Just dried and vacuum packed my 1st year Chinook hops and as with the other varieties, I always noticed some of the lupulin at the bottom of my weighing bowl. I always try to get all of that in the bag along with the hops, and a few questions came to me this morning:
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Has anyone ever tried to mechanically separate the lupulin glands from the cone itself and used only that for brewing? Granted, you’d be looking at weighing out milligrams or micrograms of product instead of ounces, but wouldn’t that help to eliminate the potential for off flavors from the brachioles? I also realize the lupulin is very sticky (resins), so maybe it wouldn’t be possible to handle and might go rancid faster.
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On the flip side of this discussion, is there something wrong with the lupulin that easily falls out of the cones? Is it already rancid or over-ripe? Should I leave this in the bottom of the bowl? I do wipe out the bowl with a paper towel to try to get as much out before washing it, and of course, it is an incredibly overwhelming aroma. So my olfactory system shuts down and can not reliably assess all the smells in that lupulin. So to try to assess rancidity by smell is close to impossible.
Just curious about that orange yellow powder at the bottom of the bowl. BTW, if you’re looking for a completely different hop experience, knock some of that lupulin in your cereal in the morning. I would suggest a low alpha variety to start out with though.
