Is 3 months too long......

for hops to be kept in the fridge and still be ok. I placed an order the first of March hoping to get a brew in before it got too warm, but the weather changed before I had a chance. I originally put all the grain in the fridge and thought I put the hops in the freezer. I was taking inventory of the grains I was going to get replaced, and oh @#$& my hops were in there and not in the freezer. I just finished my fermentation chamber and I am planning on brewing two batches this weekend, so should I replace the hops as well as the grain?

 

I'd start by giving them a whiff to see if they started spoiling first. If they smell ok, then you can probably use them. However, hops loose their potency if not kept air tight and frozen. The alpha acid content may have degraded to an unknown value which means they probably shouldn't be used for bittering. Personally, I'd toss those hops and start with fresh ones, but that's just me.

 

Thanks for the reply. That was my original thought, but the cheapie in me thought I should get another opinion.

 

I'd use them without hesitation.

Short answer: Smell them. They're probably fine. 3 months at fridge temps isn't long enough for the AA% to change all that much. I'd use them with no worries, but I'd freeze them next time. I've used similarly old hops with no issues.

Longer answer: On Jamil and John Palmer's show where they interviewed Glenn Tinseth about bittering, one of them said that he regularly uses hops that have been in the freezer for a year without adjusting the AA%.

Hops are rated with an HSI, which is the AA% they'd lose in 6 months of storage at 68F in an open (not vacuum-sealed) environment.

Typical values are in the 25% range, so a hop that's 8% AA would be at 6% AA after 6 months sitting in an unsealed paper bag on the kitchen counter.

For every 27 degrees Farenheit that you lower the temperature, aging is cut in half. So in a fridge that's 35F, you'd expect the same 8% AA hops to be down to about 7.2% AA after 6 months.

Of course, you only did 3 months, so the same 8% AA hops would be more in the 7.6% AA range (they'd lose 5% of their alpha acids).

But remember, that's if they were sitting in the fridge in an unsealed paper bag--if your hops were still in the vacuum sealed mylar bags you ordered them in, then oxidation will be much slower. I don't know by how much, but assuming they're in the realm of a 25% HSI, you're looking at less than a 5% change in alpha acid percentage and possibly much less. And remember, oxidized beta acids increase bittering, so the actual change in bittering capability is always lower than the change in alpha acid percentage.

 

I forgot to mention my yeast. I also have a smackpac of Pacman. I am at work so I can't check the date on it, but I am thinking it will still be ok to use?

 

I agree with SumnerH, if they smell fine go ahead and use them.

 

If the yeast is past the date on it, use a bit bigger of a starter to build it up to where it should be.

 

Will do.....thanks.

 

Nice! I didn't know they had figured out roughly the degradation rate. Those are some nice numbers to at least ball park the AA% after a long time.

 

alpha acid degradation calculator:
http://brewerslair.com/index.php?p=brewhouse&d=calculators&id=cal16&u=eng

 

Note that HSI varies by hops, and there are some where it's as high as 50%--even with those faster degrading hops, though, you're probably looking at something in the area of 5% AA loss when sealed in vacuum bags in the fridge for 3 months. That's not quite enough that I'd really bother adjusting the amounts of hops I use (at 10% I probably would), given that the IBU estimates brewing software gives are only accurate to within +/- 30% or so even in the best cases.

And actually, my first look was a little deceiving--I grabbed a couple of values and thought 25% was normal, but it really varies pretty significantly and some common ones are up to 50% (Cascade for instance) while others (e.g. Galena) are down around 15%.

Go here and click on the hop variety to find the HSI:
http://www.beersmith.com/hops_table.htm

 

Nice. Mostly inline with my rough calculations, and indicates that even if it was a poor-storing hop with an HSI of 50, it'd only have lost about 7% of alphas under these conditions (e.g. 8% AA becomes 7.43% AA). (And, again, that means less than 7% of bittering capability, since the bittering contributions of beta acids actually increase with oxidation)