Wet (as in fresh) hops to dry conversion?

[cbg96]

I've got the Mystery Hops Vine in the back. Pretty sure it's Millenium or Nugget based on cone, leaf, and way big bitterness. Anyhow...

The vine's relatively small (but give it time) and I harvested a gallon zip lock freezer bag chock full of cones. I did NOT dry them first, I just picked 'em, stuffed the bag, squeezed out any and all air so I could cram as many hops in as possible, then threw the bag in the freezer.

Basically, these are frozen, fresh hops.

Any thoughts or handy converters on how fresh (frozen) hops compare to dried leaf hops for purposes of ingredient calculation?

I'm pretty confident it won't be one ounce to one ounce if for nothing else other than water weight. If it's any kind of help or means anything in terms of volume to weight, the gallon bag crammed full felt like it weighed about a pound just by ballpark estimate.

 

[salad 419]

From all of the replies I've seen here and on the Grow Hops e-mails, you can estimate that you'll need 5 times more wet hops than dry.

So, 5 ounces of fresh whole hops will be equal to about an ounce of dried whole hops. Then, there's the whole 10% pellet factor, so it would take about 5.5 ounces to equal one ounce of Pellet hops.

 

[pjj2ba]

It is a bit of a crap shoot. It depends on how dry they were when they were picked. I saw quite a bit of variability in the cones that I picked. Zoebisch said the same. I think he said he picked some that when dried were only half of the fresh weight . If they feel wet and heavy, use more. If they feel more dry, use less. Any where from 4-6 oz wet = 1 oz dried is commonly seen

 

[cbg96]

These are "wet" in the sense that they're fresh and not dried, but they're not heavy at all. Not to say the cones aren't good sized, well formed, solid, and loaded with that yellow glandy stuff that makes the bitterness, but they feel downright, well, fluffy. I'm not sure how much actual weight they'd lose from drying.

 

[Grinder12000]

So let me boil this down here because I have a friend with a LOT of cascade fresh hops.

ABOUT 5.5oz of fresh hops is ABOUT 1oz of pellet??

Can I assume I use the fresh hops just like pellets (except I would need a hop bag?)

 

[Nostrildamus]

A quick heads up:

Freezing undried hops can result in sludgy ruined hops when they are defrosted as it is sort of like freezing lettuce.

Has anyone successfully defrosted undried hops?

If yes, please give this guy some advice on how to save his precious harvest. I would probably throw them directly into the boil without defrosting or ever drying them.

 

[cbg96]

If yes, please give this guy some advice on how to save his precious harvest. I would probably throw them directly into the boil without defrosting or ever drying them.

Exactly the plan, and exactly the process utilized. In they go, iced up, to a nice hot bath.

 

[Desarge]

I use co2 to evacuate oxygen prior to vac packing and freezing.
Maintains color and nose. try it you like it !