Hand Hop Analysis

Welcome back fair reader(s?)! This week we had what was one of the most interesting practical workshops yet: the hand evaluation of hops. Not to say that the practical work in the lab doing water analysis isn't interesting but it was nice to get hands on with something that I can relate to a bit more as a homebrewer.

A portion of the two hour class covered hop anatomy like the different leaf types on the cones, location of the lupulin glands, structure of the sprig, etc. After breezing through that it was on to the hand evaluation. There were six positive factors and three negative factors to take into account when grading.

1. Picking: How well was the picking of the cones from the vines done? Are there any other unneeded bits of plant material like stems or vine leaves in the batch? Are the cones themselves whole or were some picked such that the cones are not fully intact?

2. Humidity: Do the hops have an acceptable moisture content? We were given the moisture content as measured by some instruments.

3. Color and gloss: Do the hops have a healthy color? Do they have a homogeneous color? Sometimes hops can pick up brown areas from the drying process. (Brown=bad)

4. Cone Condition: This character overlaps a little with the picking character. Are the cones closed or open? Open cones means more moisture could have gotten into the interior of the cones where the lupulin is contained (Bad). Are the cones relatively homogeneous through the batch as far as size, shape and coloring? Is the spindle (the stem on the interior of the cone) thick or thin? Thick spindles would mean that a greater proportion of a given batch of hops is useless plant matter as far as the brewer is concerned.

5. Lupulene: Apparently this doesn't really enter into hand hop analysis anymore as there are other methods of determining the alpha acid content of hops.

6. Aroma: This was my favorite part. You need to assess the purity, fineness and intensity of the aroma. To really assess the aroma you have to volatilize the aromatic compounds by taking a few cones in your fingers, tearing them vertically down the middle and then rubbing the pieces together right beneath your nose. Be careful not to get too much of it up your nose! Some people sneezed doing this part (By some people I mean me... it stings to get bits of leaf up your nose!). Does the aroma remain even after rubbing for a bit? If the heat generated from the rubbing is enough to eliminate the aroma then it surely won't last long when you put it into 100 ° C wort.

The negatives.
1. Pests: Is there evidence of pests like molds, or spots from an insect infestation?
2. Deficiencies: Were the hops damaged during drying?
3. Seeds: Seeds are useless to the brewer.

So after looking at all of these characteristics, each of which was graded either out of 5 or 15 points, we added everything up and got a total score out of 100. The picture back at the top of the post shows the four samples we graded. #4 was... not good. It smelled like an ancient, dirty, dusty, decrepit, stuffy, musty, cardboardy, moldy, (you see what I am getting at yet?) old basement. The instructor said that some breweries actually want the smell and the flavor from hops like this (they were a year old) but I definitely washed my hands after that one. Speaking of which, when you hand grade hops your fingers get really really sticky. Try touching your camera with fingers like that.

So how can this apply to homebrewers? Not a whole lot if you get your hops like I do in pellet form in one ounce nitrogen filled packets. Nonetheless it's an interesting exercise that I highly recommend trying (You obviously need to get whole hops not pellets) if for no other reason than to get more familiar with one of the basic ingredients of every brew. It would also be interesting if you grow your own hops, as we started doing last year, so you can compare across your individual plants and varieties.

One other thing I would like to mention. So every two people received a tray of each hop variety during our class. That's at least 14 of those trays for each variety. Remember the one I said smelled... not good? Well what do we do with all the hops when we are done? Why dump them all into a garbage can at the front of the room until it is nearly overflowing. Brilliant. Smelled great up there the next day. Oh I should also mention that as hops oxidize they start to smell like old gym socks so even though we removed the garbage the next morning there were still hop bits all over the floor in the classroom that probably won't get cleaned up anytime soon. Do the math.

In any case why don't you go do some hands on study of hop flavor and open up a beer (homebrew preferred). Cheers!