Brewing with Aphids

[Oyarsa]

My wife goes to a local "u-pick" organic farm and found out the owner was growing about 5 hop vines. He was wanting to sell them, so on a whim we bought about half of them. This was my first experience with fresh hops. We took them home and I harvested them. I had read an article of a guy that said he never bothers drying them and just vacuum bags them and freezes them, so I did that with most of the hops. The majority of the remaining hops I used in a 2.5 gallon batch with 3lbs wheat and 1 pound light extract with about 3 oz at 60 min, 3 oz at 15 minutes, and 6 oz when I took the pot off the stove.

Some of the hops were saved because my wife had seen instructions for making a wreath with them. They sat in our garage overnight and the next morning they were covered with aphids. We hadn't seen any the day before.

Any thoughts on safety/drinkability of the beer I brewed that might have had aphids or aphid eggs on them? Especially considering a good portion of the hops were added after boiling?

 

[nagmay]

May seem a bit gross, but I wouldn't worry about it:

1. Aphids are not inherently toxic
2. Your hops were boiled during the brewing process
3. There are also aphids in the commercial hops you buy

According to the FDA, you are allowed up to "2,500 aphids per 10 grams" of hops. Let us know how it turns out. Cheers!

 

[DarkCoder]

Nagmay...did you mean "let me know when you are done counting them" ?!?

 

[nagmay]

Nah, counting them individually would take too long...

Looking up the weight of an aphid shows ≈0.2mg per. That's up to .5g per 10g of cones. So, shake your cones out and corral all the buggers on the scale.

Up to 5% aphids to your hop cones? Still good to go according to the FDA

 

[Still Brewn]

Cascaphid IPA..... mmmmm yummy

 

[Still Brewn]

Actually when I harvested my centennial this year I didn't notice any on mine before drying after drying, while packaging I did see a few but I gave them the old flangie of death. I have brewed with them already a couple of times and there was no noticeable effect if there were any left in the cones.

Another thing if you use fresh cones or undried you will get a more grassy flavor in your beer. Just so you know.

 

[RPh_Guy]

grassy flavor

I think "vegetal" is a better word for it. A lot of us absolutely love that aspect of wet hopped beer!

 

[Oyarsa]

I'm planning to name it Aphid Ale. I don't have extremely high hopes for it, but it's a fun experiment.

My wife inadvertently discovered this bugger in the vines, too. Good thing there weren't any crystal glasses nearby to shatter with her scream. Glad I didn't boil him...

 

[Still Brewn]

Nice pictures

 

[Still Brewn]

I take it you got the bines and all?

 

[kevink]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I left some hops on the counter for a few hours and millions of aphids came out of the hops and covered the counter. The hops went directly into the trash. Disgusting.

 

[Still Brewn]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I left some hops on the counter for a few hours and millions of aphids came out of the hops and covered the counter. The hops went directly into the trash. Disgusting.

Sad.... I had a few dozen at most.

 

[Oyarsa]

Yes, I got the bines as well. Didn't actually know till now that they were called bines and not vines.

 

[davidabcd]

Question: Were they alpha aphids*? And if so, what do you multiply the alpha aphids by to get the proper amount of aphidity?

*alpha aphids act a little tougher and are bolder than normal.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Aphids are just little bags of sugar water, they're harmless enough unless you're a plant. Will increase your OG a touch, for free!

Vines like grapes have tendrils that actively cling to other things, bines like hops and honeysuckle ( "woodbine") don't have tendrils but just twist their stems around other things.

 

[JAReeves]

<incense burning>
<chanting in Latin>
<flash of light>
And... this thread gets resurrected!

So when I dried this year’s crop, I had a few caterpillars trying to escape the screens, guess they didn’t like the constant wind and vibration from the fan. Don’t think they would have added much flavor to the beer, though.

I didn’t see much in the way of aphids, but when I was draining my cooled wort into the fermenter I saw a ton of bright green dots/specks. Are these aphids? Something from the inside of the whole, homegrown hop? I have never seen anything like it with pellet hops.

 

[Apimyces]

Rule of thumb: any processed food you purchase has good quantities of insects in it.

As far as aphids are concerned, it's a little yuk, but not a big deal. I draw the line when the infestation was severed and long lasting enough to cause sooty mold. I would not brew with sooty hops.

 

[Oyarsa]

Since it got resurrected, I feel I should update with results. I don't think the aphids affected the taste any. It was a decent enough beer for my first attempt. Nothing to write home about, but that's due to my own inexperience, I should think