I'm still pretty much a kit brewer. What I'm saying is... I'm still pretty ignorant about hops. The hops I've used came in little brown zip-lock bags, in pellet form. I recently picked some hops in the town of North Bend, WA. at a small agricultural museum, which may have been pretty much any variety. They ranged from about a half inch long to two inches, and at different levels of maturity and dryness. A few had brown spots. I've got four one-quart zip-lock bags of those hops in my refrigerator. How should I make use of them? Should they be washed? Dried? crushed? Tossed whole into the wort?
They smell hoppy. That's the totality of my knowledge, right there...
Karl S.