Hop shelf life

So I bought some vacuum sealed hops, but am only going to use half of each. I'm going to put the rest into a plastic baggy and seal shut. How long will they stay usable?

Sorry if this is a repeat post.

it depends on a lot of things. a ziploc baggie is a good start. Try to remove as much of the air from the bag as possible. Then put them in your freezer. (Deep freezer if possible.)

The AA% will decline over time, but if sealed and kept very cold, they will be in pretty good shape for many months.

keep them in the freezer. One of the things I'm looking for cheap on ebay is a vacuum sealer to keep those partialy used hops. still haven't found one cheap enough yet. HOWEVER some belgian beers really do well with poorly stored stale hops. haven't done one yet... but Charlie Papazian talks about it in his "joy of home brewing" book.

Colder the better for hop storage... even in the original packaging.

thanks both of you. I'll remove the air and put em in the freezer now.

Different hops appear to lose alpha acids at different rates so it's difficult to have a single, solid answer for this, especially when the storage itself is such a huge variable.

Jamil Z recommends aging hops for lambics in a warm, dry place in little more than a paper bag for at least a year, so with proper storage, I'm sure you can get a good amount of hop character out of them for a while - it will just be increasingly difficult over time to have decent consistency with regards to following recipes because the alpha acids will be approximated with decreasing accuracy.

Best practice for storing hops: keep them frozen in an opaque, vacuum-sealed bag. The further you deviate from this, the worse the shelf life, though when considering these 3 variables in order of importance, I'm fairly certain that keeping it frozen is most vital, followed by vacuum-sealing (although anything you can do to minimize contact with oxygen is a plus), with the opacity of the bag/container bringing up the rear, particularly if you're keeping it in a freezer since exposure to light (especially UV) should be minimal.

KeegsD said:

thanks both of you. I'll remove the air and put em in the freezer now.

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glad we could help!:rockin:

I even store dry yeast in the freezer (worst case the fridge), just not liquids like wyeast or the vials of white labs (which I rarely use). Grains I store at room temp.

starrfish, keep an eye on www.woot.com, they had one a little over a month ago that i grabbed for 30 bucks. i repackaged all my hops that i used only half of and got rid of the plastic baggies.

thought you should try, if you dont find a good deal on ebay

$30 is better than what I found on ebay! may look at that after I get my 10 gal mash tun done with the CPVC manifold! (that's going to be sweet!!!!) thanks for the heads up!!

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.1/garetztable.html#1 lists the Hop Storage Index for various types of hops--that's the %aa lost after 6 months of storage at room temperature without being sealed in a bag.

http://www.brewerslair.com/index.php?p=brewhouse&d=calculators&id=cal16&u=eng has a hop aging calculator--enter the HSI for your hop, how they were stored (ziplock, shrink wrapped, neither) and the temperature they were stored at.

Storage temperature is more important than shrink wrapping. A typical hop (HSI near 40) will lose about 13% of it's alpha acids if you store it for a year in a ziplock bag in the freezer at 0F. That drops to about 9% if you shrink wrap it.

starrfish said:

One of the things I'm looking for cheap on ebay is a vacuum sealer to keep those partialy used hops. still haven't found one cheap enough yet.

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I didn't have to look very far past my nose to find this in the ziplock aisle at my local chain grocer.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DRNESE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It was $4. A box of quart bags was $3. Works like a champ, for $7. My system is perfect. Buy from farmhousebrewingsupply.com They come in 4oz, bags. I cut the corner of bag upon first use, and two of those bags fit perfect in a quart ziplock bag. you can see the labels through the ziplock bag, so you don't have to open it to see what hops are in there.

sealing takes 10 seconds, and I figure, if and when it breaks, I'm in for another $4.

screw those big fancy machines.. waste of time and money if you're just sealing hops.. those are for game hunters.

you are right, people are using vacuum sealers to be cool and fancy.

by fancy i meant they are table top machines and make custom size bags.. again that is what a hunter would use to seal meat.. you need different sizes and big ones at that.

hops are small, a quart bag is all you need, so spend the $7 and move on. No electricity needed, takes a couple seconds. No sense in waiting for a steal on ebay for a big bulky machine.

My pellet hops are hitting about a year old now, plus whatever time since they were harvested. I do the ziplock bag thing (in the freezer), and they still work great for bittering and taste, I find the aroma is a little lacking, and I would *not* use them for any dry hopping.

Jawbox0 said:

My pellet hops are hitting about a year old now, plus whatever time since they were harvested. I do the ziplock bag thing (in the freezer), and they still work great for bittering and taste, I find the aroma is a little lacking, and I would *not* use them for any dry hopping.

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I just opened some 2 year old cascades this morning, vacuumed sealed and freezer stored. They smelled ad fresh as the 2010 crop I just got, and I am using them for dry hopping.

Moral of the story, buy a foodsaver.

metaltim said:

by fancy i meant they are table top machines and make custom size bags.. again that is what a hunter would use to seal meat.. you need different sizes and big ones at that.

hops are small, a quart bag is all you need, so spend the $7 and move on. No electricity needed, takes a couple seconds. No sense in waiting for a steal on ebay for a big bulky machine.

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What? I buy hops by the pound. Quart bags are not all I need. The vacuum sealer can actually be used for other things in my household. And big and bulky? Okay.

Vacuum sealers are bountiful at the Goodwill. I got mine for $5.99 and it is like new. Problem is bags. To quote a friend: "They are the printer ink of food storage."


>>Aw Geeze. Sorry about the resurrection of a dead thread<<

But no other problems after a year or two of storage? Just less potent? No funky tastes or anything like that?

I have a little bit of Saazer pellets that are over a year old. Vacuum sealed, but been at room temp. According to the calculator linked previously, I'm under half Alpha Acids. :/

Joetothemo is right I got mine at savers for 7 bucks. Since then I have seen many of them they always have then there. I also get a lot o unique glasses there.

metaltim said:

I didn't have to look very far past my nose to find this in the ziplock aisle at my local chain grocer.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DRNESE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It was $4. A box of quart bags was $3. Works like a champ, for $7. My system is perfect. Buy from farmhousebrewingsupply.com They come in 4oz, bags. I cut the corner of bag upon first use, and two of those bags fit perfect in a quart ziplock bag. you can see the labels through the ziplock bag, so you don't have to open it to see what hops are in there.

sealing takes 10 seconds, and I figure, if and when it breaks, I'm in for another $4.

screw those big fancy machines.. waste of time and money if you're just sealing hops.. those are for game hunters.

Click to expand...

I also use the vaccuum pump bags and they work great for storing hops as well as other unused brewing ingredients such as juniper berries and other herbs....