How long will Pellet Hops last in freezer?

[user 227424]

Handy to buy hop pellets by the pound and have them on hand as needed. The ones I ordered came vacuum sealed. Figured I'd divide into portions and re-vacuum seal and freeze. I assume that's got to be the best way to keep them? But how long? I'm using ones like Hallertau, Saaz, Styrian, Tettnag, etc. Anyone try this?

 

[pshankstar]

I buy all of my hops by the pound. I use to portion them out into one ounce vacuum sealed bags once I opened the original packaging. Now I don't bother portioning them anymore, just seal it up in one bag and take what I need and reseal it with the food saver.

Now I keep my hops in a chest freezer where the temps stay around 0. Where as the freezers that are part of a fridge cycle and warm up to keep from the frost building up. I think this may have an affect on hops, where as a chest freezer will not do this. Plus it's rarely opened like the fridge and freezer is upstairs. I have hops that are several years old, they still smell great and produce good beers. As long as you can keep them frozen, sealed with minimum oxygen exposure and out of the light they should last you a very long time. I have some hops that are from 2013 & 2014 crops that I have been trying to use up and they are still smelling great. Make sure you smell them and as long as they don't smell cheesy you should good to go.

 

[kh54s10]

You are going to get wildly varying answers. I believe some hops store well and others lose potency sooner. I hope that it is many years as I have a lot of hops. Most are over one year. Those seem fine. Many are much older. I have been on a hiatus while making a move. When I resume brewing I will have to check the hops before use. I will use a little more of any that might be questionable.

 

[user 227424]

Hard to imagine them not lasting a while in a frozen partial vacuum. Certainly worth trying at the typical $1/oz cost.

 

[user 227424]

I hope that it is many years as I have a lot of hops. Most are over one year. Those seem fine. Many are much older. I have been on a hiatus while making a move. When I resume brewing I will have to check the hops before use. I will use a little more of any that might be questionable.

Do tell, if you think of it when the time comes.

 

[thehaze]

Hard to imagine them not lasting a while in a frozen partial vacuum. Certainly worth trying at the typical $1/oz cost.

I have had both leaf and pellets stored in the freezer in opened bags, which I resealed, for around 6-8 months and they all were fine when I used them. I would however store them in a freezer where you do not have meat, fish or vegetables in storage.

I never had hops in storage for than 1 year... I imagine they would still be OK, but the aromas could be faded. But like pshankstar, I would definitley smell them and maybe rub one pellet/cone in your palms and check for any weird aromas.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Handy to buy hop pellets by the pound and have them on hand as needed. The ones I ordered came vacuum sealed. Figured I'd divide into portions and re-vacuum seal and freeze. I assume that's got to be the best way to keep them? But how long? I'm using ones like Hallertau, Saaz, Styrian, Tettnag, etc. Anyone try this?

That's a really complicated question. Hops are an unstable mixture of all sorts of different chemicals that degrade at different rates - but they all want to degrade! Fresh green hops are useless for brewing within 12 hours of picking. So for instance beta acids in dried hops are fairly stable, whereas alpha acids are relatively stable at fridge/freezer temps but degrade quickly at room temperature. Things like Cascade and Saaz are some of the worst, they can lose half their alpha within 6 months at 20C (68F). Flavour compounds tend to be very sensitive to oxygen, so every time you seal and then open a bag, you could be losing 20% of certain compounds.

So I'd definitely decant into smaller vacuum-sealed bags as a least-bad option, and generally I'd aim to buy only enough hops to see me through to the next season's harvest - and obviously southern hemisphere hops can help here as they're 6 months out of sync.

Since you've got so many, I'd follow your nose - if they don't smell right, the beer won't taste right. Certainly bin any that have got to the "cheesy" stage but when you buy noble hops you are kinda paying for the delicate aromas, and if they've been lost in poor storage then you're kinda missing the point.

Having said that, old European hops are exactly what's needed for lambics, as they've lost a lot of the anti-microbial activity - also a number of British brewers deliberately used old hops in the past. When life gives you lemons...

 

[ncbrewer]

This article has info on hops, including hop storage index: http://beersmith.com/hop-list/?utm_...tm_content=[BSHB] Preserving and Storing Hops

 

[cactusgarrett]

As a point of reference, Brulosophy did a couple experiments on the impact of old hops:
One with old hops stored properly, and a second where the old hops were stored improperly.

 

[Smellyglove]

If you vacuum seal after openong the original bag they will last for years in a freezer. Some will be lost though. But freezer and vacuum is the thing.

I was making an IPA a long while ago and opened a fresh bag of 2015 columbus which was terrible. Went up to my freezer and found an almost two year old bag which I had vacuum sealed myself. Almost as good as the day I used it almost two years ago. I still remember this one bag.

 

[Manorhall]

If you vacuum seal after openong the original bag they will last for years in a freezer. Some will be lost though. But freezer and vacuum is the thing.

I was making an IPA a long while ago and opened a fresh bag of 2015 columbus which was terrible. Went up to my freezer and found an almost two year old bag which I had vacuum sealed myself. Almost as good as the day I used it almost two years ago. I still remember this one bag.

 

[kh54s10]

You are going to get wildly varying answers. I believe some hops store well and others lose potency sooner. I hope that it is many years as I have a lot of hops. Most are over one year. Those seem fine. Many are much older. I have been on a hiatus while making a move. When I resume brewing I will have to check the hops before use. I will use a little more of any that might be questionable.

Do tell, if you think of it when the time comes.

I have done 4 beers since resuming. Two of them I just used the usual amounts of hops and for the other 2 I used the Beersmith hop age tool to adjust the AA amount and it used more hops. There was a slight difference for the better. But overall 2+ year old hops vacuum bagged and frozen are just fine.