I am racking a Belgian IPA to keg today. I used tons of homegrown cascade hops to brew it. I was planning on dry hopping with cascade as well, only with pellets. Well, I forgot to get some. I have only dry hopped with homegrown hops once. It was a barley wine. It tasted excellent before I dry hopped it. It later developed some oxidation, a salty kind of character. Now whether that was from the hops or it had been there all along and just became more noticeable later I don’t know.
I had another experience using homegrown ingredients added post ferment that went awry as well. I added some dry heather to a heather ale to “dry herb” it. I ended up with an unitinentional sour ale.
Am I just being paranoid about adding homegrown ingredients post ferment or do others also not add anything if it won’t be boiled?
Agree with Denny and Jeff . . The only thing that I can think of that would cause the issue you are talking is the way the HG hops were handled . . either picked too early or not dried sufficiently.
If you are still worried, you can still order some Cascades and dry hop when they arrive. Shouldn’t matter if there’s a couple of days delay.
Well, getting some pellets is no problem. I can go the homebrew shop this week. I guess I would kind of like to use the homegrown but jut needed some reassurance.
I am partly suspect because of how I have them stored. They are completely and totally dried. I am not worried about that. I have an oast setup. No heat, just air. However once they are mostly dry in there I transfer them to a large food dehydrator and finish the job at about 95F.
I have not found a great way to store yet. I have been using those reynolds and or ziplock vaccuum bags. They are pretty hit or miss as many can attest. They slowly leak (sometimes quickly) and let air in. I store them in the freezer. Generally I suck the air out of the main bag and then put them into another bag and squeeze as much air out of that.
So, I guess I am concerned about oxidation from that or other possible contaminants. Part of me sees this is ridiculous though, as the commercial hops I buy are likely subjected to just as much mistreatment. I guess it is just those two circumstances that have me bothered.
Having seen how hops are handled from the farm through the packing, I daresay that yours probably receive a lot more care! I think you’d be surprised to see one of those operations in action.
As to storage, get yourself a vacuum sealer. I bought on for the hops, but it’s amazing how often I use it for other stuff, too.
I would like to get a vacuum sealer. I just have not found one that a majority of people say is worthwhile. They all seem to have their issues. Even the ones that are a couple hundred bucks!
Vacuum sealing is a great way to go with hops. I also have a Foodsaver. It’s easy to use and helps prevent oxidation as well as keeps the hops fresher longer. I vacuum seal and freeze all of my hops.
I think you should be OK with using homegrown hops as long as they were properly dried and stored.
I just saw this thread. Since I keg my beer, I dry hopped for the first time a little while back.
I took a different approach, I put the dry hop ball and hops in a sanatized keg with a lil distilled water
enough to cover the hop ball…Then since the beer is a delicate pilsner and I don’t want any O2 or light
problems, I carbonated the water/hop keg with CO2 after that got carbed, I then transferred keg to keg
the beer into the water+hop Keg. I have tasted one sample pull from this keg, and it seems nice so far.
It is still lagering for a couple more weeks.
Foodsaver users . . how do you vacuum seal your hops in terms of quantity? bulk or batch size . . or some of both?
Since I don’t own a vacuum sealer, but am entertaining the idea, I assume once you open a sealed bag and use only a portion, you can reseal and purge the same bag again?
I usually pack them in bulk since I’m lazy. I leave enough extra bag so that I can reseal them easily. If I’m not being lazy, I’ll just do a few oz. per bag.
I add as much as the bag will hold and just re-seal every time.
You lose around 3/4-1" of bag every time you cut it open so just make the bag a few inches bigger.
I ended up yanking the hops from the keg after about 3-4 days. It was getting wicked grassy. My friends thought it was great early in the evening at a competition the other night. Later in the night one of the same friends not knowing which beer he was drinking said “it tastes like seafood”!
Thats interesting, I’ve had a couple of batches lately that tasted a little salty, I used some HG hops I bought from someone about a year or so ago… hydroponically grown hops… maybe I need to do a split batch. I blamed everything, even Oxiclean… I still don’t know for sure what it was.
I’ve been dry hopping with homegrown hops for nearly 10 years and never experienced “salty” from it. I’m at a loss to think of any way that could even happen.
