hops storage question

I have a question about storing hops.

I bought about 2lbs worth from cheaphops (Steelers77) and want to know how to store them. (Quick plug, but he shipped very fast and was easy to communicate via E-mail, highly recommend!)

He shipped them in the foil packing that were sealed, but weren't vacuum sealed. I have a vacuum sealer (foodsaver). Would it be better to seal them in the vacuum sealer (but not in foil bags) or leave them in the foil bags (that weren't vacuum sealed?

Thanks guys!

I prefer vacuum sealing and keeping them in the freezer.

+1 on vacuum seal & freezer, though the freezer is the more important part of the equation.

Sounds good, time to divide and seal. :rockin:

It depends. My lbs of hops come in a similar packaging to what you describe. They are slightly vacuum sealed, but not sucked right down. This is because they are nitrogen flushed before packaging, meaning there is almost no oxygen in the bag. Any oxygen that was in there has already reacted and is gone now. So I leave them in the original packaging, because I'll do more harm than good removing them and exposing them to the air and vacuum sealing them again. So I would leave them in there until you need to use some, unless cheaphops isn't nitrogen (or other neutral gas) flushing, then yes you need to repackage probably. Then again if they've been like that for a long time the oxygen has probably all reacted already.

I divide my hops into 2oz bags and then vac pack it and toss them into the freezer. Did that with 5#'s not that long ago.

Sorry to necropost, but this thread was one of the first ones that came up when I was searching. I have a number of pound bags sitting in my freezer right now, but I wanted to split them into 1 oz bags. What method do people use to actually divide the hops? I split one bag already, and it was a royal pain. I had a bowl that I placed on a scale, then I reached into the master bag, plopped loose hops into the bowl to get an approximate ounce (+/-.01), then tipped/poured the hops into a vacu bag and sealed it. Packaging a pound took about 40 minutes or so.

Anyone have a better way? These were whole leaf hops.

Why not just vacuum them in to a larger bag and re-seal them every time you pull an ounce or two out? For pellets I've started to use Mason Jar's with the vacuum sealer attachment.

You could always seal by recipe or by general usage amount, only need to open it up when your ready to go

I just bought some 2 liter soda bottles, drilled the proper sized hole, smeared some silicone on a $1 tire stem and pulled it through. Set up an air chuck on your co2 then pressurize, purge and refill. I installed a quick disconnect on the co2 line. Little bit of a PITA filling with pellets, but a wider mouth jar will solve that.