Hops stability

[beavers]

I recently purchased 3 pounds of pellet hops from an online retailer, whom I'll leave unnamed for now. Two of the vacuum sealed bags were securely sealed and hard as rocks - great! But the third seems to have developed a leak sometime before it arrived on my doorstep. It's lost its vacuum and has let some air in, for who knows how long.

I'm going to be using these a little at a time and re-sealing them with my own kitchen vacuum sealer, but I'm concerned about how long they've been in the unsealed bag, exposed to the elements. Should I contact the retailer for some form of redress? Or is it possible the hop pellets won't be terribly affected and I should just happily use them?

 

[myndflyte]

Do they still smell good? The last hops I ordered weren't vacuum sealed but I just put them in a mason jar in the fridge. They smelled good and you can taste them in the beer, so as long as they look/smell ok, I think you should be fine.

 

[beavers]

I haven't actually opened the package yet. My main concern is how long the pellets have been exposed, and whether there might be degradation if, say, they've been open and sitting on the retailer's shelves for months. If there's potential for them to have lost potency, I would probably rather contact the company and see what they can do for me.

 

[giraffe]

They are most likely fine. If you open them and they are browner than the other packs or smell faintly of cheese, then id ask for a refund.

 

[beavers]

Guess there's only one way to find out! I'll bust it open this weekend before I get the brewing underway.

browner than the other ... or smell faintly of cheese

In other words, if they're anything like my buddy Jimbo...

 

[beavers]

Thankfully, no cheesy smell or brownness to speak of. Used what I needed this weekend and vacuum sealed the rest. Thanks for the responses!