Typical Hop Plant Yield & Other questions

Hey all!

So I'm going to be growing a hop garden this year for my very first time and had a few questions.

I do not plan on drying/storing the hops I grow. My plan is to buy enough plants/varieties to brew a kick a** wet hop IPA every year. I can grow 6 (maybe 8) plants and my brewing partner should be able to grow 3. So assume a max of 11 plants. I live in Northern California. Here are my questions:

1. What is the typical yield in oz. (wet or dry but please specify) that a hop plant typically produces? I'm sure there are many factors that affect this but just try to give me a ball park estimate.

2. I know that I will need to use more wet hops than dry hops to achieve the same bittering but I'm not sure how many. I think I heard somewhere that if the recipe calls for an oz of dry hops, you need 4 oz's of wet hops. Is this correct? A 1:4 ratio of dry to wet?

3. My LHBS is doing a pre order of rhizomes. Here is what they are offering:
Columbus
Galena
Cascade
Chinook
Magnum
Northern Brewer
Centennial
Mt. Hood
Nugget
Willamette
Sterling
What hops would do good on an IPA? I'm thinking cascade, chinook, and centennial, but I'm open to suggestions as I'm still fairly new to brewing and havent even used half of these hops.

Any and all help/tips would be AWESOME! Thanks for any input! :rockin:

- I think the accepted dry yield per plant spread runs between .5 and 2 pounds

- I would make the ratio 1:5 dry/wet, as hops are typically dried to around 20% moisture or even lower.

- Chinook, Centennial and Cascade would be fine choices for an IPA. I grow all three of those and they've done very well with not a lot of effort involved...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

- I think the accepted dry yield per plant spread runs between .5 and 2 pounds

- I would make the ratio 1:5 dry/wet, as hops are typically dried to around 20% moisture or even lower.

- Chinook, Centennial and Cascade would be fine choices for an IPA. I grow all three of those and they've done very well with not a lot of effort involved...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

agreed!

I'd also like to add columbus in for the ipa question. chinook, centennial, cascade, and columbus are the "4 american c hops" and are staples for pretty much any american style ale. Columbus and chinook are high yieldign plants too.

not sure if you've been tipped off to this yet but first year plants don't typically produce much if grown from a rhizome so keep that in mind. You could always buy a complete crown (equivalent of about a year old plant) from great lakes hops. that should get you going a little faster.

Thanks for the info! And yes I am aware that hop rhizomes typically dont yield the first year, but thats fine with me. If theres one thing brewings taught me it's patience lol.

For now I decided to go with 2 Cascades, 1 Centennial, and 1 Magnum.