Wild Hops! Now what do I do with them.

[beerthirty]

to remove the males, figure out which is which during flowering season, then dig out the ones that have no cones. on the other hand maybe there are no males(although not likely), did any of the cones you picked have seeds? no seeds no males.

 

[drawdy10]

I just harvested 28oz (dried) of wild hops! Now it's time to make a ridiculously hopped IPA

 

[grapeape]

Perfectly safe to brew with wild hops and drying on your dehydrator is fine (done both). Weight them wet and when they weigh 1/5 of what they did when you started then they are dry.

If you're going to bitter with them use 7.5% Alpha acid as a starting point. You're on a wild adventure so why not go all the way (done this too)


Take a look at silverhops.com

Propagating and growing an entire new hop variety from one original wild hop in Wisconsin...helps to have a professor of horticulture around. They are selling this year to homebrewers, how cool

 

[Dynachrome]

Lever101 - Did you ever give this a try?

 

[Dynachrome]

Yeah, then again, all I have is some trees and grass. Can you ferment corn?

There is a local microbrewer that found an old recipe in a journal that was written by a guy that worked in a brewery in the fifties. The microbrewer gave it a try and it turn ed out to be quite popular. It is called Marathon after the city it had been historically brewed in. It drinks similar to Miller High Life IMO. It is good beer.

I was also told by someone else that Miller has a corn component, but I don't have a real citaion for that info.

Marathon - Bull Falls Brewery

Avoiding Corn in Canada – Corn in alcoholic beverages

 

[Trail]

It drinks similar to Miller High Life IMO. It is good beer.

what

I was also told by someone else that Miller has a corn component, but I don't have a real citaion for that info.

Yep. All the macros are big, nasty adjunct-filled brews. Corn is used because it's cheaper and has less flavor.

Back on topic, how did your wild hop ale come out, OP?

 

[Dynachrome]

English is a funny language.

...It is called Marathon after the city it had been historically brewed in. It drinks similar to Miller High Life IMO. It is good beer.....

The Marathon is pretty good stuff. The brewery is distributing locally and into adjoining states at present.

I don't hate regular MHL, BTW. (That is the difference between objective and subjective criticism.)

 

[Trail]

English is a funny language.



The Marathon is pretty good stuff. The brewery is distributing locally and into adjoining states at present.

I don't hate regular MHL, BTW. (That is the difference between objective and subjective criticism.)

MHL is in my opinion the best of the BMC trifecta. I wouldn't buy it on purpose, but it's at least a clean enough lager that it doesn't taste BAD. In fact, it doesn't taste like anything at all. :fro:

Take the BMC bashing as it was intended: authentic, but generally lighthearted.

 

[TalkingGoats]

MHL should only be sold in 40oz bottles. I would be interested in a male and a female rhizome!

 

[adboy45]

please find attached from roger philips wild food

i have used it sevreal times im no beer specialist but it makes a fair pale ale

1/2 litre hops (1 pint galss filles not stuffed down
225 g or 8oz malt (get mine from health food shop)
same again sugar
yeast tried bread (don't work well)
4.5 litres of water

boil hops for 15 mins (only use part of warter about litre)
strain in to bucket
mix in sugar and malt
add yeast when cooled
leave in bucket 5 days
syphon off buscket into screwtop bottles
it clears in seven days and leaves sediment
pour carefully (dont disturb sediment) enjoy (16p a pint!)
don't know about gravity but it about 3.5 to 4.5
if goes flat add 1/2 teaspoon sugar and leave for 5 days

i get cheap bottle water at the start and then you have sterile bottles to syphon back into

 

[wefdog]

Maybe the cross bed so many times over the years you have a new variant. You can patent it and be rich!

 

[stachist]

Don't know if anyone is still on this thread.. but...

I harvested some wild Iowa hops too!

Mine are from Grinnell - I'm here at Grinnell College. And so happens that I am a Chemistry major... And the semester I harvested them (Fall 2012) was also the semester I was taking "Instrumental Analysis." The class had an independent project portion, so I used the HPLC to determine the alpha acids. I also tested an old UV-Vis method from the 1950s.

If anyone wants more info on how to do any of this (either of the two methods) - let me know and I can dig up my notebook and pass on the procedure.

As for drying the hops - I used the "2 air filters bungied to a box fan with hops sandwiched between them" method. It worked ok, but some hops got pretty smushed and started to come apart a bit. Made a little bit of a mess in my dorm room... but beer is why we go to college, right?

 

[vincentAlpha]

I'd be really interested in finding out how the beer was using the wild hops. I just found out from my grandmother that not only will she grow some hops for me (I was going to buy a couple starters and let her try, nothing she can't grow) but that where she lives there are loads wild hop plants! So odds are I'll be going with letting her grow the wild ones after a transplant and see what comes of it.

 

[Wolfdust]

So you found some wild hops, you dried them and....? What happened, how was it? Let us know. Was it any good? What did it taste like?

 

[muels]

He never used them....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=38708