WET & FRESH HOPS

THE SECRETS OF BREWING WORLD CLASS HAZIES
HOME BREW RECIPES & TECHNIQUES

The definitions of wet hops and fresh hops are not universal. Plenty of craft brewers use the terms interchangeably. We identify hops that are picked and totally unprocessed, just plump green cones, right from the field as wet hops. We specify fresh hops as those that do get kiln-dried and pressed into 100kg or 200lb bales and time is again the key: we use them within a few weeks. Whether it’s wet hops (undried) or fresh hops (dried and used fast), the goal is to impart beers with hop character at its most intense. And it’s all about the lupulin inside of hops, those tiny yellow glands, packed with resins and oils, that are delicious triple treats of bitterness, aroma, and flavor.

Every year between the end of September & the middle of October, (February - March in the Southern Hemisphere), just after hop harvest in the UK, the Kent Green Hop Beer Festival is held, a celebration of wet hops for a fortnight where between 30 & 40 Kent breweries exhibit their new Green Hop brews for the harvest season using wet, or green, Kentish hops instead of hops that have been dried. The beers have a characteristic fresh taste because the hops used contain many of the oils that are normally lost to evaporation when hops are dried. The hops are as fresh as can be by using them within 12 hours of being picked. Yakima Valley in the USA has a similar festival.

Wet hop beer is made from the addition of freshly picked hops usually from a single variety straight from the hop garden to the kettle. These wet hops infuse the resulting beer with many of the oils that are unavailable to a brewer using dried hops. Wet hop beers are among the most satisfying beers in the world.
The secret is always the freshness and oil content of the hops, so as a home brewer and grower of hops, you have a huge advantage over most commercial breweries except for those situated right in a hop growing area or growing their own hops like Sierra Nevada in the USA or the Hop Farm Brewery in Nelson.

While this book assumes you know how to brew, there are discussions regarding traditional and newer techniques and instructions on how to convert the recipes to malt extract versions.

153 PAGES - 50+ RECIPES

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