Puhoi Hops

[Doublehoppy]

Has anybody used the Auckland wild hop in a brew? I think it's sometimes known as Puhoi.

I planted a cutting last year and got 30gm of smallish cones in about April. I put them in a sealed plastic bag in the freezer. In each of my last two brews I added 15gm for 2 minutes.

I thought I'd get a lovely fresh hop aroma and taste zingyness, but instead I've got a rather unpleasent "dirty" bitterness. In one brew it almost overshadows The Nelson Sauvin flavour, which takes some doing. It could be unrelated to the hops of course, but this is the prime suspect.

I didn't treat, wash, dry or do anything to the cones, just bunged them in the freezer.

Is there something I should have done with the hops before using them? Has anybody got good results from them or are they no good? Certainly tasting a flower there is a very strong, pleasant citrus (particularly lemon) taste. I've never tasted any other fresh hop so don't have anything to compare it to.

[JoKing]

Macs does a brew with green hops in it. It may just be a case of extra conditioning to bring out the flavours.

[denimglen]

You don't need to wash them or anything.

You should dry them though if not using them immediately. IIRC the moisture has some negative affect on the hop resins. They may also have oxidised a little if not vacuumed packed.

[Doublehoppy]

Thanks guys. I don't think conditioning is gonna save these unfortunately. The vine (is that the right word) is going great guns at the mo so I'm expecting a decent crop again this summer. When they're ready I'll try some right off the vine and see how they go

[denimglen]

Technically it's a 'bine' - because the main stem is what binds to the support instead of having arms or whatever.

Dry them this year and buy an el-cheapo vacuum packers. They're good to have, means you can confidently bulk buy hops too.

[Reviled]

Whats the cheapest vacuum sealer you can generally get?

[denimglen]

Dunno, don't ask me haha, I went halves with my mum on the Sunbeam one. Haha.

IIRC looking at about 150 - 250 depending on model and accessories for the Sunbeam unit. Original Sunbeam bags are killer on price.

Some supermarkets have units that are cheaper, and some AsSeenOnTV shops do too.

My mother found some bags at The Warehouse, which were like half the price of the Sunbeam ones and you got twice as much, so I assume they may have the units too. Box has the AdMan logo on it.

It's good cause you can use it for other stuff too, obviously. I over-buy by about 50g whenever I get hops, at the moment have at least 20g of 17 different varieties which is good.

[denimglen]

Cheapest foodsaver on Sunbeam.co.nz is 180, AdMans one is 150, and looks quite similar to the sunbeam one.

[studio1]

I got the adman one just before xmas and it works super. really very useful and I hadn't thought of using it for hops. Excllent!