Help with making IPA with home-grown Cascade

[cromwell]

Hi- it's still very early days for me with brewing so I'd very much appreciate some help & advice. I want to brew a simple IPA using Cascade hops that I grew on my allotment. They are currently in the freezer. ATM I want to keep brew days simple and straight-forward until I've got more knowledge. How does the following sound and what can / should I do to improve it?-

-Making approx 10 litres using 12 litre stockpot

-2kg Maris Otter (mashed in bag)
-100g Cascade

20g of Cascade added at start of boil, 40g at 45 mins, 40g at end of boil

I'm thinking that the hops won't be as full-on as those grown in American sun which is why I've gone heavy on the hops relative to amount brewed.

Any thoughts and help much appreciated!

 

[matt76]

I'm new too but for what it's worth I think the idea of MO + Cascasde is reasonable enough for an early recipe.

Be sure to check out "have a go at simple AG" , it's a great guide to getting started with AG - I think 2kg of grain for a 10L brew is about right, that's exactly what I started with and I've only tweaked things from there.

I'm tempted to say leave the home grown hops in the freezer for now and try it with some shop bought ones until you find your feet but if you follow the hopping amounts in the above guide I'd have thought you'd probably be OK - no need to overcomplicate things while you're getting started and you'll have the satisfaction of using your own hops.

With your own crop I guess you don't know for sure how much bitterness they'll add, whereas with shop bought ones it'll be on the packet. Once you've found your feet I recommend plugging numbers into a tool like Brewers Friend so you can calculate the right amount of hops for your ingredients to get the beer style you want.

For background, if you're interested, I'm brewing an IPA at the moment using MO, a little flaked barley and simcoe, citra and amarillo hops - it's aI think these are similar enough to cascade that you could read across. In my case I used late hopping - instead of adding a small amount of bittering hops at the start of the boil you add more hops later on to achieve the same bitterness but keep more of the aroma.

Best of luck, keep us posted and ask questions - loads of brilliant advice here!

 

[Dutto]

Sounds good but personally I would use a lot less hops.

I did a SMASH with MO and Citra in February 2018 and only used the following:

• Added 15g of Citra Hops for full 60 minutes.
• Added 5g of Citra Hops to steep for 30 mins.
• Bottled in 500ml bottles 3rd March 2018 with 70g of Brewing Sugar and Hop Tea made from 15g of Citra Hops.

That's for a 23 litre brew in the FV. I still have a few bottled left and they are still holding the "citrus" flavour.

 

[lancon]

Did you dry the hops before freezing?

 

[MickDundee]

I’d the hops haven’t been dried you need around 7 times as much as if you used dried IIRC

 

[terrym]

The problem with homegrown hops is that you have no proper idea of what the IBUs are. So unless you are going to take a guess on IBU content for bittering or aren't really fussed about the bitterness levels in the finished product, the only safe option is to use them for late hops in the boil and/or for aroma as in a dry hop.
I made a bitter with some first year First Gold from my plants last year and the IBUs were definitely down on what I had guessed.
That said if you have a lot of your own hops you could do a small trial brew so that you get a better idea of what they have in terms of bitterness, so you can use the rest with more confidence on the outcome.

 

[cromwell]

Thanks for the replies guys.
Matt- thanks for the link to the AG thread- that will prove very interesting reading.
Re. the hops- I did dry them out properly on some home-made mesh screens.
I'm not really after specific levels of bitterness etc.. As I said, it's early days for me & I'll be happy with some nice tasting beer ATM. My reasoning for adding the large amount was my theory that my homegrown hops won't be as potent as the commercial stuff- I could of course be wrong and 100g is perhaps too much for a 10L brew. What would your recommendation amounts be?
Dutto- I'm interested in your hop tea addition- I have never heard of this. Did you add it to the FV before bottling? At what stage?
Thanks
James

 

[terrym]

hop tea addition- I have never heard of this. Did you add it to the FV before bottling? At what stage?

A hop tea is an infusion of hops made with hot water which is then added to the beer when cooled down, and often used by homebrewers. I'm not sure if commercial brewers do it, I would say unlikely. Apparently it is more about hop flavour than aroma which is what a dry hop delivers. The water temperature used to make the tea should not be too hot so as to drive off hop volatile oils, but still hot enough to extract those oils. I use water at about 80*C but some on here say 65*C is the upper limit. And you don't want to use too much water or you will dilute the brew, too little and you have a sludge (for pellets) and the extraction is not efficient. For pellets I have found 10g pellets to 100g water is about right. In theory you can add the tea at any time during the fermentation process, but usually later on. I add my hop teas to the beer when the primary has died down, but then add the hop bits and the liquid to the beer, so its a 'wet hop' aimed at getting the most out of the hop addition, and then leave it alone as I would a dry hop for a few days. However from reading on here some folks only add the liquid it seems, and some add the tea just before packaging.
Although hop teas are fine for pellets, I have no personal experience of making a tea with dried hop cones and would say it would become a right faff and not really worth the bother. You might as well increase the end of boil hops proportionately and you would probably get a similar result. However others may have a different view on this.

 

[Dutto]

............ What would your recommendation amounts be?

....... I'm interested in your hop tea addition- I have never heard of this. Did you add it to the FV before bottling? At what stage? ........

Bitterness and Aroma are very much personal desires and the amount of hops used is very much dependent on personal taste, plus the type of brew that you wish to make. With "home grown and dried" hops the variations are even more difficult to assess so it looks like you will need to do a small brew to start with and then decide for yourself how much hops to introduce and when to introduce them. Sorry!

I make the Hop Tea using a coffee cafeteria like this one from Ikea ...

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products...tea-maker-glass-stainless-steel-art-00297850/

I add the hops, pour on boiling water to fill the jar, let it steep for 15 minutes, squeeze out the "hop tea" and then pour it into either the Bottling Bucket or directly into the PB/Growler.

 

[beertrap]

I grow a few hops. For my brews I usually double the amount when using just my own. Seems to work for me.
Using homegrown hops at 10-5 and flame out times definatly work. But I can't help using them though out the entire boil. It's fun to experiment.