Best practices for hops usage

This is my second year growing centennial and cascade hops. Last fall I harvested and dried the hops, then made a rather generic but tasty IPA using 1 oz of Golding pellets for bittering. I then put the cones that I had dried and harvested into a nylon bag, and added the bag to the boil at the 45 minute mark.

Seemed to work well, the IPA had a noticeable but not overwhelming floral aroma. I'm unsure if that's the best way to utilize homegrown hops though.

So to you hop growers...what methods do you use to add your hops to your homebrew? Do you break up or grind the cones, use any sort of bag, etc? How about for dry hopping (I've only dry hopped with pellets before).

 

funny you should ask. i kegged an ipa last night with 1/2 oz. of recently processed chinook. today at lunch i poured a little off the keg and it already picked up a wonderful aroma. keep at it!

 

BUMP: I'm drying my hops today, and I'd love to hear the specifics of how folks add hops to their brew as it's boiling?

 

Just throw them in the boil. You'll need to follow your recipe to know how many to put in and at what time because it makes a difference in the flavor of the brew. Whole hops are easy to skim out at flameout. I just use a large strainer to scoop as much of them as possible after the boil and get the rest when I pour the cooled wort into the fermentor.

Tom