Dry hopping with wild hops

[mccamich]

I picked some wild hops this past summer form my friend's backyard. I don't know the variety. I got about 8 ounces or so. I ziploc baggied them, rolled them out, and threw them in the freezer until I wanted to use them. Now I want to use them to dry hop an IPA I made. Some questions...

1. Should I throw them in the secondary fermenter frozen or thaw them first? I'm leaning toward thawing them because I'm worried about what the temperature difference between the frozen hops and the brew would do to the yeast when it comes time to bottle. I don't know if this'll be an issue. It could be a negligible temperature difference, but I'm not sure. I've never thrown anything frozen into my secondary fermenter before.

2. Should I clean the hops first? I'd just give em a rinse in a colander to make sure there're no little bugs or whatever on them before I toss them into the secondary fermenter.

3. Should I sanitize the hops first? If yes, then how? If I thrown them in frozen I'm assuming they'll be sanitized already. I was half-thinking about thawing them, rinsing them off, and then throwing them on a pan and drying them out in the oven on the lowest heat setting for a bit to sanitize them. I don't like sanitizing anything with vodka or any other neutral spirit. Even if the alcohol from the neutral spirit is negligible in the grand scheme of the brew batch, it always seems artificial to me.

4. How much should I add? I have about 8 ounces of whole hops. I'm adding them into a 2.5 gallon batch. I don't want it to overpower the brew. I just want a nice little addition to give it a lil something extra. This is probably heavily subjective.

 

[balrog]

Normally you would have dried them before freezing. To about 20% of their freshly picked wet weight.
Quickly Googling gives me a couple articles pertaining to your situation:
https://byo.com/mr-wizard/freezing-fresh-hops/https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/how-to-harvest-prepare-and-store-homegrown-hops/

 

[mccamich]

Normally you would have dried them before freezing. To about 20% of their freshly picked wet weight.
Quickly Googling gives me a couple articles pertaining to your situation:
https://byo.com/mr-wizard/freezing-fresh-hops/https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/how-to-harvest-prepare-and-store-homegrown-hops/

That's some super cool and helpful information for when I pick my friend's hops in the future, but unfortunately I am in still in the present. So presently, I have roughly 8 ounces of picked, whole, non-dried, squeezed, sealed, and frozen hops that I am wondering how to best utilize in my upcoming dry-hopping endeavor.

 

[day_trippr]

Have to ask: how certain are you that these hops aren't an ornamental strain?

Your frozen hops are probably somewhere around 3 to 5 times the weight of their dried equivalent depending on how much the freezer desiccated them, so figure a couple of ounces dry. I routinely dry hop much as 6 ounces of pellets in 5 gallons. I would dump your frozen lot in your 2.5 gallons...

Cheers!

 

[mccamich]

Have to ask: how certain are you that these hops aren't an ornamental strain?

Your frozen hops are probably somewhere around 3 to 5 times the weight of their dried equivalent depending on how much the freezer desiccated them, so figure a couple of ounces dry. I routinely dry hop much as 6 ounces of pellets in 5 gallons. I would dump your frozen lot in your 2.5 gallons...

Cheers!

I don't know if they're ornamental or not, but I'm betting that they're not. They smelled great and fresh when I picked them, very aromatic. Thanks for the advice on the dry hop addition!

 

[RM-MN]

What is the "secondary" of which you wrote? Most of us have quit using secondaries.

While you mention dry hopping, technically you are wet hopping. Here's a little information about wet hopping.

https://www.brewer-world.com/dry-hopped-vs-wet-hop-beers-whats-the-difference/

 

[mccamich]

What is the "secondary" of which you wrote? Most of us have quit using secondaries.

While you mention dry hopping, technically you are wet hopping. Here's a little information about wet hopping.

https://www.brewer-world.com/dry-hopped-vs-wet-hop-beers-whats-the-difference/

Cool. According to your article I'm "dry-hopping" with "wet hops". How interesting. I also like the clarity that secondary fermentation gives my brews. I'm also pretty anal when in it comes to sanitizing everything and not reintroducing oxygen to the system.

 

[whattabrau]

I've understood that you dry hops before freezing to prevent the formation of ice crystals which destroy cell walls and make the hops taste like a mound of cut grass. I've always dried my hops before freezing, so I can't say if it's true, and admittedly I don't recall eating a mound of cut grass, so I wouldn't know in any case. Before committing to the entire batch, try quick-hopping a neutral beer in the glass, even a commercial one if you have to. Use e.g. a [very clean] french press and allow for some minutes of contact time.

I don't think I can convince against your stance on sanitation, but anything already-[beeryeast-]fermented that's going into the keg and pretty soon into the cold gets a "don't worry be happy" from me. I've thrown hops straight off the bine into fermentors and kegs. Sure, there are some bugs, but they'll cold-crash out.