Green hop quantities

[Hudders]

Hello,

I've been watching a wild/feral hop this summer and it's just started to change colour from green to brown with big pungent cones. I've decided to brew a single hop bitter with it at 4.4% and a colour of 13SRM. I will add hops at 60mins, 20mins, flame out and dry hop but the question is how much! I don't know the AA strength and I haven't dried them. I need to aim somewhere in the middle so that it's not too mild and not too hoppy. I'm assuming an AA of 6% and if dry I would use 30g at each addition for a 20l batch. This gives an IBU in the mid 30s but still in the 20s or 40s if the AA is 4% or 8% respectively, which feels sensible for an English hop. The second question is how much to factor for fresh hop weight. I might increase my weight by 1.5 to account for the water content, so 45g at each addition.

Do people agree with this logic? Ideally I would like an IBU of 44 but if I've underestimated the AA or overestimated the moisture content I would end up with a moderate gravity hop bomb, which I don't want. Traditional best bitter is the goal here.

Also what yeast do people prefer?

Many thanks


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[Coffeeuk]

Personally I'd use a known hop for bittering and use the wild hops at 10 mins, flameout and dry hopping.

You want to increase your wet hop vs dry hop rates by 4 or 5 times, 1.5 is nowhere near enough.

[Hudders]

Wow, OK. So 120-150g rather than 30g? I definitely don't want to bitter with those hops if there's that much uncertainty. Shame not to use them solely though. Thanks


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[Goulders]

You will need around 700g to 1kg from what I've heard. Have a search of threads for those who've done green hop bitters before, e.g. this

[Louis Macneice]

I've just done (30/09/16) a green hop pale ale to the following BIAB recipe:

1.5kg Golden Promise
3kg Pale Belgian
200g Light Crystal
200g Torrified Wheat

Mashed for 90mins @ 65 in 25l of water.
Sparged with 5l of water @75
Boiled 60 mins

10g Magnum FWH (i.e as the wort come up to the boil)
400g mixed unidentified/fuggles/prima donna (the vast majority were the unidentified....which smelt very 'cascadey'...if that is a word) @10 mins
Protofloc tablet @10 mins

Wort left form 10 mins steeping after boiler switched off.

23l to fermenter (including 2l of boiled water....the green hops soak up a fair amount of liquid)

Gervin yeast pitched next day; fermentation @ 19-20.

OG. 1049 - by 4/10/16 this had dropped to 1010 and the sample tasted rather good...hoppy but not overly so, with a nice bittering and a sweet underpinning.

[barneey]

Generally another hop for bittering, then add the green late, some say 6 or 7x the amount of dried, I would suggest as much as possible 10x +

[Hudders]

This has been an education, thank you


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[millmaster]

It might be a worthwhile precaution making a hop tea with it, just in case there are some issues with the taste, before you commit to using it in a full batch of beer.
Put some of the hops in a cafetiere type coffee maker and smell/taste the resulting "brew", cautiously. Then if its to your taste, go with it

[scuppeteer]

Don't f*ck about with it. Hop teas are pussy stuff. Use all within the last 5-10mins, you'll get enough bittering from the green hops whatever they are. Using a known hop for bittering is not in the spirit of Green hop beers. Most of our beers are 1kg/BBL or more with dried. Green Hop is 10kg/BBL.

For a 20l batch use at least 500g if you have that much.

[Normski]

There's some good advice above.
I would like to add.
As it’s a wild unknown hop. I wouldn’t dry hop with it, you risk infection.