so I found some wild hops, now what . . .

Hi there,

First post, first brew, and I seem to have stumbled upon some wild hops. I happened to be visiting relatives today. They live in a house built in 1794. Apparently old house like that always have hops somewhere on the property. Anyways we found theirs. I was not sure what to do with them so i just cut a few hop filled sections of the vine and brought them home.

My only concern is that the cones are kind of dried and brown (some are still green). I can see the lupulin on most of them. Do you guys think they are usable? If so what is the best way to store them for a week or two?

Cheers.

 

It depends on how brown they are. If they're just slightly brown, I'd go ahead and try them out, but anything more than a little brown, and I'd probably throw them out.

You can store them by putting them in an airtight container in the freezer.

 

They are usable but the problem is that you have no way of knowing what kind of hops they are or what their alpha acid level is. You could have them analyzed which would be very expensive or just do a trial and error thing which may result in some batches of beer that are over or under hopped. Rhizomes are cheap. Unless you are very adventurous you might be better off buying and planting a known variety than risk using your unknown wild hops.

Tom

 

if you get a lot and/or the plant regrows hops naturally have fun wit trial and error...just be sure theyre hops and not sumtin else

 

I think it would be fun to make a brown ale with perhaps 1.5 oz in a 5 gallon batch to give you a wide, but drinkable range of 12-50 IBU depending on the AA content, then take some wort and make a flavoring addition and/or dry hop to see what kind of aroma qualities they have.

 

I made a 2.5-gallon batch of Pale Ale using some wild hops on our property here in NH. The original farmhouse, from the 1700's, is on the neighbor's property at the end of our driveway. Harvested about 3 oz. dried.

.50 oz. 60 minutes
.25 oz. 30 minutes
.13 oz. 15 minutes
.13 oz. 5 minutes

May be tasty, may be crap. Only 5.25 pounds of grain invested.

 

I would use a known variety store bought for bittering a simple pale ale, then use the home grown ones for 20 minute, 5 minute, flameout addition and dry hop. That will give you a nice idea of their flavor and aroma. And use a clean yeast such as Notty so you don't get any interference from the yeast character.

 

why not make a tea out of it using a french press or strainer?

 

Pick, dry, brew.

 

Why not just do this first? You can make a tea to figure out what sort of flavors you'll get. If they suck all you wasted was a little water and the time it took to heat it up.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. When I compared the hops I picked to the hops that came with the beer kit I noticed that mine had significantly less aroma. They were also much more brown. Given that this is my first batch I decided it's probably not a good idea to just go throwing everything I find into it . I still really like the idea of growing my own hops but I think I'll take the suggestions and buy a known variety. Thanks again for the help. Cheers.