Expiration date on hops?

[MTimonin]

Hey folks:

A while back - 2 years, more or less - an acquaintance gave me several pounds of vacuum sealed pellatized hops. I don't know quite how old they were when he gave them to me, but I do know that they are at least 2 years older than that now, and I also know that they are in packages much MUCH too large for the scale of brewing I've been doing or am likely to be doing in the near future. So - first, are these hops actually good for anything, or should I toss them? Second, if I open a package of hops, how best to store the remains that I can't use in a single batch?

 

[FloppyKnockers]

How were they stored? If they were in the freezer, I'd say they're still good, but time is running out on them. If they were just thrown in a pantry, you might want to look into getting some fresh ones.

 

[MTimonin]

How were they stored? If they were in the freezer, I'd say they're still good, but time is running out on them. If they were just thrown in a pantry, you might want to look into getting some fresh ones.

So - they're vacuum sealed, and they've been in the basement, which is not overly warm, and reasonably dark most of the time. But they haven't been in the freezer, no.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

Hmm.... We'll, you're not going to poison anybody if you use them. I would give them a shot for a batch or two and let your tongue be the judge.

 

[Dland]

You might get a good idea if they still have flavor if they smell good. Do they smell like hops you would want in your brew?

Another test would be to make some hop tea, see if they still taste fresh.

They might be fine if they were sealed with low moisture content. If they do not seem OK, would not compromise a batch of beer just to save a few bucks.

 

[MTimonin]

Right - so, what I'm hearing is, these are probably not worth the effort of moving them when we relocate next month. The quantity in each package is too much for the size of batch I'm brewing - I think they were packaged for commercial brewers - and they might not be worth using anyway... I will pitch them in the trash instead of into my wort...