Opened Pellet Hops Shelf Life

How long are hops pellets good after the oxygen free bags are opened? I'm storing in the freezer, with the original bag rolled as tightly as possible inside a ziplock that's rolled as tightly as possible. I probably use up the open bags within a month or two. Would opened hops be better for bittering due to any staling aromas being boiled off, or better for dry hopping/late additions due to alpha drop?

reshp1 said:

How long are hops pellets good after the oxygen free bags are opened? I'm storing in the freezer, with the original bag rolled as tightly as possible inside a ziplock that's rolled as tightly as possible. I probably use up the open bags within a month or two. Would opened hops be better for bittering due to any staling aromas being boiled off, or better for dry hopping/late additions due to alpha drop?

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I think you're fine. Just keeping air and light out is essential. THe cold will also help to preserve teh aroma.

You might invest in one of those Reynolds handy vacs. Best $15.00 I spent to preserve hops.

Hi,
You can calculate this using the Hop Stability Index (HSI) for the hops. My program (and a number of others) have tools for doing this. You can see the HSI for different hops using the detailed page on our hops listing.

HSI varies by hop type, but even a "poor" storage hops (high alpha hops) will lose no more than 50% of its hops in 6 months at 68F. If you freeze it, the hops will last 3+ times as long.

Hops is considered bad after its lost 50% of its original alpha. Assuming you have 2007 crop hops, it should last the year as long as its frozen, though the alpha content will degrade over time

I recently wrote an article (not yet published) for my blog on hop storage as part of an upcoming 4 part series on hops - should be published in about a week or two..

Cheers!
Brad

Thanks for the info, that's pretty interesting stuff. I'll keep an eye out for that article.

Here it is...

I published the article on hop storage.

Cheers,
Brad