First time harvesting my Cascade!

[all_about_stouts]

Hey everyone. I harvested my Cascades yesterday and now I'm already thinking of a recipe for them. I ended up with 5.2 ounces, so hopefully it will end up around 1.5 ounces when dry.

I was thinking of doing a simple American Pale Ale. I'm not sure if they have as much lupulin as they were supposed to because they were kinda neglected and I think I harvested them too late. Because of this, I'll just overestimate how much I need to add.

So when creating a recipe with homegrown hops, I know it's kind of ambiguous, but how would I use them in Beersmith? Could I just select the whole leaf hops option? I'm currently drying them so I think it should translate over similarly. What do you guys do?

 

[JohnSand]

I've read to use them as late additions, flavor and aroma. That way the AA% is not as important. I have not had complete success using homegrown hops, but I generally estimate them at the low end of their alpha range. Good luck, let us know what you decide and how it works.

 

[goodsuds]

I'm not sure you'll get a full 1.5oz. I got almost a pound (15.25oz) wet on my first harvest earlier this week and they finished drying today. Total weight after dried is 3.15oz!

My drying method was a screen in the basement propped up on some boxes with a dehumidifier running next to them, drawing air over the hops, for 3 days.

 

[all_about_stouts]

I'm not sure you'll get a full 1.5oz. I got almost a pound (15.25oz) wet on my first harvest earlier this week and they finished drying today. Total weight after dried is 3.15oz!

My drying method was a screen in the basement propped up on some boxes with a dehumidifier running next to them, drawing air over the hops, for 3 days.

I used the air filter with a box fan technique. I only left it about 18 hours and they went from 5.2 ounces to 1.65 ounces. I'm not going to dry them any further because I'm a little concerned about removing the lupulin. When I was weighing them in a bowl, I notice some had fallen off and collected at the bottom of the bowl. I just separated them out in thirds (0.55 ounces) in ziplock bags and got as much air out as possible. I'll be using these in 2 or 3 weeks anyway, so I think it'll be ok.

Judging from your experience, yours dried out to a fifth of what they started. So mine should probably be around 1 ounce. I'll just use all of them as a 1 ounce addition and hopefully overshoot my IBUs and end up with a hoppier than expected pale ale.