If you want to build your own Randall then you may find this shopping list useful. I bought all the parts from Morebeer, except the 1/2" OD stainless pipe that I drilled 20 small 1.5mm holes in. I'm sure you'll find the parts elsewhere also.
MoreBeer:
The Randall has now been tested and used twice. It worked surprisingly well on both occations. The first time with 50 grams Centennial and the Scottish Export 80/-. The second time with 40 grams Amarillo and 10 grams Sorachi Ace and the India Pale Ale. Thanks to Frode for bringing the Sorachi Ace, a Japanese hop with an intense citrus aroma.
There were no leaks and the dual-serving system was well balanced. I had expected a little more resistance in the filter housing and the hop bed, but there was nothing wrong with the flow.
50 grams seems to be just the right amount of hops to use in this filter housing. It seemed a bit too little at first, but the hops soon swelled and filled the entire volume. The pressure in the keg started the flow of beer as soon as the line was connected to the keg. The Randall got filled about half full before the flow stopped as the air could not escape. Pressing the release valve replaced the air with beer. Note that it makes sense to let the hops soak a little while first.
The resulting beer is pretty amazing. There is an extremely intense hop aroma and flavour. You really need to enjoy hops to appreciate it. I felt that the aroma and the flavour of the two were somewhat different. The Centennial appeared much more oily and pungent than the Amarillo and Sorachi Ace did. This may have something to do with the kind of beer it was served through. My impression is that it is better to serve beers that have a higher alcohol content and more bitterness as this will help balance the end result. Otherwise the result is way over the top with regards to hop aroma.
So, what other things can one put inside the Randall other than hops?
I'm proud to present my latest homemade brewing gadget, a Randall. Its full name is Randall The Enamel Animal, and is also known as an organoleptic hop transducer module. The contraption was first invented by the Dogfish Head Brewery. It has later been bought by many pubs serving their beers, all in the the U.S. unfortunately, but they are to my knowledge only used for special events.
I have never tried it myself, but it sure looks like I good idea. I love hops and what couldn't be better than having beer pushed through lots of delicious hops cones on the way to your glass? Yummy!
As far as I know there are no places in Europe where one can try it. So, what was there to do other than to make one myself?
The device is made from one filter canister housing with threaded barbed fittings on both sides. Inside the filter there is a stainless steel pipe with twenty small 1.5 mm drilled holes. I had to get hold of and adapt this one myself. It wasn't easy as getting hold of a 1/2" stainless steel pipe was harder than expected. I ended up buying a towel rack from IKEA(!) and sawing it into pieces with a hack saw. Drilling the holes wasn't easy either as stainless steel is a pretty hard material. I ended up using five titanium covered HSS drills.
I have installed a dual system with two picnic faucets, so that one can serve the beer from the keg directly or from the Randall. That way it will be easy to find out what effect the hops have made to the beer.
The plan is to serve the keg of India Pale Ale through it at this year's Norwegian Homebrewers Festival. So, if you'd like to try it yourself you now know where to be on March 17th.
..or perhaps not.
I've had a 60 ml glass of liquid aroma extract that is intended to be used by commercial breweries for a while. Now this is a lot of hop extract. Well, the label does not actually say hops, whatever. The glass has been left alone in the fridge as I have had no idea what to do with it. I haven't been particularly tempted to actually try it out in one of my 25 liter batches. I do quite a bit of experimentation, but this wouldn't count as one that would be worth it.
Today I found a 500 ml can of lager lying around and found that I should give the extract a try. 
Well, how much extract to use? I had no idea. I suspect that these glasses are meant to be used in pretty big batches. In retrospect I wouldn't be surprised that we're taking about something like 25.000 liters of, ahem, definitely not the best beer in the world, Danish lager. After all, there isn't that much hop aroma in a bland commercial lager.
The smallest measuring spoon I have is 1 ml and I decided to just go ahead and add that to half of the contents of the can. I did that so that I could dilute the mixture with the remaining beer, if neccessary.
The extract itself isn't particularly viscous like syrup, but is instead more like cough medicine. It smells really strong. There is an intense floral and grassy aroma that melds into an almost unbearable pungent syrup.
I stirred the extract in the 1 ml spoon into the beer. It didn't quite mix with the beer, but instead formed drops of heavier yellow clumps. If you look closely that the image above you can see these yellow drops forming.
The one sip I had from the glass almost made me puke. The experience was just too intense. It was just like drinking gasoline. I decided not to waste the remaining beer.
Well, that's enough experimentation on my part. If anybody would like to try it out in a 25 liter batch please let me know. There's still 59 ml left.
September is hop harvest season. Fresh hops are picked off the bine and dried. The drying makes the perishable wet hop much more stable and useable all year-round. These dried hops are called dried whole hops, and this is the traditional way of handling hops, you just put them whole into the brew kettle. Recently more and more hops are being processed into pellets which makes them even more stable, in fact they can keep their quality properties for a much longer time. At the same time they also take up less space as they are more space efficient, meaning that it takes less to achieve the hopping qualities you need.
Recent years have introduced a new phenomenon: wet hopping (sometimes also referred to as fresh hopping or green hopping). Freshly-harvested wet hops are used directly in the brewing process skipping the drying process. This imparts much stronger, and different, flavour and aroma qualities to the beer than what dried hops would do.
Because wet hops is a perishable product it must be used very shortly after it is picked off the bine. This typically means that the brewers that do make wet hopped beers get shipments overnight from hop harvesters so that they can make their beer the day after. Because of this wet hopped beers is a seasonal product. In many ways this is similar to the beaujolais nouveau only this time for beer.
As far as I can tell this trend started in the hop-growing regions of California and the Pacific Northwest. There are even wet hop festivals! It is indeed a very nice way to celebrate the hop harvest.
I tried to get hold of some hop rhizomes this spring, but soon found that I had started searching for them too late, so I have to wait until next year to make my own wet hopped beer. But if you happen to have a hop plant, consider making a wet hopped beer. Now is the right time, unless you want to wait another year.
