UKC

Having found wild hops growing in a local hedge back I’m very keen to use them in a home brew beer. However I have in the past played with kits and dried hops which have never really seemed to do much (hops that is)

Rubbing one of the wild flowers through my fingers at the weekend released masses of aroma and was very heady. What would folks recommend as a way of introducing them into beer that will start from a kit? Hi 

You could try dry hopping or boil them to make a hop tea and add to the kit. Not personally tried the hop tea but the home-brew forum has better advice https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/how-do-you-make-your-hop-tea.731...

Oh and remember fresh hops contain a lot of water so unless you dry them first you'll need to adjust quantities 

For aroma boil them in the last 15 minutes or at the end of the hop boil.  If you use them for dry hopping (adding to the fermenter) make sure they are very very clean.    

I'd use them to add flavour and aroma. Try making a little cup of tea with a few to get an idea of the taste. If you like it add some in the last few minutes of the boil. For quantities I'd go about twice what a recipe suggests for a modified kit assuming you're using them green. For aroma just sling them into the fermentor after a couple of days when you rack it. Green or dry hops into fermenting beer works fine so long a there is some alcohol developed by the time you add them it shouldn't moulder but you can scold them briefly if you're paranoid about cleanliness.

If you're using them for bittering I'd boil them up for half an hour or so then add that juice bit by bit to the finished brew, alpha acid fraction is very variable and you could make something really nasty with a little bad luck by cooking unknown hops in from the start.

jk

I used to make beer from malt extract and put, I think, about half the dried hops in with the extract and water when I boiled it. The rest went in for a few minutes toward the end.

If you can find a copy of The Penguin Book of Home Brewing and Winemaking, it will help, though I guess there will be some guides online.

Dave

Cheers All

flavour and aroma will be the way forward by the sounds of it. Just going to have to take a punt on the flavour but love the fact I have found them in a random bit of hedge