Wet hop randalling

Last month was harvest time and the local group held "Hop Madness" at one member's tree farm. A small truck load of hop vines were purchased and dragged to the scene. About ten guys hauled gear over and brewed with the hops right off of the vine. I had an IPA brewed two weeks prior and a randelling keg. I loaded the randal with hops and transferred the IPA. Tasted a lot like grass! I took it home and the next weekend filtered it to a new keg. Another three weeks & it's good!

Moral of the story: randal with dried hops, unless you have a couple kegs on tap and can wait.

I've never heard that term: randalling.

A randall is a tank full of hops that you run an ale through while serving. Think of it as real-time dry hopping. http://www.maltosefalcons.com/clubgear/hashback/ I've seen several terms for the device.

Oh. Seems like it'd be alot easier to just chew on some hops and chase it with beer.

Actually, we put the hops in the glass and strain them out with our teeth. It involves a lot of spitting and isn't welcome in the better establishments.

Sounds like fun Too Me..

Randallized pale ale is the shiznit. Sam and I had some at the NHBC and it was pretty awesome.

I bought one of those water filter things a while back to make my own Randall but I haven't constructed it yet. I'll probably wait until next summer to do that.

Does anyone else use one of these? Or use one in their kegerator?

I guess Im wondering to see if it would be a better method of hopping than normal "in the carboy" dry hopping.

I just kegged a dry hopped IPA last night, and its always a fun task flushing the hops out of the carboy, so Im wondering if this could be a way to "cheat" on the usual technique.

david_42 said:

Actually, we put the hops in the glass and strain them out with our teeth. It involves a lot of spitting and isn't welcome in the better establishments.

Click to expand...

So several breweries doing this at the beer festival I went to this weekend...they would pour a sample of their beer and they had dried leaf hops available in a glass that you could sprinkle in if you wished. Have to say it's a good way to enjoy a beer!

I'm getting ready to construct my randall. I bought all the fittings (I think) yesterday. I have some older cascades I need to use up so I figured it is a good way to rid of the hops that need to be used ASAP.

My only problem is I don't have enough friends that are hopheads to come enjoy this with me. Sam needs to hurry the F up and get back here so we can have a brewday/BBQ/randall session. Any of you are certainly invited as well.

Dude said:

Any of you are certainly invited as well.

Click to expand...

Hmm...This is the best reason I can think of to go visit my old stompin grounds (Chesapeake)

As for the randall.....interesting, I'd really like to try that or something similar

Dude,

Did you ever construct your Randall?

Dude said:

I have some older cascades I need to use up so I figured it is a good way to rid of the hops that need to be used ASAP.

Click to expand...

I may be off base here, but my understanding of the Randalling concept is that only the freshest hops are used, i.e., picked and pitched into your beer/wort the same day. I am unable to put my finger on it, but I recently listened to a podcast were a brewery (Deschutes?) actually goes out on the harvest day, and picks up freshly picked hops to throw into a batch that they are making that exact day.

Wicked Cool.

David42, you surely have heard of this no?

'Wet Hop Randall' sounds like it belongs in the dirty HB term thread.

"Last night I got back to this chick's apartment and she gave me a wet-hop randall, after that I started hanging trub all over the place..."

Anyway... DFH say that they invented the Randall filter and there is no mention of fresh, or for that matter dried hops on their site, just lots of whatever they use. I'm guessing that they use dried since it seems to be readliy available all year long.

Here's one version of a Randall. The input has a T in the line so folks could try a before and after version. After was much Hoppier!

We have several "Wet Hop" Fests in the area. Last year, there were 16 professionally brewed ales at Golden Valley's fest. Harvest has started and most of the new ales will be ready in October.

Hood River Hops Fest
Oregon Brewers Guild Fresh Hop Beer Tastival

If you want to try randalling, the house filter is the simplest approach (see above). The only trick is you need to put a pipe down the middle so the ale is forced down through the hops and back up. If you don't the ales just skims the top of the hops and back out. A "gutted" filter works.