I planted some Chinook rhizomes a year ago this past May. Last year they never took off, but surprisingly this year, I have an abundance of hops on the bine and am now wondering what I should do with them. Does anyone have any suggestions for wet hopping or dry hopping with Chinook? Since this is the first time I have every attempted to brew with fresh hops, I thought that wet hopping might be an easy option. Also, I am wondering what beer style or commercial clone recipes might be suggested for using fresh Chinook.
They’d go great in an IPA recipe. Remember that for wet hops, you need to use 4-5 times as much as if they were dry.
Denny is correct on the 4 to 5 times. Here is the math that back that up- which was on Tech Talk about 2 years back.
Wet hops are 80% water and 20% vegative matter.
Dry hops are 8-10 % water. I will use 90% vegative matter for calculation.
To get the same amount of vegative matter for a wet hop, divide 90 by 20 and you get 4.5. You need that ratio for the same amount of AA and essential oils. Use 5 if you really want that wet hops experience.
Hop this helps.
Wish I could think of anything that used fresh Chinook, but I would of course say look to Arrogant Bastard as the quintessential Chinook beer if rumors are to be believed
Oh and if you listen to the Brewing Network Sunday Session from last week with Steve Dressler from Sierra Nevada, he gave some good tips on wet hopping.
Does it work out that wet hopping uses the same volume of hops as traditional hopping, just that they weigh more?
I’m wondering if you knew how much volume an ounce of whole hops took up that you could just measure your wet hops that way. I use fresh spruce tips by volume, so I thought it might be the same idea. But I don’t have any wet hops to test that theory.
I don’t think it would work that way, Gordon. Wet hops take up more volume than dry. I dunno, maybe if you really compressed the wet hops before measuring the volume it might work. But that introduces another variable.
I am afraid I am going to have to side with Denny. I think measuring the volume of hops is like measuring the volume of a paper towel.
The only way I see around it is to “peletize” the wet hops.
A poor mans peletizer would consist of two pieces of plastic (or other) pipe. Essentially one pipe has an end cap on it with an outside diameter that is the same inside diameter as the larger pipe piece. (Maybe use a wooden dowel for the inner pipe piece). Then you could compress the hops.
Also the larger pipe will havea cap on it too, but needs to be removeable.
Procedure
To use it, stuff the large pipe with hops and tap the dowel or smaller pipe with your hand or lightly with a hammer to compress the hops.
When finished, take the cap off the large piece of pipe and push the pellet thorugh.
Even if you do not use it for wet hops, you may find it a good way to preserve your dry hops.
Good Luck
I think if you vacuum packed the fresh (they’re not wet dammit) hops then they might compress as much as the dried ones do, but it’s tough to measure that way. But volume is a reasonable way to do it for fresh hops if you have a little experience with it, I only do one fresh hop beer a year, my “Three Colander Pale Ale”. I add a colander full at 60 min, another at 15 minutes, and another one at knock out. Te hops don’t get get much fresher since I’m picking while I’m brewing. The beer gets consumed rather quickly and I’ve never entered it anywhere, but we like it. It varies in bitterness a bit from year to year, but that’s part of the fun.