Most brewers use a rule of thumb, often derived from experience, to determine how much wet hops to substitute for an equivalent weight in dry hops. So one ounce of wet hops is nowhere near the same as an ounce of dry hops. This means that targeting a bitterness level for your hops might mean picking a range of IBUs rather than a single number.įurther complicating hop yield calculations is the fact that wet hops are mostly water by weight. The brewer is left to guess, based on the variety, what this season’s alpha content might be for a given wet hop. There is always an element of mystery when wet hopping. For this reason many brewers avoid using wet hops on very highly hopped beers like IPAs, while others embrace the green flavors as part of a fresh hopped beer.Ĭommercial and home grown hops also don’t come with a hop analysis data sheet. However, the risk in 100% wet hopped beers is that these flavors can be overdone and spoil the profile for the beer. Chlorophyl and “green” flavors if used properly give the distinctive fresh hop flavor to the beer. Wet hops have a larger concentration of fresh plant material, which can result in more vegetal and even tobacco flavors. Hops reach peak flavor for harvesting for only a few days, and since the hops need to be used immediately you’ll need to schedule around the harvest. Your brewing schedule will be dictated by the hop harvest. For home brewers, growing and harvesting your own wet hops is usually the best option. Some small breweries such as Sierra Nevada brew wet hopped beers, but they have the hops shipped overnight as soon as they are harvested in containers designed to provide proper ventilation for the hops. It is difficult to get wet hops from hop growers unless you can make special arrangements. It is best if you can use them 24-48 hours after harvesting. Wet hops will spoil quickly so they should be used immediately after harvest. Wet hops contain 75-80% water by weight – enough to drip water if you squeeze them hard enough. These hops are called “wet hops” or fresh hops. However there is an alternative – using the hops right off the bine while they are still fresh. All of the hops you buy from your local brew store are dried – typically down to a moisture level of 8-10%. When you harvest your hop cones you typically will dry them right after harvesting to preserve them. Some time ago I wrote an article on the growing hops in the garden. These can be used for home brewing beer, but you need to make some adjustments to your recipe and expectations when using wet hops. If you ever find yourself in the Quad Cities area, make sure you stop by and sample a cold one.Follow hops are hops that are freshly harvested and have not yet been dried or processed. Email: thanks to Adam Ross from Twin Span Brewing for sharing his tips. When he’s not guiding aspiring homebrewers with their first systems or working with breweries as they upgrade their operations, he enjoys spending time with family and losing the occasional golf ball or two. Ryan Oxton is the Market Development Manager at Spike. Take notes, test, and make changes for the next batch to really dial in your efforts. It’s important to remember that there’s both an art and a science to effective scaling. Adam recommends rounding down on the hop additions when you scale up until you can find how your system changes hop utilizations. For example, you may get more IBU extraction as your batch sizes increase. Key 4 – Hops extract differently at various scales. If your small batch is batch sparged on a direct flame and your big batches are fly sparged on steam heat, you won’t get the exact same beer without modifying one of the recipes. Key 3 – Process changes need to be considered in scaling, too. If you suspect a small batch will need to be scaled up at some point, it helps to design the big recipe first with grains in bag-size increments, and then scale down to your smaller batch. With malts, Adam likes to round recipes to the nearest bag size to minimize the number of partial bags lying around. Key 2 – If you are really scaling up, be mindful of both your open- and full-bag grain inventory. To make sure you get your desired results, understand both your current system and scaled systems’ brewhouse efficiency. BeerSmith’s “scale recipe” feature (tutorial here) lets you take your favorite recipe and transform it quickly and accurately. Key 1 – Let software like BeerSmith TM do the heavy calculations for you. With ten-plus years as a homebrewer, a certified Cicerone and now head brewer at newly-opened Twin Span Brewing in Bettendorf, Iowa, he’s taken his fair share of great recipes and made them work at any volume.īelow, Adam shares his recommendations for scaling a recipe up or down, regardless of your intended batch size. When it comes to scaling a beer recipe, Adam Ross has notable experience.
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