Pellets VS. the real thing........................

[Dodgertown]

What's better? What are the ratios? Any suggestions? Tips? Pointers?

I had a friend mail me abut 2 pounds of magnum cones. I'm using them tomorrow, normally I use pellets, whats the difference? I' m just messing around with recipes and ingredients, just looking for insight.

 

[Blender]

Personal preference really as they each work equally well. Some brewing programs use less pellets than whole leaf. Promash makes a 10% adjustment with pellets. Leaf hops absorb more wort.

 

[winstonofbeer]

I have used both quite a bit,
Whole leaf is usually cheaper, and thats why i buy it. If your freind got the hops from say, Hopsdirect or some buisness that lists the alpha % on there your set.

If your freind mailed you hops that he had grown, It comes up to be a little bit more of a challange. Yes they may be close to magnum alpha %....but you wont know for a fact you have to send it off for testing. Best thing to do is just test it out in a batch and if its really strong you know to tone it back next time and vise versa.

Pellets, Well they look like rabbit food and i have ate one on a dare.....Didnt taste so good. Best thing about pellets is small = compact and less room to store.

Hope this helps.

 

[samc]

I compare it to buying unprocessed vs. processed food. I like to see the condition of the leaf instead of a small compressed pellet of unknown ingredients. I've used pellets and the beer was fine, however I've always had clogging issues that turned me off to using them. Pellets are easier to store and keep longer term.

 

[Revvy]

There's very little "better" or "best" in brewing, only what we the brewer prefer for ouselves. I tend to use pellets more than whole, because that's what's avaliable to me, and I find there's a lot of suckage lost to whole hops. But that doesn't mean one is better than the other, nor does one make better beer than the other.

 

[Dodgertown]

Yeah, thats what I thought really.

OK, let me ask this, like I said, I got about two pounds of fresh hops. I only brew extract at the moment. I'm gonna make a 5 gallon batch tomorrow, and i'd like to throw in the two pounds, or at least a pound and a half. Thast not over kill is it? Clearly i'm just messing around and still learning, but what do you think that'll taste like? I'ma make a steam ale recipe that I always use.

Thoughts?

 

[electric_beer]

Holy hell that would be a hoppy brew!! I guess it would depend on your hop schedule and assuming you are making a 5 gallon beer. But if it was me I'd do something like:

1.5 oz @ FWH (before boil) this assumes 12%AA for 63 IBUs
1 oz @ 30 mins this assumes 12%AA for 20 IBUs
and then add something with more flavor and aroma like:
2 oz Amarillo @ 10 mins this assumes 5%AA for 13 IBUs
you could sub any C hop or Simcoe for Amarillo depending on your preferences.

Magnum is an excellent bittering hop, but not exactly known for flavor or aroma. I'm assuming your friends hops are slightly lower than the commercial average of 16%AA. 2 pounds would even be excessive for a 30 gallon batch.

 

[Dodgertown]

Yeah, thats all I have in the house, and I wanna use them before they go bad. Can I freeze them?

I don't want to waste it.

 

[Beezer94]

Good read on pellets
http://www.hopunion.com/hoppowderpellets.html

If these are "wet" hops, as in picked & then shipped without drying them out, then you'll need to search for information on wet-hopping. From what I read "wet hops" weigh about 5x as much as the equivalent dry. So if you would use 1oz of dry at 20min, you would need to use 5oz of wet in it's place. You could easily use 2lbs in that case as it would be equivalent to 6.4ish ounces of dry.

 

[tonton]

On the professional side, pellets are 50 times better than leaf. They are more compact, so they store well and don't take up a lot of room, they will hold thier flavor,aroma, and acid levels longer due to ease of storage.

 

[Dodgertown]

Beezer, thats exactly the info I was looking for.