Dissapointing hoppiness of pellets

My last two batches used pellets exclusively. One was an Amber Ale with 5 oz of Centennial/Amarillo all in the last 15 minutes. The other was a Brown Ale with 1 oz of Magnum at 60 min and 4 oz of Cascade in the last 15 min. I was aiming for light to medium bitterness with intense hop flavour and aroma. What I got was severely under-hopped batches with very little hop taste at all.

Now I'm wondering if I just got unlucky with old oxidized hop pellets. My LHBS sells refrigerated pellets in little ziplock baggies that are definitely not vacuum sealed. I've never had this issue before though and always considered hop pellets to be reasonable. Anyone else had issues this time of year with hops not being hoppy enough? I'm guessing it's their age and the way they were stored.

I know we're approaching a new hop harvest in a little bit, so maybe I'll just wait until August and use fresh whole hops exclusively.

Yeah, you might not get a lot of bitterness hop bursting like that but you should get some solid flavor so there might be some hop degredation. But, hops kept in a freezer for a year should be pretty good still.

I haven't had any bad hops yet, but I can't resist giving them a big sniff before I throw them in the pot - it makes my mouth water!
I think if they ever didn't smell fantastic, I sure as hell wouldn't put 'em in my brew!

I'm not at all trying to insinuate that might have happened here, but it seems like a reasonable sanity check on hops viability...

Every time I buy hops from your LHBS the first aroma I get is always Parmesean. I would suggest hops direct. Better yet PM me. I'm organizing a group order at harvest time.

wolfman_48442 said:

I think if they ever didn't smell fantastic, I sure as hell wouldn't put 'em in my brew!

Click to expand...

Brewing, cooking anything sensory requires the experienced brewer (cook?) to smell and taste everything and learn how to discern good from bad ingredients. If it doesn't hit you in the face with aroma when you open up a room temperature package, just throw them out. I generally prefer leaf because its not processed and I can tell the quality easier than pellets.