Old hops smell cheesy. If you don't detect any cheesy or funky aromas they should be fine. As tooldudetool said, a week at room temp. shouldn't be a big deal. Hop wholesalers in the US store their hops at 29F
If you could go to Yakima during harvest in late August or early September it would be worth it. Seeing a hop picking machine work or walking through a hop kiln while in process would be very cool indeed. Not to mention standing beside a pile of hop cones the size of a 2 bedroom house. Only...
This is not supported by the brewing literature. DMS precursor is SMM, s-methyl methionine. SMM is an amino acid that comes from the soluble protein in malt. It is a fixed quantity by the time boil begins and decreases when converted and volatilized in the boil.
DMS can be oxidized to DMSO...
Given that this is the brewing science forum it should probably be mentioned that at very low mash and subsequent lower beer pH the reactions that form Trans-2-Nonenal (papery, cardboard taste in beer) from malt derived lipids are favored. Probably not an issue if you are not storing your beer...
Boiling serves a number of purposes. The primary ones (not necessarily in order) are:
1. Achieving sterility
2. Isomerizing hop acids
3. Coagulating protein
4. Converting DMS-p to DMS and driving it off
5. Concentrating wort
All are achieved with a decent boil. A downright...
100% efficiency is not possible, and even if it were you wouldn't want to drink the beer. Some very complex commercial systems can exceed 95%, but in order to get there without negatively impacting the beer you have to carbon filter the final runnings. High pH and high polyphenol levels of...