I have this co-worker that was listing in on one of my home-brew conversations at work and pulled me aside and let me know that he has some hops growing in his back yard, left over from whoever had the house before him. I figure hey, why not toss them in with the next brew? He has no idea what type they are, and has little to no beer knowledge in general, so he's trading me the whole batch for a 6-pack of the product. That being said, I'm a relatively new brewer (probably 7-10 brews, all but one from extract) and i have no experience in wet-hopping a beer. I know I have to up the oz. a bit, and will probably just use them for aroma being as I don't know the aa%, but I could use a bit of help from you all with a bit of experience doing this in the past. I'll be brewing this Saturday with them, and probably picking them on Thursday. Any tips ya'll have would be great-
Are you sure that they are not wild hops? Any guess as to how long they have been growing there? I recomend drying these out. I would not use them as aroma unless I made a tea and enjoyed the flavor and aroma. I would use these for bittering at around 7% that way your beer will be a little more bitter or a little less. It should not make a big difference. You could also chew a cone as early homebrewers planted alot of Cascades. Good luck
Note that hops lose about 80% of their weight when dried, meaning that 1 oz of dried hops is equal to about 5 oz of wet hops. This is important to keep in mind as I've seen people adding 8 oz of wet hops to a beer thinking they were hopping the crap out of it when in reality that's only about 1.6 oz of hops.
Tip when harvesting the hops - wear long sleeves. The little "hairs" on the hop vines may not seem like much, but after rubbing up against the vines and leaves for a while, the friction adds up and it will feel like rope burn on your skin.
