Well it's January and I still have a freezer full of home grown whole hops. I've been makin several brews with them, but now it's time to get down to it. . Rough guestamite is around 15-17 lbs of hops left. In order of most to least is cascade, Columbus, chinook, nugget and centenial. Much lesser amounts of willamette and tettnang which I have covered with planned brews. The big question I got for the forem is,,,,, what is the max amount of these hops you'd use in a pale/ ipa. Kettle additions only. To. Consider,,, most of the brews I make now are 5.5 abv max. Very rare is the big beers of the past. I was thinking no more than 10 oz. And I want them all gone by September 1. What say yeeee?
Well,...when it comes to brewing APA beers I typically only use 3-4 ounces total. An ounce of a hop like Warrior or Magnum for the bittering addition, an ounce of something like Cascade for the flavor addition (e.g., last 10 minutes of the boil) and 1-2 ounces of an American aroma hop for the end of boil (and hop-stand). Maybe if we doubled things that would still turn out OK? Perhaps use 2 ounces of Nugget for bittering, 2 ounces of Cascade for flavor and 4 ounces of Centennial/Cascade for end of boil (and maybe a later whirlpool addition). Perhaps you could brew up something like the above and see how it tastes. If it is not too hoppy/unbalanced for you, use this as a pattern for future brews? Perhaps even 'bump up' the amounts on subsequent batches? I personally do not use staged whirlpool additions in my brewing practice (e.g., x ounces at 190 degrees F, y ounces at 170 degrees F, etc.) but maybe this might be one way to use up your hops? Cheers! P.S. I use pellets. Do you experience a lot of wort loss when brewing with whole hops?
@Jack, not too much, I'm one of those who squeeze the hops some after draining. Don't do WP either, perhaps I should grow less, hahahahahaa. @Naugled home grown, dryed.
You need to find some hop head friends. I would make a redneck hop torpedo and stuff it with a few pounds.
