Fresh Hop Ale Recipe Critique?

Well, I am pleasantly surprised that I had a pretty decent first year growing hops. My Cascades have done really well, and many are still on the bine, ripening. I harvested most of my Nuggets, of which there were few. So far I have about 17 oz. wet cascades and 5 oz. wet nuggets.

I am going to brew a fresh hop beer this week (a reddish pale ale) and just hope it turns out. Bridgeport Brewing is sponsoring a homebrew fresh hops contest, so if its good I will enter it.

So, if I have this right....wet hops weigh about 4-5 times more than dry hops. If the 17 oz of wet cascades hops were dry, I'd have about 3.4 oz Cascades and the 5 oz wet Nuggets would equal about 1 oz dry Nugget?

I also input AA levels at the lower end of the respective hops, as I may have picked a bit early(though there is lots of lupalin and they were quite dry and springy) and I just have no clue! I put Cascades at 4.5% and Nugget at 10%. Finally, my neighbor has a ton of Tettnanger that are just about ready, and I will add some of those, too. I am figuring about 4.5% on those, too.

Here is my recipe:

75% efficiency

10.4 lbs Pale malt 2L
8 oz. Melanoidin malt 32L
5 oz Crystal 60L
2 oz crystal 120L

SRM = 10
IBU= 45-60 ????
ABV = 5.7
OG 1.057
FG 1.012

Fresh Hops:

60 min- 5 oz wet (1 oz dry) Nugget 10% AA
30 min- 2.5 oz wet (.5 oz dry) Cascade 4.5 % AA
20 min- 2.5 oz wet(.5 oz dry) Cascade 4.5 % AA
20 min- 5 oz wet(1 oz dry) Tettnanger 4.5% AA
2 min- 5 oz wet ( 1 oz dry) Cascade/5 oz wet (1 oz dry) Tettnanger

Dry hop with wet hops (sounds odd?) at secondary if there are more ripe ones.

1056 yeast at 68 f

So, any comments, advice would be great! Thanks!

My guess is your going to need to send me at least one of those when its done just to sample and let you know (ya know for the love of beer) if you should enter the comp or not. PM me for my address
Cheers
JJ

If you want reddish, add about 1 ounce of roasted barley just to darken it up a touch.

It may be just a touch malty and big for a pale ale, but this is the grain bill for my IPA that comes out very red, based off of Jamil's American Red recipe. It's my favorite beer, the full recipe is in my recipe list.

10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 74.07 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.41 %
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 7.41 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 3.70 %
8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 3.70 %
4.0 oz Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 1.85 %
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (200.0 SRM) Grain 1.85 %

Is it possible to "dry" hop with fresh hops? Would it be a lot different than dry hopping with dry hops?

Thanks guys- I was thinking of adding more dark grains and making a real red. Probably a bit of 200L light chocolate.

Jaybird-I would be happy to share-exchange? Are you in Redding area? I go there often.

Mysteryberto- yeah, that was my thought too, but people do it. The rules of the competition state that only wet hops are allowed-even in dry hopping!

Gotta go pick more freshies!

Is it possible to "dry" hop with fresh hops? Would it be a lot different than dry hopping with dry hops?

Click to expand...

I've tried it and I've also used fresh hops in a randall. Very disappointed in both cases. Filled a cornie with fresh hops and ran an IPA through it, smelled like grass (as in lawn).

TimBrewz said:

Thanks guys- I was thinking of adding more dark grains and making a real red. Probably a bit of 200L light chocolate.

Jaybird-I would be happy to share-exchange? Are you in Redding area? I go there often.

Mysteryberto- yeah, that was my thought too, but people do it. The rules of the competition state that only wet hops are allowed-even in dry hopping!

Gotta go pick more freshies!

Click to expand...

Next time you come this way let me know. I have anywhere from 2 to ? beers on hand at any given point.
Cheers
JJ

So how did this turn out? I'm looking at harvesting my first year Cascades and I need a good fresh hop recipe.

Also, any thoughts on mixing fresh & dried hops if the yield is not high enough?

Wow, hey you reminded me to post a year later! OK, so according to my notes I did not use Wet Hops for the first addition-I used .5 oz (15% aa) dry Millenium hops. Then added the rest as in my recipe. I keg hopped with recently dried Tett and Cascade.

So, how was it? SUPER pungent hop aroma. The aroma was nearly too much for me which is saying something as I love me some hop aroma. Couple of buddies thought it was masterful. The only problem of using keg hops instead of dry hopping in the secondary was that the hop flavor and aroma just kept getting more intense as the volume of beer in the keg decreased. The last few pints were like ridiculous-like a Randle. I entered this beer in the Bridgeport Brewery Wet Hops Homebrew Comp, the feedback was similar.....too much of a good thing!

Anyway, this year I am doing this beer: Its a red I love.

6.5 lbs Pale Ale malt
5 lbs Munich
.5 lbs Crystal 80
.5 lbs Crystal 40
1 oz dark chocolate malt

5 oz Wet Nugget 60 min
3 oz wet cascade 15 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 10 min
3 oz wet cascade 0 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 0 min

TimBrewz said:

Wow, hey you reminded me to post a year later! OK, so according to my notes I did not use Wet Hops for the first addition-I used .5 oz (15% aa) dry Millenium hops. Then added the rest as in my recipe. I keg hopped with recently dried Tett and Cascade.

So, how was it? SUPER pungent hop aroma. The aroma was nearly too much for me which is saying something as I love me some hop aroma. Couple of buddies thought it was masterful. The only problem of using keg hops instead of dry hopping in the secondary was that the hop flavor and aroma just kept getting more intense as the volume of beer in the keg decreased. The last few pints were like ridiculous-like a Randle. I entered this beer in the Bridgeport Brewery Wet Hops Homebrew Comp, the feedback was similar.....too much of a good thing!

Anyway, this year I am doing this beer: Its a red I love.

6.5 lbs Pale Ale malt
5 lbs Munich
.5 lbs Crystal 80
.5 lbs Crystal 40
1 oz dark chocolate malt

5 oz Wet Nugget 60 min
3 oz wet cascade 15 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 10 min
3 oz wet cascade 0 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 0 min

Click to expand...

Do you think the estimate of 4-5x for wet hops was too great? Or was it just the keg hops? I have heard anywhere from 4 to 6x...but have no experience. I just find this fascinating.

Eric

It was the keg hops for sure. 5 times is what I estimated, the range from what I understand is 5-8 times ( I think the 5 to 6 end is more realistic.)

Good luck

Tim

TimBrewz said:

Anyway, this year I am doing this beer: Its a red I love.

6.5 lbs Pale Ale malt
5 lbs Munich
.5 lbs Crystal 80
.5 lbs Crystal 40
1 oz dark chocolate malt

5 oz Wet Nugget 60 min
3 oz wet cascade 15 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 10 min
3 oz wet cascade 0 min
3 oz wet tettnanger 0 min

Click to expand...

I am just about to harvest my first year's crop of hops. It looks like I'll have about a pound+ of wet Cascade & maybe a 1/4 pound of Nugget. My Goldings didn't fruit at all. Do you think we could get by with just the nugget & cascades if we did the above recipe? Or should we throw in some dry tettnanger? I'd like to do an all wet hop brew.

Any thoughts on this?

It won't be true to the recipe but since the point is to try brewing with wet hops, I say just use what you've got!

Yep, brew with what you've got! (Tettnanger is just there because I have it.) It may be the best beer ever?

How'd this turn out?