Wild hops and what to do with them...

[Elindail]

Around this time last year I was out and about and came across a mass of wild hop vines in a small woodland area. I picked a load of cones at the time which came to about 50g once dried (but at the time I didn't really have any idea about storage, so they've been sat in a cupboard for ages so are probably naff now). Anyway, along with the cones, I took a small part of the roots on the off chance I could get them growing in the garden. Something must have gone right as I've got a small vine (along with one cone about the size of my little finger nail :party:). I'm putting the poor vine size, and only one cone, down to it being first year of growth and that I had to keep shifting the plant around (it's in a large pot) which resulted in some snapping . Anyway, I've been back to the original and there're more vines than there were last year, so my little root take hasn't been too detrimental!

The cones look about ready to harvest, so I fancy having a go at a wild hop brew of some kind to get an idea of what they're like, but not really sure where to start. Any suggestions regarding what fermentables to use, along with a suggested hop schedule would be much appreciated. It'll have to be extract as I'm a million miles away from AG yet...yet another drawback of being a poor student and living with the folks over summer.

I also plan to take a few into the lab when I get back to uni to have a go at working out the AA%, but whether or not I can convince the head of department to let me or not is another matter entirely. I suppose I could sneak in :whistle:

 

[fbsf]

Firstly, nice one on getting your own plant!

Secondly, I would junk the cupboard ones - they will be next to useless now.

Finally, have a quick look in my blog (in my sig) for the recipe for sadley broke ale - its a dead simple extract brew, uses only 1 type of hop and is damn tasty.

 

[oldjiver]

I collected some wild hops from near Harwich a few years ago. I wasnt sure how many to use as they were fresh as opposed to dry. So I used 50% more. I would normally put 50 gms in a 23 litre brew, so for these I put 75gms in. The brew was malt extract, I think 1.5 kg plus 1kg sugar (Iwouldnt use that much sugar in any brew now) It came out fine. Good delicate hop flavour. A friend did the same with hops from a diffrerent location and his was awful!! So they can vary.