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Author Topic: Usage options for wet hops?  (Read 1556 times)

Offline jivetyrant

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Usage options for wet hops?
« on: August 28, 2011, 08:11:43 pm »
I'll be doing my first ever hop harvest in the next day or two, hooray!  I wasn't expected any yield at all this year, but much to my surprise one of my Chinook vines really took off.  It reached 20 feet and has plenty of hops on it, I don't know exactly how much, though.  I may have all of 10 cascade cones as well, heh.  Amazingly enough they seem to have survived hurricane Irene with little damage, I probably lost a few cones and only lost one plant, though it was a pretty pathetic looking thing.  It never even reached 5 feet tall, it simply wasn't meant to be!

At any rate, I plan to pick in the next day or two and haven't decided what to do with them.  I have a dehydrator and vacuum sealer, but I also have a batch of a serious IPA that's ready to keg.  It's a 6.5% bittered with Citra and aroma/dry hopped with Ahtanum and a bit of Amarillo.  It's pretty strongly grapefruit flavored as of a week ago when last I checked it, I don't know if it has mellowed any since then.  I've read of some people throwing green hops in a mesh bag and putting them in the keg, does anyone have experience with that?

Alternatively, has anyone every dry hopped with green cones as opposed to normal dried ones?  I could rack off of the cones floating about in it now before kegging.

Am I simply better off drying/sealing them up for later use?  The kegging idea seems bold and interesting, but I'd hate to wreck a great tasting batch of beer by doing so.  Any tips or warnings to be had?

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Usage options for wet hops?
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2011, 07:44:25 am »
A Tip.

Use 5 times the weight (or more) for the wet hops, due to the water weight in the hops.

Jeff Rankert
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BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
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