Advice for Recipe - Wet Hops, Unknown Varietal

[taylja06]

So a buddy of mine and I are brewing a wet hop beer using what he was able to grow in his garden. By all accounts the hops look and feel good, so we wanted to come up with a demo beer. I'm banking off it being an american variant around 5-7% alpha (no clue on beta) given what can be found at LHS.

That said, neither of us has brewed in over a year and we're not able to do all grain. We're also working off some books / websites that suggest a 4-6x multiplier when adding wet hops, hence the high amounts below.

We picked out a cali common yeast as we thought it could demo the hop regardless of the alpha and beta running high or low. Worst case we have a maybe passable light amber. Here's the simple recipe I wrote up below and calculations:

Extract
6.6# Briess Extra Light LME

"Mash-In" @ 150
2# Munich
1# Victory
1# Crystal 40

Boil (60 minutes)
10oz "Eastman" hops @ 60
Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15
5oz "Eastman" hops @ 5

Target OG: 1.049

Fermentation
San Francisco Lager Yeast (2 vials) (WLP810)
Ferment @ 65F in primary
Transfer when FG <= 1.016 and no major activity for 2-3 days

Secondary
5oz "Eastman" hops for 7 days

Overall:
Target OG: 1.049
Target FG: 1.016
Target IBUs: Unknown, but around 33 assuming wet hop weight and 5-7% alpha


Thanks for any help on this!

 

[Newsman]

This ought to be an interesting experiment.

 

[taylja06]

Haha yeah, it'll be...something. I mean ideally we'll get something akin to a cascade brewed cali common, but could really go any direction on the bitterness.

Any thoughts on the base extract / grains? I was considering using Munich LME instead of Extra Light, but didn't want this to go too dark (which the extract will do anyway).

 

[rhys333]

I would make a hop tea with your garden hops first. Boil a little water and add some hops at 10 & 0. If you like what you taste, use it in your beer. I would advise using them for late addition only. Use commercial bittering hops for your 60 minute addition with known alpha acids. Preferrably something neutral like magnum or warrior so that all your flavor and aroma comes from your late addition garden hops. Also, no need for secodary here. Just add your dry hops to the primary.

 

[TheCADJockey]

If you try to bitter with these hops you may end up sorely disappointed. I use whole leaf a lot and I've yet to pack enough into a beer to make it anywhere near bitter. Good luck though. Interested to hear the results.

 

[wysiwyg]

I'd use pellet hops for the bittering (60 min) and save the wet hops for late boil additions. 5oz at 5 mins is fine, maybe the other 10oz at flameout, then let them sit for 10-15 minutes while stirring.

I just made a wet-hopped IPA and was underwhelmed by the 9oz I used. Next time I'll use way more, and I'll only add them after the boil.

Cheers!

 

[kh54s10]

I will also chime in with using a commercial bittering hop. This is from what I have read, not experience, as I have never used leaf hops, commercial or home grown!!

 

[TheCADJockey]

My latest is a simple grain bill with an oz Nelson Sauvin at 60m and about 2 pounds of nugget fresh off the vine at 5m+.
I won't try to bitter with whole leaf any more. If this one is underwhelming, my hop plants will just be decoration in the future.

 

[taylja06]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! We took the bittering note to heart (especially as our yield was a bit lower than expected), and used Magnum at 60. We did a BIAB mini-mash with Vienna instead of Munich (a bit higher enzymatic power I believe?), and swapped out the C40 for C20. It is currently bubbling consistently.

As for the fresh hops, we got about 14oz, and added 7oz at 15 and 5, and left the bags in during the cool down. We're planning to go back out and pick anything we missed as possible to add as dry hops.

The updated recipe and notes are here: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/fresh-hop-maryland-common-beer-41ae56