Calculating Alpha % lost due to age of hops - Do you??

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sleepystevenson

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
437
Reaction score
15
Location
North Western PA
Hey All,

Haven't seen a thread on this topic (though...I am sure there has been), which is interesting to me.

Do you usually calculate the AA % loss due to the age of your hops?

Of course, I don't know anybody who does this when they first get into brewing. BUT, at this point I am really trying to get my technique and consistency down. This seems like it should be an important calculation, especially due to the varying stability of different hops.


I have been using Beersmith for awhile now....love it, though I am still learning the program. There is a good little program built into it to calculate the current AA%, that I have been using. For those of you who use this program, what do you think of it?

It asks for the age of the hops (in months), storage conditions, etc. and the stability index is built in for each variety. Now, if you have hops from the 2007 crop.... what would you figure the age is ??? I mean, I have no idea as to exactly when these hops were actually harvested. I have been basing the numbers from December of the year they were harvested. For example, the stuff I am using now from the 2007 crop, I would consider about 3 months old for calculation purposes. The 2006 hops, I would consider about 15 months old. Does this seem about right?

I guess it probably isn't as vital for the 2007 crop at this point, but I have a lot of hops from the 2006 crop in my freezer.

Just thought that some discussion on this topic would be useful.
 
I thought I would bump this thread, as I am getting ready to brew tomorrow. A Rye IPA around 70 IBU's ....don't wanna fall too far off for my IBU's. But most of the hops are from the 2006 crop - stored in my freezer.

Any other opinions?

Nobody takes the age of their hops into consideration???

Thanks!
 
I'd say david_42 probably knows more about hops than anyone else on this board, and I'd go with his answer.

If you still want my opinion -- I don't bother. Most of my hops get used before they're very old, anyway. On the rare occasions I'm concerned about it, I just use the older hops for flavor/aroma additions where the loss of AA doesn't matter as much.
 
Thanks!!! Sounds Good. Just getting ready to start crushing the grain. Thanks for the advise David and Bike N Brew. Just gonna go with the original AA for the bittering calcs.
 
Back
Top