A buddy gave me some whole leaf hops. Cascade and Willamette. I put all of them on a screen in the basement and dried them out for a week with the dehumidifer running. They are quite dry now.
The Cascade weighs in at 8 ounces. Probably a couple pounds of Willamette.
A lot of calculators assume that you should use an extra 10% whole hops compared to pellet hops. In reality, you probably don’t need to, and can just use the same amount as you would pellets. It depends of course on the ripeness and alpha acids, but assuming your hops smell awesome and aren’t super bright green when picked, they’re ripe and you can use them like pellets… but might want to use a hop bag if you didn’t before with pellets, as there will be a lot more hop matter.
Willamette hops are beautifully floral, and great for pretty much any styles OTHER than IPA and pale ale. I use them for lagers and English styles, great for that kind of stuff, also in Belgians. Time to brew some other styles!
Hop drying tip…for better quality, dry at a higher temp for a shorter time. 135ish F for maybe 3-4 hours works great. It’s what the people who grow your hops do.
Good to know. With the hotter weather we’ve had the past few weeks I could have dried them in my car
Thanks all for the tips on the hop bag and other styles. I’ll have a look around for some british ale recipes.
The Willamette hops were bright green when I got them, the Cascade was more brown around the edges of the hop leaves. No idea what I was doing so just dried them. How soon do I need to use them? I wouldn’t leave a bag of pellet hops sitting open for a week, so not sure how that translates to whole leaf hops when drying, etc.
I’ve gotten a musty smell from Willamette hops when used in a hop stand at 175F - had that happen twice. Maybe others have tried this and can say if it is a real issue or if maybe I just had some questionable hops. They did smell good in the bag.
I grow my own and once they are dry, I get them into a vacuum sealed bag and they go into the freezer until use. They stay in good shape this way.
For using them in a recipe for the first time, I recommend using a recipe that will be decent tasting over a range of bitterness- amber ales or altbier are good choices. I use data from local growers, published ranges from commercially-grown hops, and my own repeated experiences with the varieties that I grow to assign a % alpha acid when designing/adjusting recipes.
Your friend is very generous- it takes a good while to pick that many cones!
Thanks for the tip! I vacuum sealed them this morning. There wasn’t much aroma from them until I started compressing them to get them into a reasonably sized bag. Ok, these might work out.
After getting one ounce into a bag, I can see why pelletizing them is a thing.
Yep, he’s a good egg all around. I had a summer job as a kid picking raspberries for a farm down the road. Picking hops seems like a similar process. I suppose there’s machinery to help the big grows, but it’s got to be a labor of love growing these things.
If you want to try out Willamette, I’d recommend a bitter. In particular, I’d use Ron Pattinson’s 1957 Whitbread IPA recipe and sub in Willamette for all the hop additions.
If you want to try out Willamette, I’d recommend a bitter. In particular, I’d use Ron Pattinson’s 1957 Whitbread IPA recipe and sub in Willamette for all the hop additions.
This is true! I didn’t know this until my Club (Glass City Mashers) took over a small hop farm 3 years ago. We take our hops to Mr. Wizards Hops in Michigan after harvest and they process, dry, test, and pelletize them. My wife and I have helped in all of the steps and I couldn’t believe how hot the drying bins were. They were well over 100 degrees.
When I was at harvest a couple weeks ago I actually took pics of computer screens and thermometers showing the drying temps so people could see how it’s really done.
How counterintuitive. I just did mine using the low “herbs and spices” setting on my dehydrator because that sounded like the appropriate setting to use for hops. Gentle heat and all.
