Using old hops for dryhopping. Pointless??

I have some 6 month old hop pellets in my refrigerator. I was thinking about throwing them into secondary with my pale ale. I know they may not have much aroma left to contribute but might there be any off flavors they could give the beer from being kinda old?

Nothing worse than a stale-hop tasting beer. Do yourself a favor and chuck 'em.

Or at least do a hop tea with a few of the pellets to gauge flavor.

Why didn't you freeze them? I have 6month old pellets I use for dry hopping all the time. They're as good as the day I bought them. Freezer good. Fridge bad.

jmo88 said:

Why didn't you freeze them? I have 6month old pellets I use for dry hopping all the time. They're as good as the day I bought them. Freezer good. Fridge bad.

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+ million

just like metallica good, napster bad

Guess that's one of those comon sense things that I just didn't figure out for some reason

By 6 months old you mean 2008 harvest so they are really 17 months old?

Dry hops should always be chosen for their aroma characteristics. Do they smell good? Do they smell cheesy?

Why not save them and use them to make a lambic style beer?

Do they smell bad (cheesy or other off flavor)? Try a few pellets in some hot water and taste the tea or throw one into a tasteless beer and see what happens. I had some old pellets sitting in a fridge for a long time and they were in pretty good shape.

Heckle said:

Why not save them and use them to make a lambic style beer?

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Lollercoaster. Lambic is not "rotten beer"!

bernerbrau said:

Lollercoaster. Lambic is not "rotten beer"!

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But they do use hops that are aged 1-3 years.

bovineblitz said:

But they do use hops that are aged 1-3 years.

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My mistake. I'm assuming that's "aged" and not "stale", though.

bernerbrau said:

My mistake. I'm assuming that's "aged" and not "stale", though.

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I think they are supposed to be stale, they're not supposed to taste like anything at all, just be there for anti-spoiling properties.

Old hops make beer taste like gross cheese. Really Really old hops taste like nothing. Nothing worse than a beer that tastes like velveeta.

Hops for lambics have to progress past the "cheesy" stage, to where they've basically got no aroma left at all (good or bad).

If the hops don't smell bad, they won't add any bad flavors to the beer. I'm not convinced they're worthy of just being chucked after six months in the fridge; freezer's beer, but fridge is OK. I've used hops older than that, and they're fine.

Hops are harvested once per year. If you chuck them after 6 months, then you will have to go without brewing for the next 6 months until the new crop is ready.

-a.

At the spice shop near me they have dried hops, I bet that'd be good for lambics.

ajf said:

Hops are harvested once per year. If you chuck them after 6 months, then you will have to go without brewing for the next 6 months until the new crop is ready.

-a.

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Yeah, and they were harvested less than 6 months ago, so these are 17 month old hops.