Oddly smooth green hop brewday

[bryanferry]

A friend mentioned they had a lot of hops on their doorstep so I popped round Saturday morning and got to foraging. There's no idea what type of hops they are but had some nice visible resin. Took home and put them in the greenhouse to dry out. The next day the top shelf of hops were pretty dry. Made a hop tea and there was a little aroma but definitely bitter present.

Basic batch of ale was promptly thrown on with 4.5kg of pale malt, 250g of crystal and couple of handfuls of rice hulls to assist the mash.
Hop schedule was also basic with 21g of leftover chinook at 60mins then 40g of the fresh hops at 15mins and 40g at flame out with a hop stand. Will probably go with another 25g of dry hopping now more have dried.

Yeast was a Crossmyloof real ale. Came out at 1.051. 24 hours in and solid fermentation with it holding at 18c.

The whole brewday was very unusually a breeze. Controller worked perfectly, mash and sparge were fine and the wort was crystal clear...

Having been brewing for 10 years and there always being a wrinkle I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[Jim]

Those hops look gorgeous.

Perfect brewdays are rare, but they do happen (I'm told).

[bryanferry]

The good fortune continued with the gravity down to 1.012 so a comfortable 5% ready to be conditioned. I should have been more confident with the hops and thrown more in at boil or a decent dry hop. Still it tastes surprisingly very good.

Decided to bottle up the whole 20l batch so I can give a decent supply to the hop grower. Its been at least 8 years since I bottled a full batch.
Really reinforces the value of dropping a whole batch into a corny and walking away. 36 bottles successfully collected before it got to the bottom of the conical.

Few weeks conditioning and we should be good to go. Doubt I will ever have as smooth a run as this...

[Fuggled Mind]

Those hops look lovely. I'm looking forward to reading how your beer turns out. I've never had the chance to try wild hops but I'd definitely like to give it a go one day

Cheers

Jason

[bryanferry]

Left to bottle condition for a couple of weeks and its not too bad.

Quite a basic bitter with a decent head (that disappears fast). I think I could have increased the hop addition by 25% and added some wheat for head retention but the batch will be finished off in short order. Might bring out the left over frozen hops and try it again with some kviek yeast.