Hopping varieties and grain roasting questions

[thamnophis]

Newbie alert!

I have some 2 year old hops that produced a couple gallon bags of hop heads this summer. They smelled so good I couldn't get my wife's nose out of them long enough to bag them up and in the freezer! The problem is, I lost the labels and don't recall the specific varieties. Does it matter much, and if so, in what ways?

Roasting barley: I have a 3x4 foot wood fired oven. If I want to try roasting some barley. What temps and duration would be a good starting point? I would be interested in trying a range of dark beers, up to and including stouts.

Thanks!

Joe

 

[jamesewelch]

As far as I understand (I'm newbie too), the hop varieties are more preferences (taste, bitterness, aroma) than specifics. Although, if you're making some specific styles, then you need to use specific varieties to get the taste/aroma/bitterness to match the style requirements. But if you're just brewing for good beer and fun (and not competition to be judged or trying to match a style requirements) then you should be fine.

So if you have some mystery hops, you can still make good beer from it. It may not be perfect, but just look up a recipe for a single hop IPA or something like that. Just my thoughts, like I said, I'm a newbie too.

 

[Rerun]

Here is some good info regarding home roasting malts


http://barleypopmaker.info/2009/12/08/home-roasting-your-malts/

I haven't tried this yet, but it will be my next project.

Good luck with your "mystery hop beer"

 

[unionrdr]

Smell them & look up a site like freshops or the like for the description that best matches what you're smelling.

 

[jamesewelch]

After rereading this, I think the OP said these hops were self-grown from different vines. So you'd know at least what plants they came from to help narrow down your results and you could probably assume everything in the same bag was the same variety.

Which varieties did you bag?

 

[unionrdr]

Good point. Just look up what he bought & use the sniff test to determine which is which.