Fresh frozen hops?

A buddy came over last night and traded me some cascade hops he grew. He just picked them and froze them in a ziplock. They don't smell hoppy, are these usable?

Also I'm currently dehydrating them.

No. They should be either used fresh off of the vine, or dehydrated right away and THEN frozen.

You definitely don't want to freeze them wet. If that's what he did, they're probably not any good.

Hope you didn't trade for beer.:cross:

I don't think there should be an issue if they haven't been frozen long. The freezing would have just broken down the cell walls; no more damage than boiling. Now long-term freezing fresh hops, and you can end up oxidizing them ..... not sure what the consequences are, but think of freezer burn with meat.

unionrdr said:

Probably why he traded them. What did he get in return?

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He didn't have to bring any toppings for pizza and drank for free. He honestly thought that it was ok to freeze them fresh.

I dehydrated them, doubles the volume, and went on ahead. I was cloning Yuengling, cascades are the bittering hops.

I want to jump in on this thread. I was given some frozen fresh hops, but they were vacuum sealed. Will those be fine?

A guy on my mailing list uses fresh frozen hops all the time and when I questioned him about it said he finds them just as good as if there were just picked.

All the literature I have read on it specifies that they be dried before frozen.

I have never tried any of his brews, so I can't say first hand if it really makes any difference or not.

My regular homebrew store hops dont always smell hoppy until they are ready to drink sometimes before during bottleing maybe even the airlock-these seem to give me a more ideal aroma than the boil. Ocassionally i get a whiff usually when i first add them to the boil or finish at flameout.Otherwise its just grain and dms. I would try using them for late additions maybe dryhop-next time get them fresh , he should have stored them dehydrated-short term may be ok probably weeks not months.
Bottle a beer and stick one in it,and see what happens when it carbs ready to drink, i just threw a few pellots of citra in a bottle of goldn mild i just bottled because i secondaried to harvest the yeast and to dryhop that beer, thought i may as well see what these hops are like earlier and i had a half pack going back to the freezer anyway these hop union citra smelled pretty nice very potent.