what do you all do with the left over hops from your recipes.

What do you mean, leftovers? If you have EXTRA hops, you should brew another beer!



Mike

My spent hops from brewing and dry hopping get dumped in the compost with the grains.

Ahhhh... I get it now. If you mean USED hops, then yes, you should dump them on a compost pile.

no left over hops. i always have .5oz or so of left over hops. I'm not one to brew the same recipe over and over so I'm getting a collection of hops. .5 oz here 1/4 oz there. maybe I'll just make a batch and throw them all in. (just kidding) I just hate to throw them away.

I label them with type, aa%, and date, seal and place in the freezer for future use.

Or if it is an odd hop I'll never use again, I just toss the extra in the secondary for dry hopping and I'm done.

I you're using bits & pieces of various hops, it makes a lot less difference if you use them for bittering.
As long as they're of the same family of hops, I don't see a problem.
Otherwise, brew a few 3-gal batches to experiment with different grains or cultivate yeasts. You can use them there.

I would just add it to the brew. My friend doesn't drink, but she has a willamette vine and she uses hers for tea. She says it helps her sleep. We had some left over from the harvest this past autumn that we used to make my friend Chris' wedding brew and I added them to my last brew. I like hoppy beers though so...

REX:
In reading this thread your remark about "hop family" caught my attention as I know nothing about the meaning. So therefore, did Google and go nothing except " my big phat hip hop family." Could you direct me to a link or site that would give me futher understanding of hop families?
Thanks
Tom

thanks guys, i'll have to do some research. intrested in that website allso.

I'm not so sure there are clear delineations in certain instances.
Some are easy to identify.
Some hops are herbal, some are minty, some are evergreen, some are citrusy.
A lot of the hops we use nowadays are hybrids, so the term 'family' is technically incorrect (phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, cultivar). This was an informal usage.
Now, those taste classifications noted above are wide groupings, and not everything within those groupings is similar.
For example, I would say that Northern Brewer and Perle are both minty, but they are significantly different.
That said, I would not hesitate to sub in some No. Brewer to make up the amount in Perle were I to run out of the Perle.
I would sub in Challenger for Bullion without hesitation. Both of those are herbal, and very similar, more so than No. Brewer & Perle.

I made up a spreadsheet will the oil profiles for some 70 varieties of hops. My intent was to incorporate that data into some simple program that would kick up suggested substitutions based on the oil profile and the use (bittering, flavor, aroma, dry). I don't have the time or resources at hand to bring it to that level, but anyone that would like that data set as a starting point is welcome to it. Leave me an e-mail address, and I will send it to you.

About a year and a half ago, there was a thread where I had taken one position on hops and another TBer had taken another position. I thought the guy was being an ass at first, but there was some validity to what he was saying. He was saying that the oil profile doesn't matter with later additions, that an ounce is an ounce regardless of what hops you use. And that is true, up to a point. Exactly where that point is, I don't know.
But then, he was more into the Belgian styles and dry-hopped a lot; I'm more into the English brown ales and I have dry-hopped only once, and I don't see myself ever doing that again.

To look at this though, here are some examples of the oil profiles. These are based on typical ranges, and I use averages to sort them.
The averages are given here.
Northern Brewer (US) 9.0 4.0 25.0 55.0 25.0 7.0 0.5 1.8
Perle (Germany) 6.5 3.8 31.0 32.5 41.5 14.0 0.5 1.0 bred from No. Brwr
Bullion (England) 7.5 4.6 37.5 55.0 21.0 10.0 0.5 2.5
Challenger (Wye) 7.5 4.3 25.0 36.0 28.5 9.0 2.0 2.0 from No. Brewer

The oils are listed in this order:
Alpha acids, Beta acids, Cohumulone, Myrcene, Humulene, Caryophyllene, Farnesene, and % of total oils.

You can see that the percentage of total oils (on average) of Challenger is twice that of Perle.
Challenger is higher in farnesene than Bullion, but it is lower in cohumulone and myrcene.
How much that really matters depends a lot on how it's being used.

smoke em. See what happens.

thank you rex very informative.

if its only that little amount i would throw them all in as a dry hop. you can never dry hop too much, maybe too long but never enough.

I froze the hops from about 8 batches of beer, then brewed a crazy redneck beer with them. I used 6 or 7lb of LME and 16 oz of Alaga syrup. Might have even thrown in some dextrose. It was quite popular with our German house guests who showed up right when It was ready to be tapped. For the 3 weeks that they were here, it became their nightly ritual to down a pint or 3. The beer was good.

now that's what i'm talking about. making a Frankenstein brew.