pellets to fresh hop conversion?

If right off the bine, I go with 1 oz pellet = 5 oz wet. If they dry, which if you have any circulating air happens fast, easily within 48 hr, if not faster, I go with 0.9 oz pellet = 1 oz leaf (dried cones).

I don't know how much water will be gone in time period off bine plus shipment. Next time have buddy weigh right off bine and then you weigh them on arrival.

 

If these hops are being shipped wet, check them closely when you get them. Depending on how long they are in shipment, they could develop a bit of mold.

 

Sorry, just read your post, you have the 3 lbs starting weight. Ask your buddy when he weigh them, right off bine or after drying, weigh them yourself and back calculate.

 

The type of packaging along with the amount of air in the box, conditions during shipment as well as the length of shipment will determine the condition of those hops upon arrival. I think you'll see some degradation (wilting) from the shipping, but it's too hard to predict whether you'll see mold.

 

My friend will be having more Willamette hops than he'll know what to do with from his harvest and I am being charged with making good use of them. Not to thread-jack, but are there any styles that suit whole-cone hopping with this variety better than others?

 

@ManBearPat I would use fresh Willamette in either a stout, or "harvest beer" kinda Amberish beer.

 

That's great news!
All I ever really want to brew is STOUTS!!!!
I mean, I would have settled for something else, but....

 

This recipe was crowd sourced here by majority vote. Turned out well, lots of people really enjoyed it. Mine took 2nd in a BJCP comp for Stouts and Porters. If you can't get wet Chinook then just sub out the Chinook for another ounce of Willamette, then multiply all by 5 for wet hops. You would need 10 oz wet at the WP and 6 oz wet Willamette at 10 minutes. Bitter with regular dried Chinook. http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...rican-stout-whole-leaf-hop-version-ag.241978/

 

Yes, Willamette will make a nice stout...and so will the Chinook, because of Chinook's high AA, you wouldn't need to use much of those...even wet : )

 

BTW I have a cup of wet hop cones sitting at my desk right now that I keep randomly shaking up and smelling. One of the benefits of growing your own.

 

This is what inspires brewers (hop heads : ))...I just finished off a # of whole cone Topaz in my yearly Southern Hemi...and am slathering the kief from the bottom of the bag into my pint of James Bond Wheat (Simcoe, Amarillo, and CTZ)...I'm lovin it

 

What type of conversion are you guys using for wort absorption?

 

OK, I'll take a stab at this...the hops are wet so...not as much as dry hops...but not that much different either (wing it, and you'll be close) : )

 

Excellent question. I don't know the answer, but I can say that a lot (most) of the "absorption" associated with dried whole leaf hops is really trapping rather than absorption. It's why leaf hops absorb/trap more than pellet hops. So here's what I would guess for a first shot...

Consider...
Wet Leaf hops won't "absorb" any (or very little) wort (call it 0), but will trap some.

Where...
Leaf (dried) Hops absorb/trap 0.0625 gallons pre ounce and
Pellet Hops absorb/trap 0.0250 gallons per ounce

Then...
The difference in absorption/trapping between dry leaf and pellet is 0.0375 gallons per ounce, so let's say that 0.0375 is the "trapping" portion for leaf hops in general.

I'd figure 0.0375 gallons per ounce of Wet Leaf hops.

Again, this is partially guesswork. YMMV. etc.

 

@VikeMan I like that line of thinking. I'll probably enter .04-.05-ish in brewcipher and not be disappointing if I end up with an extra pint or two of wort.

 

Here's what I do.

I calculate the % moisture in the wet hops, convert to dry weight and do that 1:1 (comparing to dry whole leaf hops-edit for clarification and use that for the recipe math)

in order to calculate % moisture.

I weigh an amount of sacrificial hops out (how sensitive your balance is determines how many hops you have to use) record that number. Then I bake them in my oven at 300 for 10 minutes or so, until they are dry. Weigh them again.

% moisture = ((wet weight-dry weight)/Wet weight)x 100.

Why because you don't know how much dew there was or when they were harvested or how sunny it was etc etc.

Now those baked hops, throw them out. You've sacrificed them to Gambrinus for the help of making better beer more accurately.

Edit again: if you were being truly anal, you would then calculate how much 'moisture' you are adding to the kettle boil volume and subtract out the amount of water in grams to deduct for the hop moisture.

 

aaand another comment.

wet hop beer contest is a good one to enter, http://www.freshhopalefestival.com/homebrew.html

Centennial is a great hop.

but you can use pellets for bittering (per the contest) it's literally a beast and a half to make a full beer from start to finish entirely with wet hops. Besides... you don't really know the alphas. We did, last year an IPA entirely with fresh wet hops, and it came out great (stupid short shelf life-you run that risk...), but... it was a LOT of hops in paint bags with rocks and we had to press out the wort from the hops.