Hops surplus

[Mad Hornet]

I am thinking I have more hops in my freezer than I will be able to brew with before my next harvest. I guess I had a bumper first year crop! But I started reading some old posts where ppl have brewed with 12oz - 3lbs of hops per batch? Before I start giving hops away can anyone share how these highly hopped brews turned out????

 

[shoreman]

What varieties do you have? In my experience brewing with homegrown hops, it takes a lot of hops to get some flavor and aroma. I have a bunch of cascade plants in my food forest, sourced the original rhizomes from FreshHops about 15 yrs ago.

I usually bitter with Magnum and will put anywhere between 8-16oz in a 2.5 gallon batch for a pale ale, flavor and late hops. You might have different results.

 

[Mad Hornet]

What varieties do you have? In my experience brewing with homegrown hops, it takes a lot of hops to get some flavor and aroma. I have a bunch of cascade plants in my food forest, sourced the original rhizomes from FreshHops about 15 yrs ago.

I usually bitter with Magnum and will put anywhere between 8-16oz in a 2.5 gallon batch for a pale ale, flavor and late hops. You might have different results.

Thanks for the reply that is interesting. I grow Zeus, Magnum, Nugget, and Cascade. The Magnums are all used up I have a little bit of Nugget left but still lots of Zeus and Cascade. I've been using 2-3 oz for bittering (Zeus and Magnum) and another 2-3 oz for aroma (Nugget and Cascade). The flavor has been on target for my golden ales but maybe I'll ramp it up on my next batch and see what happens.

EDIT: forgot to mention mine are 5 gallon batches.

 

[BeerFst]

Are these dried at all or frozen “wet”?

you need anywhere from 4-6x as much wet hops as dry due to th water removed the drying process.

I think the recipes with 3 pounds are probably wet hops, but that’s only 8-12oz dried.That’s not crazy if you’re dry hopping, even if moderately

 

[Mad Hornet]

Are these dried at all or frozen “wet”?

you need anywhere from 4-6x as much wet hops as dry due to th water removed the drying process.

I think the recipes with 3 pounds are probably wet hops, but that’s only 8-12oz dried.That’s not crazy if you’re dry hopping, even if moderately

They are all dried on the lowest setting in my food dehydrator then vacuum packed in food saver sleeves, weighed, labeled and frozen. I have not tried dry hopping I generally don't like messing around in my beer once it starts fermenting but perhaps I'll give it a try.

So, question for the experts, and I am reminded of an old trick question from my childhood "what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of iron".

And I will say that I do not have the means to measure the alpha acids of my hops so my methods aren't super-scientific. However, my understanding of putting hops in pellet form is basically to reduce the size for packaging and distribution. Shouldn't an ounce of non-pelleted hops be equal in terms of brewing to an ounce of pelleted hops? 12oz of dried hops seems a bit excessive but I suppose I'll try anything once.

 

[shoreman]

There’s just so many factors at play that I’d just start experimenting with some small batches.

Time of harvest, age of hops, exposure to oxygen, did you dry them properly, growing conditions, etc

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Shouldn't an ounce of non-pelleted hops be equal in terms of brewing to an ounce of pelleted hops? 12oz of dried hops seems a bit excessive but I suppose I'll try anything once.

In theory. T-90 pellets are 90% of the material vs whole cone. Pellets tend to stay fresh longer and I have read you get a bit more oil extraction from pellets. But 1 lb of your dried hops should be close to 1 lb of commercial dried whole cone hops.

If you are getting good results from 2-3 oz in a Blonde, you can probably scale that up to 5-6 oz in a Pale Ale and 8-12 oz in an IPA. I used 8 oz of dried Chinook as late additions into a 5 gallon batch of an "IPA". It had some nice fruity hop flavors, and was light on the bitterness. I would think if somebody is using 3lbs in a 5 gallon batch, it is likely fresh (not dried) hops.

 

[Uncle Ike]

My Fuggles hops resulted in a very potent ale. I read that home grown dried hops can be stronger than stre bought hops. I use mostly Fuggles for British brown ale; Golding, Hallertau, and a bit of Galaxy for my Rochefort-10 clone.

 

[madscientist451]

They are all dried on the lowest setting in my food dehydrator then vacuum packed in food saver sleeves, weighed, labeled and frozen.

RDWHAHB; you have them well packaged, hops don't go bad as fast as some people think. Just brew what you want.