Anyone have a good sense for what Warrior pellets should smell like out of the packet

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hezagenius

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I'm mid brew and opened the Warrior packet to add for bittering. I took a whiff and it smells very odd. I don't think I've ever actually smelled Warrior before but usually I get a lot of spice from most hops when I crack the bag. Kind of sour smelling but maybe that's what they are supposed to smell like?
 
Hmm. Maybe I got a bum bag. I've used the same brand a few weeks ago from the same shop and the beer turned out ok. I'll go grab another and see if it's the same. If so, I'll just vacuum seal up the new bag and use the original.
 
The Warrior I'm using (2014 harvest) has herbal and citrus qualities, I've only used them for bittering so I'm not sure if these qualities would carry through to the finished beer very well. Don't ever recall thinking they had a sour smell to them FWIW.
 
Hmm. Maybe I got a bum bag. I've used the same brand a few weeks ago from the same shop and the beer turned out ok. I'll go grab another and see if it's the same. If so, I'll just vacuum seal up the new bag and use the original.

Having deliberately aged some hops for lambic/sour brewing, its a very very distinct smell when the hops have gone bad. Cheese, dirty gym sock, arm pits, unshowered nerd.

It's entirely possible you *did* get a bum bag. But it would have to be a very very old bag that you purchased. I set some pellet hops in a tea cup and left them out to age, and it took a month before they even started to smell funny, and I had to stir them daily to get air flow and more exposure to oxygen to accelerate the aging. Sitting in a bag, in a fridge, even if there is a hole in the bag, there wont be a ton of air flow to stale the hops.

I had some Azacca and Jaryllo hops I was going to use in my black IPA I brewed this past weekend. Both bags had a weird sour smell when I opened them, so I grab a pellet from each and rubbed them between my palms to break up the pellet and warm up the oils then smelled the hops again and the weird sour smell was gone.
 
The last package of Warrior I got smelled like moss, wet hay, or a dirty fish tank. It was straight up dank. And I think it smelled that way from bad temp management, not on my part on the STUPID hot August last year.
 
Prior to starting the boil, I went back to the store to pick up a few more 1oz bags just in case. Got home and opened it and it smelled like what I expect from hops. Some spiciness, some herbal. So the first bag must have been compromised somehow. Glad I didn't just use them. And the store gave me a discount which was cool. I don't know how often they turn around Warrior so that bag could have been in their fridge for a while.
 
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