Home grown cascade hops, little flavour, options to fix?

[Canuck137]

Hello,

So I am two years into growing cascade hops, this year I got a lot...

I set up a simple cascade ale brew to try these bad boys out, I did 1.5 for a one hour boil, 1.5 for 30 mins, and 3 for 10 mins... so the total here was 6 ounces... I was planning on dry hopping another 3 ounces... bringing the total to 9 ounces.

The beer is fermenting now, I smell no hops, I tried some of the wort and there is only a very vague taste of hops there.

Now I know homegrown hops are much less potent than the pellets, but last year I did a brew with only 4 ounces, I got a much smaller yield... and the beer turned out good.

My question now is how to fix this, I have lots of hops...

Should I just go over the top and dry hop with 9+ ounces? OR can I boil a 4-5 more ounces alone in a pot, then add that water to the fermentation to add more hop flavour?

Cheers.

 

[Apimyces]

Did you dry the hops first? Are you sure they were ripe when harvested?

Undried hops would mean a lot of that weight would have been mostly water. Unripe would have meant that the oils may not have had time to develop. I reckon these could potentially explain lack of flavor.

 

[Canuck137]

Undried... I literally picked them from the vine and took them to the pot... just easier... don't have the equipment, time, or space to dry them...

Last year I did the same thing, like I said, but with less hops, I only ended up with 4 ounces... it worked out fairly well. They must have been more ripe?

This year the hops exploded and I have 20-30 times the amount. I am looking at the vines right now and it doesn't even look like I picked any lol. This was just something I did on a whim, I never expected to end up with this much hops. Some of them look like damn pine cones, they are huge.

Maybe I should just shoot for the moon and dry hop with something ridiculous like 20 ounces lol.

 

[day_trippr]

So far you've used the equivalent of 1.2 ounces of dry Cascade cones.
With all that implies...

Cheers!

 

[Apimyces]

When wet hopping, I think you need to add like 5 times the weight. So it's like if you used less than two for your whole recipe; not particularly hoppy!

And that's when ripe. Early cones have even higher moisture contents.

 

[madscientist451]

If you have an attic that gets hot, or maybe a closed in sunporch, you can dry your hops there. I dry mine in a sunporch, I originally just used a shallow but wide cardboard box and gently shook them around once a day, now I have some wooden boxes with screen bottoms for better air circulation. You can probably use your oven on the lowest setting with the door held open a few inches, stir the hops every 30 mins or so.

 

[Canuck137]

So far you've used the equivalent of 1.2 ounces of dry Cascade cones.
With all that implies...

Cheers!

I figured once I was finished I would be using 9 and that was about 3 ounces of pellets worth, not bad for a basic cascade ale... I think they are ripe, some are starting to fall off the vines and they do seem "paper" like.

Still curious if I can boil another 3-4 ounces in a small pot, and then add that water to the fermented beer to improve the bitterness?

 

[day_trippr]

You could draw off a quart or so of beer, bring it up to 170°F, add your hops and hold it there for whatever feels right (10-20 minutes I reckon), let it cool and pour it back in the fermentor. Probably should add a bit of water to account for hop loss...

Cheers!

 

[Canuck137]

The beer didn't turn out too bad... I did a big dry hop and added some bitter orange peel with it for flavour... in the end not a hoppy beer at all but not bad. Next time I will use a lot more if they are my home grown hops.

 

[brewcat]

I figured once I was finished I would be using 9 and that was about 3 ounces of pellets worth, not bad for a basic cascade ale... I think they are ripe, some are starting to fall off the vines and they do seem "paper" like.

Still curious if I can boil another 3-4 ounces in a small pot, and then add that water to the fermented beer to improve the bitterness?

Ripe hops should bounce back quickly when squeezed. They also should be fairly sticky. Drying hops can be as simple or complicated as you want. I just throw them in brown paper bags to maybe a quarter full and shake them once a day. As far as bittering it is easier to use a known AA% and use homegrown for aroma/dry hop.

 

[thunderwagn]

Cascades aren't a great bittering hop even when dried. Even using dried (cascade) hop pellets you'd need more than if you used a typical bittering hop.
Bittering hops are dirt cheap usually. I'd suggest using a higher AA hop for the boil and finishing with your cascades. You will probably get better results. You will still need more though if used wet.

 

[JDL]

I found the drying to be much easier than I expected.

I use two old window screens and four clamps. Put the hop between the screens and clamp them. Set them out in the sun during the day and on my porch at night and in 2-3 nights they were dried.

It did en up being almost 5 times less dried then fresh in weight though.

 

[Sbe2]

I just brewed a ipa with a pound of my own dried Galena hops in a five gallon batch. Probably overkill, but I figured what the heck, all in all I had less than $20 into it.

 

[ElmerPhudd]

Home grown and dried hops should be BETTER than commercial pellets if you have given them enough water, fertilizer, daylight, air dried, and picked them ripe. Wet hops are 70-80% water so you can't use a 1 for 1 replacement factor.

 

[baron987]

Why is everyone so intent on brewing an IPA type, a lightly hopped beer is nice, too.

 

[frozengator]

Not to hijack this thread. I had my first crop of cascade. I didnt dry them i just vacuum packed them and froze them for a couple weeks. I added them to my dry hops. Still waiting on results. Would it mess anything up if I dont dry them?

 

[Canuck137]

Why is everyone so intent on brewing an IPA type, a lightly hopped beer is nice, too.

True... I am enjoying this one.... you know how homebrewers are though, we all love our hops.

 

[frozengator]

Some IPAs to me are fantastic and some taste down right dreadful

 

[bleak]

I got one of these herb dryers from Lee Valley. At $32 it's pretty cheap, and if I hang it up in the garage and put a fan under it the hops are dry in a couple of days. Very little trouble indeed, and it packs away nicely when I'm not using it.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/garden/page.aspx?p=70628&cat=2,2120,33279

 

[Northern_Brewer]

When wet hopping, I think you need to add like 5 times the weight. So it's like if you used less than two for your whole recipe; not particularly hoppy!

And that's when ripe. Early cones have even higher moisture contents.

In Kent they reckon on about 7-8x dry weight.

+1 on using commercial dried hops for bittering - there's no real benefit to using homegrown for bittering unless you have too many, the benefit of wet/green hops lies in all the volatile aroma molecules that are normally driven off in drying. The whirlpool and dry hopping is where you can really make the difference.

 

[frozengator]

Thanks NB🖒

 

[VTX1300]

I grew my first batch of Cascade this year. Dried them in a food dehydrator. Made a pale ale with them that came out awesome. Recipe went something like this
10# pale ale malt
1\2 oz FWH
1\2 oz 60 min
1 oz 15 min
1 oz flame out.
WLP001 California ale yeast.
Mash at 154°
Ferment at 65° for 10 days then 70° for 4 day.
Fantastic, easy drinking beer.

 

[InLimbo]

You could draw off a quart or so of beer, bring it up to 170°F, add your hops and hold it there for whatever feels right (10-20 minutes I reckon), let it cool and pour it back in the fermentor. Probably should add a bit of water to account for hop loss...

Cheers!

Not to bust your balls too much, but what exactly is the purpose of this? Alpha acid isomerization only occurs above 175 degrees, so you're going to be getting very little from the hops at that temperature for that duration of time. Further more pouring a liquid into your fermentor sounds like a terrific way to oxygenate your beer, even if done with the utmost precision... not to mention the risk of infection in order to get the beer out in the first place.

Just dry hop the **** out of this thing, and learn your lesson for wet hop usage!

 

[jbraaten]

Overwatering can do it too. You want to water enough and provide enough nutrients to grow, but don't overwater. It can minimalize flavor as the plants don't have to work as hard to establish root systems. Be sure to include a good bed of nitrogen at the beginning of the growing season and check soil content for best blend of minerals.