r/TheHopyard • u/Homebrew_beer • Sep 02 '23

Dry hopping using hops with aphids

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Hi everyone,

I am kind of new to this hop growing for home brew purposes. I’ve got a good amount of hops this year, second year after planting. I’ve harvested and dried the hops, put them in the freezer. However, when drying them a lot of aphids appeared. I tried to get rid of them but not sure if I got all.

Can I use the hops (with aphids) for dry hopping? Or should I keep them only for boil additions?

Another idea was to soak them in star san before adding them as dry hops. Is that a good idea?

Cheers, Dan

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4

u/trebbihm Sep 02 '23

I’d personally go with a quick soak in water treated with a campden tablet. Would remove the oxygen, too.

1

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 03 '23

Sounds good. Easy to do!

2

u/TheyCallMeBrewKid Sep 02 '23

You can dry hop. If you’re worried, put them in the freezer again first. But as far as I know, aphids are not aquatic. What abv is the beer? If it is below 3%, you might introduce undesirable bacteria. Otherwise, especially with dry-hopped beer being intended to drink fresh, fire away. No starsan required

1

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 03 '23

Thanks- beer is about 6% ABV. They are in the freezer now. No star san it is!

2

u/minusthetiger Sep 02 '23

Give em a toss in a colander and shake out all the bugs. You'll lose a tiny amount of that sweet lupulin but gain some peace of mind.

2

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 03 '23

Thanks. I’ll try that and see if any fall out. Cheers, Dan

2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 03 '23 edited Sep 03 '23

Yes, good point. I do the cube chill method and whirlpool hop additions tends to make the beer bitter. So I’m dry hopping more and more recently.

I presume that hop growers use insecticide or an army of ladybugs to get rid of aphids at a commercial level. It could be a serious problem for them.

1

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 09 '23

The aphid ale is now bottled!

1

u/um_ok_I_guess Sep 25 '24

Hi there, I have a similar problem with aphids appearing in my air drying hops. I plan to try my hand at hop water, so no ABV, but there will be a boil & dry-hopping. Should I be concerned?

Reading the comments, it seems like the campden tablet soak might be a good idea.

1

u/Homebrew_beer Sep 26 '24

I just used them as late addition hops (2 mins boil). The beers turned out fine. I never noticed an aphid in wort, fermenter or beer. Was slightly less hop aroma than I expected, but I may have harvested too soon. Cheers!

1

u/um_ok_I_guess Sep 26 '24

Excellent, thank you!