18 to 24 month old 11.2% Horizon

[FifteenTen]

I have some 11.2% Horizon hops (pellets) that I vacuum sealed and placed in the freezer some 18 to 24 months ago. I'm considering using them to bitter a Scottish 80/. Should I (A) not do this and use fresher hops; (B) use them as normal; or (C) use them but over shoot my IBUs a bit to account for age?

Thanking you in advance. FifteenTen.

 

[poundtown]

Bitterness slightly subsides, but aroma vanishes.

You will likely get drinkable beer, but if you are shooting to make a specific style/recipe...I would use fresh.

I've used cheesy smelling old hops I've had for about 2 years and the results were a very mild hop aroma (no cheese) but they didn't seem to loose too much bitterness. Batch came out drinkable.

 

[FifteenTen]

That's the thing about Scottish ale, hop flavor and aroma are supposed to be "none to low" according to Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers (Table 24.1; Page 284). Which is why I thought old hops would be ok for bittering using a single 60 minute addition but over compensating for BeerSmith's IBU calculations. With that said, I'm still a 2 year noob having just enough knowledge to make me dangerous.

 

[dcp27]

as long as they don't smell bad/cheesy should be fine since it's just bittering. I've done it plenty of times & just overshoot the bitterness a lil, tho in a scottish ending up with lower IBUs isn't exactly much of a problem
here's an AA loss calculator you can try if you want to figure out roughly the current AAs: http://www.brewerslair.com/index.php?p=brewhouse&d=calculators&id=cal16