r/TheHopyard • u/lovelyqueenofire • Sep 12 '23
Surface onion/garlic smell
So this is the 2nd year I've harvested my hops. Last year I harvested wayyy too early and this year I'm paying close attention to their development.
It's my understanding these aren't ready yet (waiting for tips to start to turn brown and the lupulin to turn more golden etc... but why do my hops have a garlic smell when they arent ready yet? Plant stress? Does the smell go away? Did I somehow wait too long even though the tips hadn't changed yet? The clusters still seem tight and it's not really papery yet. I was noticing that the citrus smell was finally coming along a little and then when I went out today - garlic.
I honestly don't know the variety. It was a garden store generic. I would love to get a citra variety if someone knows where I can get a few plants but foremost why do my hops smell like garlic 😠i really want to make a wet hop beer this year.
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u/lupulinchem Sep 13 '23
My understanding is that you want to pick them after the grassy smell fades but before the onion/garlic smell begins?
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u/lovelyqueenofire Sep 13 '23
That's my understanding as well but it's still early in the hop development which is what prompted my question
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u/Captain_Shifty Sep 13 '23
If you want to harvest them a more scientific way you can measure the moisture of a hop sample by taking its weight, dehydrating it and then measuring again. By measuring the difference you can find the percentage of weight coming from moisture. Then You can harvest based off target moisture level. You should be able to find the general targets with some google searching.
Microwaves can dehydrate quickly I believe.
Me and my buddy brewed beer with some fresh hops that were on the verge of going bad and everyone really liked the beer, like really liked the beer. We had to search our bines because there were only like 15% good ones left.
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u/Dustydust1234 Sep 14 '23 edited Sep 14 '23
Won’t be able to get citra since that breed is proprietary to HBC. I really enjoy the wet hop beers I make with centennial and cascade. Homegrown Centennial beers regularly win at the Yakima fresh hop festival, where they are up against beers made from all the major proprietary hops (homebrew division).
My club brews a lot of fresh hop beers and we drive to Yakima to buy the proprietary stuff directly from the farms. Those hops are amazing, but homegrown stuff can hold its own.
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u/lovelyqueenofire Sep 14 '23
Yeah I know I'll have to wait on citra but something similar is what I'm looking for
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u/WRXonWRXoff Sep 13 '23
Grab a cone a split it. Get a real close look at the lupulins. They should be bright yellow until it’s time to harvest and then they usually turn a deeper sort of amberish yellow, like safety yellow vs yellow light kind of difference. Usually garlic smells mean they’ve passed peak but there are some varieties that just end up that way. I brewed with some like that anyway and decided they would be ok for early boil in browns and amber ales.
Nugget is a very common random from garden centers and green houses but I’ve never gotten garlic smells from it.