About to brew with a mystery hop.

[FrozenOcean]

So, my mother in law has a giant hop plant that she has been growing for a couple of years. This year, it produced a pile of cones, so when they were looking pretty ripe last weekend, I went out and picked a bunch. Here is the result:

They smell nice... Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but they smell like hops you would put in an american IPA or PA. They smell somewhat citrusy, and definitely a bit flowery.

So, to test these out, I'm going to go all in and brew a 5 gallon batch. I'm an extract brewer, and have very little experience, so designing a recipe is pretty much a guess. What I'm going to try to do is brew something that will be either an APA or an IPA, depending on what the bittering potential of these hops turns out to be. I will use a neutral bittering hop at 60 minutes, with a target IBU of ~35. Then, I will do late hop additions of the mystery hops. If they have any bittering potential they should bump it up into IPA territory. If not, then it will just be a PA.

Anyways, here's my recipe (note that to a certain extent I'm just using stuff that I have kicking around the house)... Any input would be helpful:

6lbs Light LME
2.5lbs Amber DME
0.5lbs Wheat DME
—>Should give me an OG 1.065

0.6 oz 16%AA Warrior @ 60min (35 IBUs)
0.5 oz Mystery Hop @ 15min
0.5 oz Mystery Hop @ 10min
1.0 oz Mystery Hop @ 5min
1.0 oz Mystery Hop @ 0min

1.0 oz Mystery Hop dry hop (if appropriate)


Should I be steeping some grains in there?

 

[day_trippr]

If you want to end up with an American Pale or IPA, most don't rely on "specialty" grains, as they tend to be all about the hops anyway. I'd say your extract recipe is actually good for allowing the hops to "Be All They Can Be"...for better or worse

Cheers!

 

[ong]

Did you dry them out, so you're talking dry weight? If so, looks solid! If you're using them wet, multiply quantities by 5.

 

[FrozenOcean]

Yes, I am drying them out now. It's a bit rough... Basically I drilled some holes in that wooden crate, and I have a fan blowing over them. The cones are probably about 5 or 6 layers deep in there, so it's not as good as having them laid out on a screen. But I gently turn them over every 8 hours or so, and it's definitely working. I live in a very dry climate... If I leave a piece of bread out on the counter, it turns into a rock in a couple of hours.

 

[ong]

Sounds good enough! Hope the beer turns out good.

 

[Sublimis]

Keep us posted!

 

[FrozenOcean]

Thanks guys. I'll brew this weekend, and update as I go.

 

[SnowcreekWI]

the hops in the wood box look like you picked at the best time, some brownish, some dark green and some light green. I also notice the homebrew bottle with the "S" on the cap. I wonder if every brewer writes on the cap? My system is letters for ales, numbers for lagers.

 

[FrozenOcean]

Well, brewed it this weekend. It was my first brew in quite awhile (I moved recently), so there were a few hiccups, but in the end it all turned out.

Did not get any huge aromas when I started chucking in the mystery hops. So, I'm not confident this is going to be an awesome beer. I'm sort of hoping for "drinkable" at this point

 

[FrozenOcean]

So, this beer is fermented, aged a bit, and dry-hopped and I'm drinking it now.

And, I have to say, it's really good! It is not an aggressively hoppy beer by any stretch, which is interesting, considering I used 3oz of flavouring hops and 1oz of dry hops. Certainly not much in the way of hop aroma, so I would say that this is not a good aroma hop. Also, I don't think the mystery hop additions bittered it significantly, so probably not a high alpha acid hop.

What it does have is a pleasant, subtle tropical fruit flavour that can only have come from the hops. I used US-05 at fairly low temperatures, so I don't think its likely that the flavour came from the yeast.

The beer also packs a pretty sneaky punch, because it's about 6.5% abv, but you can't tell that at all. It drinks very smoothly, and that's a problem with a beer this strong. I think if I made it again, I would bring the abv down quite a bit.

So, an interesting experiment. I have about 12oz of hops left over that are now vacuum sealed and frozen. Not sure what I'm going to do with all of them, but I'll probably play around with this recipe again in a few months.

 

[jtratcliff]

What it does have is a pleasant, subtle tropical fruit flavour that can only have come from the hops. I used US-05 at fairly low temperatures, so I don't think its likely that the flavour came from the yeast.

How cool did you ferment? I've heard that US-05 can get peachy if it gets too cool... like low 60s high 50s cool. Never gotten down that low myself but it seems to pop up in discussions here once in awhile.

 

[FrozenOcean]

Hmm... interesting point. This was my first attempt with temperature control. My fermenter was in a small chest freezer, with a temperature controller that I'm not totally happy with. I set the temperature to 18C (64F), but whenever the freezer kicked in, it would cause a pretty low temperature fluctuation... I didn't take notes, but I know it bumped it down to ~16 deg C at times (~60F). So, it did probably spend some time in the low 60s, although not a lot.

Thanks for the idea.

 

[swmalone]

I know I'm jumping on this late, but nice to see someone brew with mystery hops. My wife and I were out hiking last year and I saw a plant on a hillside a ways off the trail that looked familiar. After some bush whacking I discovered a vigorously growing hop plant. I think I might go out in the fall and harvest some hops and see what I get. Also someone gave my father-in-law a rhizome and he planted it a couple of years ago. It is growing like crazy every year but since he doesn't drink he doesn't harvest the cones. I will have to take a drive up and perform a hop harvest of those mystery hops as well.