Hop Quality

[porterguy]

My hop delivery took 7 days via from a vendor not-yet-to-be-named, via USPS "2-Day priority mail". What are the potential quality issues if the hops were perhaps sitting in a hot delivery truck over some or much of that time? The vendor and USPS showed they were shipped on June 3, and I received them June 10. Obviously, I don't want to open every package of miscellaneous hops to try and ascertain quality. Thoughts?

thanks,
Greg

 

[3 Dawg Night]

I would contact the vendor, and tell them that your 2-day delivery took 7 days to arrive. Ask them to reship, because you're concerned about heat damage/quality. At the absolute minimum, they should refund any shipping costs.

 

[jrgtr42]

They should be fine, unless they were thrown loose into a box.
as long as they were packaged correctly, you shouldn';t have anything to worry about - it's more air that's the issue than heat, especially more-or-less human comfortable temps. If they were in something at a couple hundred degrees there may be an issue.

 

[pshankstar]

I agree with @3 Dawg Night about contacting the seller and informing them of the delay. It's not their fault USPS took more than twice the amount of time to get it delivered, but they should try to do something to make it right from a good business perspective. It doesn't hurt to ask, but if they don't try to do anything to make it right like refunding the cost to ship, then I would consider buying from somewhere else in the future. I would think they could work it out with USPS to get some sort of refund from them too, but it is good for them to know the company they are using may be taking longer to ship and they can work it out with them or make changes if needed. If you don't tell them they won't know, b/c I am sure they are not tracking all their shipments to make sure they get to where they need to be.

As long as they are sealed/stored correctly I believe they should be fine for those few extra days it took to be delivered.

Also, make sure to send a screenshot of the tracking info when you reach out to them. Good luck!

 

[3 Dawg Night]

It's not the vendor's fault, but the USPS had a delivery contract/agreement with the vendor, not with you. Even if they passed the shipping cost on to you, the vendor is the only one who can make a claim. If USPS said they'd deliver in 2 days, and it took 7, the vendor should ask for reimbursement from USPS, but they should pass that reimbursement to you.

 

[Brettomomyces]

They should be fine, unless they were thrown loose into a box.
as long as they were packaged correctly, you shouldn';t have anything to worry about - it's more air that's the issue than heat, especially more-or-less human comfortable temps. If they were in something at a couple hundred degrees there may be an issue.

This

 

[rburrelli]

If they are pellet hops in sealed packages, then I would think you do not have any issue. By “sealed” I mean factory sealed and not repackaged by the vendor.

 

[couchsending]

They are fine if they were packaged correctly.

Who knows what quality they were when they went into said package however. As homebrewers we don’t necessarily get the cream of the crop....

 

[ryanm8]

I agree, I'm sure the hops are fine. They don't degrade that quickly when sealed and never opened.

 

[VikeMan]

My hop delivery took 7 days via from a vendor not-yet-to-be-named, via USPS "2-Day priority mail". What are the potential quality issues if the hops were perhaps sitting in a hot delivery truck over some or much of that time? The vendor and USPS showed they were shipped on June 3, and I received them June 10. Obviously, I don't want to open every package of miscellaneous hops to try and ascertain quality. Thoughts?

Let's say the hops were at 91F ("hot delivery truck") for 7 days, vs 7 days in a 10F freezer.

One rule of thumb is that hops degrade about twice as fast for every 15C (27F) increase in temperature. I've seen others, but this can give you some idea.

So, the difference between 91F and 10F is 81F or... 3 x 27F

The first 27F increase would double the degradation. The second 27F would double it again. The third 27F would double it again. So... 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 times the degradation

Following the rule of thumb, you could estimate that 7 days on a 91F truck were equivalent to 56 days in a 10F freezer. Not the end of the world.

 

[micraftbeer]

I agree with the above comments that your hops are probably fine. But the comments about air exposure reminds me of some research I was doing a while back, while doing a review for a vacuum sealer. Everyone "knows" your hops need to be sealed, so I thought it would be easy to find data quantifying the need for sealed hops storage. But in fact, I could only find notes that both air and temperature were degradation factors. It wasn't until I found this article that it quantified these two effects together, and it showed that air-sealed, really was only significant when storing hops at room temperature. At cold refrigerator temperatures it was mildly important, but at freezer temperatures it didn't matter.

Maybe this is way off in the weeds, because your hops obviously weren't shipped in a freezer truck, and therefore air-tight packaging is relevant. But I found this interesting, so figured I'd share. Below is link to the article, as well as the graph showing the Hop Storage Index (HSI) plotted in a bar graph for different storage temperatures, and whether the hops were air-sealed or open. The HSI is a factor that relates the alpha acids in a hop (good) to the oxidation degradation compounds (bad). A smaller number is better. The article references a value of 0.3 HSI means good hop preservation.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/understanding-the-importance-of-the-hop-storage-index