Leaving hops on the bine

[archthered]

It took a few years but I finally got a good hop crop. I have 4 plants all of different varieties. One has a lot of cones that are definitely ready to harvest as well as some cones that came in later and I assume are not quite as ready. My other 3 plants are not quite ready yet. I was looking forward to doing a wet hop ipa this year. I was wondering if it would hurt my cones to let them sit on the bine even though they are ready while I wait for the other plants to finish up? The alternative would be to harvest the one now but leave the cones that formed late until the other plants are ready.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There's a fairly narrow window at which cones are at their best, and in general you're better off harvesting them when they are at their best, and just processing them if need be, either drying or even just throwing them in the freezer if it's only for a few days.

But you can also get cute about eg using early-ripening varieties in the boil and then dry-hopping with late varieties....

 

[archthered]

Thanks

 

[kmarkstevens]

You can always do several different experiments. Suggest do a light commercial hop batch with your early ripening hops as a late edition now. Then when you have more ripe hops, do a more full on home grown bittering batch.

I'm no expert but have done a half dozen fresh hop ales over the past couple of years. Hope others chime in and add to my limited experience. In no particular order:

• My goal is a "local" taste or terroir. Therefore using a minimum amount of commercial hops in the boil to ensures you don't end up with an undrinkable sweet wort drink but still obtaining a fresh hop taste
• The interwebs tell me that 1 ounce commercial is roughly equivalent to 3-5 ounces of fresh hops
• Depending how much fresh hops you have. If only a few ounces save for bittering additions
• If you have lots of hops, then into the boil. In my experience, you can't go wrong with a pound or more in the boil
• As you ferment, if the bittering is too low, then dry hop with commerical hops to at least get to something drinkable
• My experience was that drying the hops wasn't too bad (I used a fan on low blowing over hops on a mesh)
• My experience was also that I never really used the dried hops later.
• I've got Northern Brewer, East Seattle Goldings and Tettnanger all growing. If I make 3-4 fresh hop batches a season, that satisfies my fresh hop brewing urge for the year.

Have fun with it.