a hop rocket from flameout and whirlpool stage.
I haven't used them to dry hop.

Click to expand...

Thanks, DB!

Gozie Boy said:

Also, how best do you manage all the hop matter? I know I must forego my plate chiller in lieu of immersion, but what other tips can you offer to avoid/minimize a potential mess of a process with the whole hops? (Including dry hopping, if you do that, and transfer into kegs). Many thanks!

Click to expand...

Hop matter is usually *less* of a problem with wet hops, at least if you have a kettle with a pickup tube. They tend to get wedged around it, and self-filter. Unlike with dried whole-cone hops, there are less loose leaves. If you're really unlucky, before the mesh forms, a smaller one will find its way straight onto the pickup tube entrance. I've solved it by blowing into the kettle valve.

If you don't like living on the edge, you can use a BIAB bag or something for whirlpooling (depending a bit on your setup). For dry-hopping I do use a bag, weighed down with some teaspoons.

btw, one of the best beers I make is taking the wet hops from the kettle after the wort is transferred, squeezing the liquid out of them with my hands, pouring that liquid into a big bottle, adding bread yeast, and after a few days pouring the almost-finished beer into a fliptop bottle to carbonate. No, I'm not kidding, but spund a fliptop at your own peril.

Just reading thru this, I am in my second season of hops and looking forward to a decent Cascade and Columbus yield. Not pounds but I am hoping for a few ounces of each. I have an ounce or so of each vacuum sealed and frozen that I plan to use as well. Going to watch this thread to see what kinda cool recipes are posted so that I can use my own hops to make a solid beer. Rock On!!!!!!

Gozie Boy said:

I know it's been 9 years(!) since this was posted, but I know you're still very active. This is my second year in growing hops (first to go into brewing), and it looks like I'll have a nice crop of Centennial, Cascade and Fuggle. I am interested in your Centennial whole hops recipe; I supposed you have refined it during the passing years. Also, how best do you manage all the hop matter? I know I must forego my plate chiller in lieu of immersion, but what other tips can you offer to avoid/minimize a potential mess of a process with the whole hops? (Including dry hopping, if you do that, and transfer into kegs). Many thanks!

Click to expand...

Man, it has been a long time. I will have to dig deep into some archives for recipe data as those days predate my adoption of BeerSmith. I think I was using QBrew back then.

In any case, I originally used muslin bags for my home grown cones in the boil, then used a false bottom in my boil kettle (still have it, probably should sell it) which made everything easy while allowing the cones to go "commando". Dry hopping was also in muslin bags, which was a bit challenging considering I've always used carboys with skinny necks

I'm on The Cape Of Cod this week but I'll try to remember to take a look for recipe stuff when I return...

Cheers!

I ended up getting a fairly good amount of fresh hops - but I was out of town for several weeks so I just asked my wife to freeze them - just like that fresh cones in a zip lock into the freezer.
It was a couple months before I actually tried them. Chinook and Goldings
I made a basic pale ale 10lbs light, 1 lb 30L crystal, nottingham yeast (20L)
I had no idea at al how much to use. I used 4 cups at 50min 4 cups at 3-4 min - it was not very hoppy, not enough for me, but what was there was very tasty.
Same recipe again 8 cups at 50min, 8 cups at 3-4min. Turned out very nice, I love the hop flavour (I used same yeast) But could be hoppier
I did a similar recipe except 120 L crystal (1lb) but 10 cups at each, and it smells really nice and before carbonation tatstes a bit hoppier. I haven't tasted finished beer yet.
One thing I'd say about using the homegrown wet hops like that - the flavour is amazing, I really like the flavour from using those hops like that. Maybe 8its just unconscious bias , but I am really enjoying it.

Wow, that is a lot of hops. I won't get that much in 2 or even 3 seasons I don't think. Great stuff.

I've read that you should use 10x weight of wet hops as equivalent. That assumes your hops have same AA as the commercial dried hops. This is an unknown for most homegrowers.