Anyone used home grown hops for bittering?

[VApatriot]

Similar to the 'wet hop vs dried hop' thread, I am wondering if anyone has used only home grown hops for both bittering and aroma? I know that most home growers don't know the alpha acid content/percentage but I'd like to know if anyone has tried it and how it worked out.

I have a pretty good crop of cascade drying now, and the centennials are just about ready to harvest in about a week or so. I've made a couple batches of BierMuncher's 'Centennial Blonde' recipe and really like it a lot. I think it would be really cool to make a batch with only home grown hops but really don't want it to come out too bitter or not bitter enough. For me, it's a fair amount of work (and time as I don't keg) to make a five gallon AG batch and I'd hate to waste the time and energy.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Check out the vendor thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/5-ibu-testing-405038/

Costal Labs will give you an IBU test for $5.

Make a small half gallon or gallon SMASH with something like Pils so that the hops are the primary bittering.
Use any tool like Beersmith to determine what the IBU of said beer is with their default AA% for your hops.
Submit your beer sample to them
From the value Costal labs gives, modify the AA% in Beersmith until the final IBU for your recipe matches what Costal Labs says it was.

This wont be an EXACT science by far, but for $5 you can get a pretty good idea of the AA%.

Not to mention you can use that SMASH as a benchmark for how bitter you think it is, and then when you do it to 5G scale you'll know.
Hopefully that all made sense...your basically going backwards from the IBU value they give you to determine what AA% of hops would have had to be used to make the recipe that bitter.

 

[day_trippr]

With Chinook, Centennial, Cascade and Fuggles I use my homegrowns for all phases of hopping. The house favorite IPA uses Chinook for bittering, Cascade for mid additions, and Centennial for late additions and dry hopping. And now that I'm pretty much swimming in cones I'll be doing an all-Centennial and an all-Cascade MMaSH (Multiple Malt and Single Hop - I just made that up )

Over the previous two years I've done enough brews with my hops that I have a pretty good feel for how potent they are, so I'm reasonably confident that my recipes are at least in the ball park for expected bitterness...

Cheers!

 

[johngaltsmotor]

http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/maumee-monster-2013 is a link to the all homegrown IIPA I make. (I typically dryhop with pellets due to an infection that developed while fresh dry hopping once)

I like hoppy stuff so I don't hesitate using homegrown hops whenever possible, I simply use 20% more to compensate for AAU potentially being less than commercially produced (although last years Nugget/Zeus seemed about on par with commercial grade).