Who else bought 2 pounds of pellet hops

So who else on this forum bought two pounds of pellet hops in anticipation of this winters upcoming hop shortage? I did, but fear opening the large vaccuum sealed bags that are in my freezer, any ideas about what to do with them once the vaccuum sealed bag is openend. I was thinking of putting them in smaller zip lock bags and back in the freezer, but I am wondering if anyone knows of better ways of keeping them from being oxidized.

Additionally does anyone have a way of guaging the weight of the hops without a scale. I don't have one and since prior to this purchase I used to buy them by the ounce, I would usually just guess when I had to do a half ounce of something. I am somewhat regretting not buying about 30 different one ounce packs. Also

Oh and if you haven't got your hops for the winter yet, I would go do it now.

I use a food saver and split them up with about 4oz in each bag. I suppose you could come up with some kind of generic conversion between a measuring cup and its weight but I'd really recommend just buying a scale.

A really cheap scale should be less than 10 bucks.

Bokonon said:

I use a food saver and split them up with about 4oz in each bag. I suppose you could come up with some kind of generic conversion between a measuring cup and its weight but I'd really recommend just buying a scale.

A really cheap scale should be less than 10 bucks.

Click to expand...

Someplace like target or walmart will have something you can use. However if you look around there's some really nice one's online.

I made a large order about a week before the price increase. So I did get almost 2lbs of Magnum pellet and about another 17lbs of leaf hops.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39974

I bought about a day after the increase (DOH!). Have about 5 lb of pellets coming. Probably major overkill but maybe it'll prod me to brew more often... Also hedging against a complete lack of availability later in winter/spring.
I guess now I need to buy one of those food saver dealies, or borrow a friend's.
When I didn't have a scale, I used to pull out 4 identical bowls and visually split the hops into them. This was actually fairly precise, I recommend it if you can't swing a scale yet.

I bought some of my commonly used hops for the year before the increase. I have opened two of the larger bags and stuck em in air-tight containers in my freezer for the time being.

Yep, bought 3lbs last week in preparation, gives me a total of close to 6lbs of hops in the freezer. Get a scale from wal-mart, literally 3 or 4 bucks and it weighs out down to a half ounce, so you can kind of eye 1/4 or 1/3ounce. Or just weight out a half ounce and split it in half. Anyway, very cheap alternative to digital scales. You can also get those hanging scales used for letters for about 2 or 3 bucks at gas stations/pharmacies.

Yup, I bought 5lbs. I just picked up a cheap scale at target for $15 or so.

I split them into 1oz increments, put them into sandwich sized freezer bags and put those into a big freezer bag. I also used one of those small co2 powered keyboard cleaners to purge the small bags of air. Then the whole shebang went into a box into the fridge.

You guys have 4, 5 or even 6 pounds of hops sitting around your places. That is alot of hops, two pounds should last me through the winter, but you make it sound like I should buy another pound to be safe. The problem is that buying a whole pound really limits the recipes and flavors you can do. So now I pose this hypothetical question. If you were only able to have 3 types of hops, what three types would you buy to be able to brew the most recipes. I have two pounds coming, but am not contemplaing a third or fourth, but am at a loss as to what ones would be most versitile. Any suggestions.

Depends on what styles you brew often. You can use the same hops for lots of different styles.

I bought

EKG
Fuggles
Cenntenial
Cascade
Hallertau

I had a lot of hops on hand to begin with. I keep them in plastic bags in the freezer and when I use older hops, I add an extra gram or two to make up for potency loss.

I'm hoping to grow a variety or two next summer.

I have a pound of:

hallertauer, make lots of hefes and belgians
cascade... just cause
simcoe ... apas, ipas, american ales in general, experiments
summit ... apas, ipas, experimental brews

3-8oz of vanguard, polish marynka (belgians/experiemnts), strisselspalt (belgians/experiemnts), brewers gold, challenger, kent goldings (stouts), styrian goldings (belgians), and one more, can't remember. Thinking about ordering another pound of that polish marynka though, it smells awesome when I used it yesterday. Probably have right at or just over 6lbs total.

I've really started breiwng a lot of belgians, I just love these beers so much. THey taste great, complex and they get you drunk.

You at least need a scale. I bought 2.5 lbs of different types and used my food saver to break them down into .75 and 1.25oz packages.

I was looking into it, and it seems like an accurate scale is going to run me about 50 bucks and a food saver an additional 100.

I have seen those $5 scales at target before, but they seemed a little flimsy to me, but probably won't make a difference as long as they are acurate to within a quarter of an ounce. What has been your experience with these scales. I ususally just guess at half ounces by dividing the one ounce packages in half. When the recipe calls for .75 I usually round up. So as you can see the cheap scale might be the best way for me to go.

About the vaccuum sealer, are there any other techniques or products out there anyone canthink of. I was actually contemplating throwing some oxygen absorbing bottle caps in the zip lock bags with the hops, but that might be a little stupid, any thoughts.

Donasay said:

I was looking into it, and it seems like an accurate scale is going to run me about 50 bucks and a food saver an additional 100.

I have seen those $5 scales at target before, but they seemed a little flimsy to me, but probably won't make a difference as long as they are acurate to within a quarter of an ounce. What has been your experience with these scales. I ususally just guess at half ounces by dividing the one ounce packages in half. When the recipe calls for .75 I usually round up. So as you can see the cheap scale might be the best way for me to go.

About the vaccuum sealer, are there any other techniques or products out there anyone canthink of. I was actually contemplating throwing some oxygen absorbing bottle caps in the zip lock bags with the hops, but that might be a little stupid, any thoughts.

Click to expand...

The cheap scale will be more accurate than your former method . I don't use a food saved, I just use ziplock bags, squeeze out the majority of the air and put in the freezer. I guess only time will tell if this is gonna mess up my hops or not, but I expect they will be fine within the timeframe of my use of them. If I was going to be storing longer than 8 months to a year, I might look into a food saver... I like the co2 computer cleaner idea though, might actually do that today.

I bought 8 oz of Brewers Gold for general bittering, 8oz of Mt Hood that I use for my wheat beers, and also I plan to use it on lagers once the temp drops, 8oz of Liberty that I use on my light ales, and 8oz of EKG which is one of my favorite hops, I can use it for flavor or aroma, in light or dark ales. I am pretty sure I covered the spectrum pretty well. I realized afterward that I didn't get anything that would typically go in a Belgian Ale, but I can use Liberty and Mt Hood and be close enough.

Donasay said:

I was looking into it, and it seems like an accurate scale is going to run me about 50 bucks and a food saver an additional 100.

I have seen those $5 scales at target before, but they seemed a little flimsy to me, but probably won't make a difference as long as they are acurate to within a quarter of an ounce. What has been your experience with these scales. I ususally just guess at half ounces by dividing the one ounce packages in half. When the recipe calls for .75 I usually round up. So as you can see the cheap scale might be the best way for me to go.

About the vaccuum sealer, are there any other techniques or products out there anyone canthink of. I was actually contemplating throwing some oxygen absorbing bottle caps in the zip lock bags with the hops, but that might be a little stupid, any thoughts.

Click to expand...

No need to spend $150 for a scale and food saver.

$13 shipped for 500 gram digital scale

Check Kohl's if you have one close to you. Almost all of the time their Food Savers are on sale for 50-70% off. You should be able to pick up one of the medium level food savers that are normally $100-$120 for $50.

As an example here is the exact one I have on sale for $50

I bought a little postal hand scale for 4 bucks at the neighborhood head shop. Measures from 1-28 grams.... no sweat.

HarvInSTL said:

No need to spend $150 for a scale and food saver.

$13 shipped for 500 gram digital scale

Check Kohl's if you have one close to you. Almost all of the time their Food Savers are on sale for 50-70% off. You should be able to pick up one of the medium level food savers that are normally $100-$120 for $50.

As an example here is the exact one I have on sale for $50

Click to expand...

Can that foodsaver you have really pull a nice strong vacuum? Also, do they all take the same refills or do the less $$ ones take pricier refill bags (so if they don't get you up front they get your $$ later)?

Cheesefood said:

I'm hoping to grow a variety or two next summer.

Click to expand...

Word.

Same here. Trick is deciding what.

HarvInSTL said:

Check Kohl's if you have one close to you. Almost all of the time their Food Savers are on sale for 50-70% off.

Click to expand...

Food Saver is a specific brand of vacuum sealer. What you linked to is a Seal-a-meal. Normally, I wouldn't make the distinction (I call all adhesive strips "Band-Aids") except for this (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=38311)

I owned a Seal-a-meal, it's not worth even $50. I returned it and currently have nothing, but I'm waiting to buy a Food Saver.

Lout said:

Can that foodsaver you have really pull a nice strong vacuum? Also, do they all take the same refills or do the less $$ ones take pricier refill bags

Click to expand...

Most sealers require special bags. However, for things like hops it might be cost effective to look into the vacuum sealed containers. Pour your hops in there, suck the air out and toss them in the fridge. When you need some you grab what you need and suck the air back out.

You know what excites me? The insane panic going on here. If we all get crazy and go out and buy 20 times what we normally buy then the price goes even higher so then everyone else buys 20 times more and it gets even higher then we buy out the stock and guess what, it goes even higher.

So the harvest was a bit lite in europe and the big fire got alot of the product in the beginning of the year. There is still alot of hops to be had.

Its like when they shut down a refinery due to a tropical storm and now our panic mongering society accepts that fact and that it will directly cause gas to go up 50 cents a gallon. why did it never do that in the 80s and 90s when a storm was brewing? Because they hadn't conditioned us to panic mongering yet.

For those of you buying bags of hops, did you fill up on 9/11 with gas right away?

This is not meant to sound like i am angry, i am not. just an observation on what has happened to our ability to stay calm and not react to the commodity traders.

I am not scared of not being able to get hops, but I don't want to spend 4 times as much as I usually would on something that has always been a cheap ingredient. I got into home brewing for fun and as an added bonus I save money, For about 25 bucks I can do 10 gallons all grain, that is very drinkable, which is less than the cost of a case of beer. On the homebrew side, we all probably shouldn't freak out because all in all the increases will add maybe 5 dollars to the cost of each batch, which I will eventually begrudgingly pay.

The people who are going to get screwed in this are the microbrewerys and the brew pubs, those are the people who need to get their hops as a matter of staying in business. The large breweries BMC have contracts for hops at a set price, so the cost of their beers won't be increasing much this year, while the costs of microbrews will probably reflect the increase in this cost (as well as the increas in grain prices but lets not get into that).

The sad thing is that if hop crops do not do well next year, the craft industry is basically screwed. As a plant the hop takes a couple years to reach maturity, I was planning on planting some hop ryzomes in my yard earlier in the spring, but I am a renter, and don't know if I am going to be around for two or more years to take advantage of the hops being there. So two years of bad hop production would truly be detrimental, as new hop producers in other parts of the world will not come online for at least a few years, even though they probably want to jump in and take advantage of this market.

The increase in hop price will make my homebrews much more attractive in relation to the microwbrews. I wont drink BMC, and have trouble paying out the nose for some of the better microbrews, so as a result I expect to brew more, hence I am stocking up. All in all the more I think about it making home brewed beer becomes more and more attractive, maybe I should up my capacity above my current 20 gallon a week ceiling.

Reverend JC said:

You know what excites me? The insane panic going on here. .....

Click to expand...

Panic? Hardly.

Knowing that prices are basically guaranteed to increase & there is going to be availability issues later this year, it's a pretty safe bet to just stock up on the pellet hops you know you are going to use before these conditions hit given their storage benefits...

No, didn't fill up on 9/11. I did buy pounds of hops because I don't want to pay a few dollars more when the price goes up. Austinhomebrew, among others, has already admitted prices could double very very soon. It's not panic, and preparation

ok, so instead of the 1.25 i pay for an ounce of cascade or saaz it goes to 2.00. It will add 3 dollars to a batch. Not a big deal to me. I suppose this makes me monitarily irresponsible, but its not like a 60% increase on something that is so cheap is that big of a deal to me. What does scare me is the price of SS and what it will cost me to build my HERMS.

Then there are those that are buying food savers (what around 60 bucks) to try to save money on hop increases. That makes me laughy.

Reverend JC said:

ok, so instead of the 1.25 i pay for an ounce of cascade or saaz it goes to 2.00. It will add 3 dollars to a batch. Not a big deal to me. I suppose this makes me monitarily irresponsible, but its not like a 60% increase on something that is so cheap is that big of a deal to me. What does scare me is the price of SS and what it will cost me to build my HERMS.

Then there are those that are buying food savers (what around 60 bucks) to try to save money on hop increases. That makes me laughy.

Click to expand...

No kidding, the price of copper is getting ridiculous as well. What can I say? I'm a frugal SOB, I brew about 8 times a month, so that extra 3-5 dollars a batch adds up. Hell, that's a cable bill!

So the answer is to stop brewing insane IBU beers and get into maltier ones.

"But I like bitter beers!"
-Then pay the high price for them.

Cheesefood said:

So the answer is to stop brewing insane IBU beers and get into maltier ones.

"But I like bitter beers!"
-Then pay the high price for them.

Click to expand...

Or order enough now that your set for 6 months to a year! .... then hope crops are better or start paying higher prices.

I cant speak for everyone, but when Austinhomebrew was on here saying the prices were going to go up at the end of September (or whenever it was), I made the decision to buy some of my common hops in bulk. I was not panicked, I doubt I will have any trouble getting hops at an point in time over the next year. Maybe I did not save gobs of money, but if you know you can get your supply cheaper one week, than you can in the next coming months, why would you not save yourself a little jingle and pay the cheap price?

Reverend JC said:

ok, so instead of the 1.25 i pay for an ounce of cascade or saaz it goes to 2.00. It will add 3 dollars to a batch. Not a big deal to me. I suppose this makes me monitarily irresponsible, but its not like a 60% increase on something that is so cheap is that big of a deal to me. What does scare me is the price of SS and what it will cost me to build my HERMS.

Then there are those that are buying food savers (what around 60 bucks) to try to save money on hop increases. That makes me laughy.

Click to expand...

Then you keep paying $2/oz for Cascade and I'll keep paying my 52cents/oz including the food saver bags.

We knew the prices of hops were going to go up, and on my last order (9/22/2007) of 11lbs I saved almost $60 compared to todays prices.

Kevin Dean said:

Food Saver is a specific brand of vacuum sealer. What you linked to is a Seal-a-meal. Normally, I wouldn't make the distinction (I call all adhesive strips "Band-Aids") except for this (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=38311)

I owned a Seal-a-meal, it's not worth even $50. I returned it and currently have nothing, but I'm waiting to buy a Food Saver.



Most sealers require special bags. However, for things like hops it might be cost effective to look into the vacuum sealed containers. Pour your hops in there, suck the air out and toss them in the fridge. When you need some you grab what you need and suck the air back out.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that you had bad luck with yours. I've had no problem with the 25+ lbs of leaf hops I've sealed with mine.

The reason I asked about storage in the first place falls in line with the cost vs quality thing. I know cost is going to go up, and I would like to save money provided the quality does not suffer. I only got 2 pounds because buying more, and having them go bad would aggrivate me more than paying the extra money. If the hops are bad you don't only loose the two bucks on hops, but the 30 bucks on grain and a few hours of your time.

I just wanted to make sure that once I open the hops they won't deteriorate quickly and hopefully get some tips on storing them so this doesn't happen. I know I will buy specialty hops by the ounce this winter, and will probably pay more for them, which is not a big deal if they are vaccuum sealed and stored properly.

If I were to continually buy hops in bulk, instead of in anticipation of this winters shortage, which I consider an anomolie. The vacum bag thing would save me alot of money over the course of a year or two.

Anyone grow their own hops? I doubt it's hard.

What's with the whole hops shortage, if that all said and done with??

I picked up 3.5 pounds of leafy hoppy goodness. Should get me through most of the coming year.

I would by bulk, but I like to change it up too much. I can only think of a few hops I have used more than once so far.

I bought by the pound because it was much cheaper than by the oz. Then I guess I got carried away, but after seeing that some of my favorite hops were already sold out I didn't feel so bad "stocking up" -- at least I'll have something if they sell out of other varieties.

LouT said:

I bought by the pound because it was much cheaper than by the oz. Then I guess I got carried away, but after seeing that some of my favorite hops were already sold out I didn't feel so bad "stocking up" -- at least I'll have something if they sell out of other varieties.

Click to expand...

I feel ya, I'm about to purchase another 3lbs or so... it's just too easy

For a scale and cheap bag sealer (non-vacuum, but it does seal nicely), check out American Science and Surplus, which has 100g scales for around $5 and the sealers for even less. And grab some secondary regulators while you're there, too!

Worked well to seal my 3 lbs of pellets into 1 oz portions. I got 1 lb each of Northern Brewer, Cascades, and EKG.

Ó Flannagáin said:

I feel ya, I'm about to purchase another 3lbs or so... it's just too easy

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I don't brew 8 times/month like some LUCKY people...

:rockin:

I've been wanting one of those food savers for cutting larger cuts of meat into roasts ever since a buddy showed me his back about this time last year. The ability to seal up hops (and eventually bulk grains) into smaller useful sizes is a big plus and probably just enough justification for me to go Food Saver shopping.

Anyone find bulk Amarillo or Cascades still available anywhere? I'd liike a pound of each, probably also a pound of Northern Brewer, and maybe some EKG and/or Fuggles...

http://www.northernbrewer.com/hop-pellets.html <--- amarillo