Fresh (Wet) Hops

With a lot of cones on the bines, I want to do a couple fresh hopped ales probably next month. I’ve never used fresh hops in a brew before. For those of you who have, approximately how many ounces of fresh hops would equal an ounce of dried hops as far as alpha acids and bittering goes? I’m assuming that there is some sort of conversion factor here.

This was covered on Brew Strong a while back. Can’t remember the rule of thumb. Chop and brew also did a video on it.

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/847

Use 4-8 times as many wet hops vs dry

4-8 times? That’s a pretty big gap between amounts there. So can we assume 6?

It really depends on the moisture content as well as who you ask.  Personally I go with 8x or more

Weigh a couple ounces, dry it over night, reweigh it. Do math.
If 2oz wet weighs 1/4oz dry then you need 8 times as much wet than dry.

Another thought… you aren’t cloning another beer right? Or expecting to clone this one later? So, I’d bitter with a known commercial hop, then do like a pound of your woo hoo wet hops at flame out.

Wet hops are 80% water, 20% vegetal material.

Commercially Dried  hops have 8-10% moisture, use 10% to keep the math simple, so 90% vegetal material.

To get the same amount of vegetal material (Lublin and oils), 90/20=4.5 times as much wet as dry. To get the full fresh hop aroma, use 5 or 6 times, because you can!

Another suggestion is to use some hops with a known AA% for your bittering addition and use the wet/fresh hops for flavor/aroma.

+1 to using hops with a known aa for bittering. But if you really want to use all your own hops, just wing it! It’s OK! And fun! I measure wet hops by the handful! Or just top off your kettle with hops at flameout and whirlpool as usual. Wet hopped brewing is a fun once a year event that shouldn’t be taken too seriously!

+1

+1
This is what I do once a year, I take my favorite house pale and just wing it with the centennial and cascades I grow, usually winds up as a damn tasty beer!

I love quoting myself. Especially when its what everyone else has been saying

Sorry bud, I didn’t see that…I think my beer ADD must have been kicking in :wink:

Its all good, I was just being a goof

How different is the result with wet hops? A LHBS has emailed me saying that they are taking pre-orders for fresh Cascade and Chinook grown here in Ohio. Really interested in throwing some wet chinook in for bittering, and a couple late cascade additions for flavor and aroma. They will have pounds and ounces available, so thinking about a pound of each… Any thoughts?
edit: or should I be looking at 2 pounds of cascade?

I would be leery of wet hops bought from a retailer unless I was certain they had been picked very recently.

ANybody know when the harvest is in Ohio typically? I was assuming these would be picked this week and next for delivery end of next week, have an email out to the LHBS asking about when picked

I’m in Ohio and many of friends grow their own hops. Some of them are ready now and some won’t be ready till August.

So for now, I’m waiting to hear what LHBS has to say about harvest, but I will likely pick these up

I’m brewing my fresh hopped IPA Friday. I got a large number of Zeus, chinook, centennial and cascades ready to go. I didn’t get much production from the others. These four breeds are ready to go…, time to start the yeast!