Who Has Used First Year Hops for Bittering

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The Soft Underbelly

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So i know this has been the topic of some discussion on this board, whether or not and how to use home grown hops for bittering. I know some do and some don't. From those who do, it's been suggested to use the median AA% as a guideline and adjust future batches based on the taste of the initial batch.

Now, all that being said, it was suggested in an earlier thread which i was reading today that the AA% of first year hops can be especially unreliable due to the supposition that the plant uses much of it's energy for rhizome / root production.

So my questions:

Who has used 1st year hops for bittering?

What variety?

What were the results?
 
I have. Galena and Cascades. Both batches are in secondary or primary so I won't know quite yet. I based mine off the low end of the spectrum for AA%.
(Actually, I used some of my Willamette in one of those batches also)
 
So i know this has been the topic of some discussion on this board, whether or not and how to use home grown hops for bittering. I know some do and some don't. From those who do, it's been suggested to use the median AA% as a guideline and adjust future batches based on the taste of the initial batch.

Now, all that being said, it was suggested in an earlier thread which i was reading today that the AA% of first year hops can be especially unreliable due to the supposition that the plant uses much of it's energy for rhizome / root production.

So my questions:

Who has used 1st year hops for bittering?

What variety?

What were the results?

I have.

Zues.

Bitter. As expected.

For my use, I did not go with the "median". I figured for the absolute bottom end for the variety (based on the 10 year averages). Nor did I "scale back" the amounts based on reading that HG hops are more potent as a result of better (read less vigorous) handling.

Now, once the plants are mature I will start with the median and adjust from that.
 
Good question. Even though I won't have a harvest with this years' "first years", I might next year as I plan on planting more. The wifey actually approved a trellis/patio roof for four more plants. NICE!!!
 
Used a combination of Fuggle & Cascades in a brown, all 1.25 ounces of them! Just used the median numbers. Worked ok.
 
I'll be making BM's Centennial Blonde this weekend and will be using only homegrown hops. I have no idea what it'll be like but I'll drink it either way. :D
 
I'll have a very few cones from my first year Sterling rhyzome.

plan on dry hopping with them
 
I just brewed yesterday, and used my home-grown Mt. Hood hops throughout. The grain bill was only Pils and 2-row (8.75 lbs / 2 lbs), and the yeast is Nottingham. I used the hops as follows: 0.5oz FWH, 0.5oz 60min, 0.5oz 35min, 0.5oz 20min, 0.5oz 5min. I wanted to see, first of all, if these hops would adequately bitter a beer, and secondly, I wanted to see what the flavor/aroma qualities would be. I guess this batch will show me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and will report the results. The plant is 3 years old, and the harvest this year was really good - about 1.5 lbs, and very pungent.

Tim McTigue
 
Used a combination of Fuggle & Cascades in a brown, all 1.25 ounces of them! Just used the median numbers. Worked ok.

How was the flavor on this? I've got an IPA going that I used Glacier and Cascade (both harvested while boiling) at 10 min. and flameout and just transfered yesterday onto 1 oz (dried) each of Glacier and Cascade. Glacier is often mentioned as a good sub. for Fuggle. The Glacier smelled a bit woodsy as has been reported. Primary smelled great. I used roughly the equivalent of 6 oz. dried of these two total. I did bitter with commercial hops though.
 
Last evening I tasted my one-hop Mt. Hood brew, and got a nice surprise. It's past high krausen now, and pretty much ready for racking. I tasted it with some initial trepidation, since I'm kind of expecting that my homegrown hops will be pretty low on the AA scale, but I discovered I needn't have worried - it was yummy! I took a second sample, just to be sure, and yup, it's yummy. It's got a very delicate, subtle flavor, and perhaps the malt character is just a little too pronounced, but what I tasted made me very much decide not to dry-hop this one, I'll see it through. I think it'll turn out to be a very nice Kolsch-style beer. I put the recipe into my brewing software just to see where the IBU's might fall, and at first I decided to see what if the AA were way off the low end. Mt. Hood is supposed to have between 5-8% AA, so I plugged in 4 to see what I would get, and found that the total IBU's fell around 18.75. When I went with 5%, it came out at around 21 IBU, which is definitely in Kolsch range. Given how nice it tasted, I'm betting these hops are probably around 5%AA, so that gives me some valuable information for using them in the future. Next time, I might use 1 oz for bittering instead of 0.5 oz, or I might try dry-hopping with a half-ounce, or maybe bittering with Hallertau or something else, but I think I'm going to like this beer a lot! Can't wait to try out my Cascades!
 
I'll be brewing with my hops for the first time this evening... or perhaps Saturday if i get really lazy... Cascades and Chinook, glad to hear everyone's advice. Cant wait to see how it turns out. I ended up using AA% on the low end of what should be expect of the variety to formulate the recipe.
 
Has anyone tried making a hop tea and comparing it with hop teas made from various AA% hops (commercial hops) of equal quantity? I'm going to give it a go and see if it's a useful test at all.
 
I bottled and sampled the beer i made a few weeks back with my hops and i have to say it was pretty tasty. This was also the first beer i brewed that wasn't a kit.... something on the order of...

6 lbs LME

1lb DME

1 lb Crystal 40L

1 oz chinook @ 60

.5 oz cascade at 25

.25 oz cascade @ 15

.25 oz cascade @ 5 min

1 pkg of safeale 04

I estimated the AA% on the low end and as far as i can tell used a bit more crystal than i needed, next time I'll dial it down to half a pound.

The first taste was WAY too sweet and you could barely tell that cascades were involved. i dumped in the yeast, left it alone for 3 weeks and this weekend bottled. The sample i took of the fermented beer was way better than the un-fermented wort. The cascade, while not as strong as i was shooting for were definitely there and the sweetness had dissipated a bit as well. even though this beer is sweeter than i prefer, this is turning out to be a pretty good beer so far.

Next time, I'll up the hops a bit, maybe estimating 1% below the low range.

Thanks for all the advice on this one, i have to say there's no reason not to use 1st year hops for bittering if your willing to experiment a bit.
 
The homegrown blonde is on the tap. As I thought but did not worry about, the IBU's are low. It's a little to sweet so I got some IAA extract that I'm going to add to it to bitter it up some.
Other then that, it's good.
Still have some hops left that I may dry hop a pale with in the next month or two.
 
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