Using wild unknown hops

Hi, I’m new to the forum. I have a number of sources of wild growing hops NE of Green Bay in Door County Wisconsin. I have boiled 2 oz of fan/air dried hops in a mesh sock for the last 10 minutes of a 1 hour boil for a 5 gallon batch. This was added to a kit cream ale in my latest batch. I have not gotten around to having them tested for A and B percentages. Is this a preferable method to use these hops?

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That’s awesome! Sounds like a good experiment… good luck.

Better than trying to use them as bittering, since you don’t know that AA%.

You could also make a hop tea and see what they bring to the table.

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I am going to grow some Cascade this year. Hopefully it turns out. Two Trees how far are you fron Sturgeon bay?

Chances are good that these are cluster hops. Around 100 years ago (don’t know exactly when) salesmen came up from Chicago to sell various plants through Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan. One of the things sold were cluster hops, so if you find a bunch of these things growing wild, they likely are clusters that escaped from an old homestead. Kind of like why there are so many Lombardy poplars in the area.

Alpha acids are highly variable depending on weather, and how the plants themselves have adapted over time, but if you look at the typical range for clusters and pick something in the middle, it’s a good starting point.