What do you actually do with your unused hops?

[Teromous]

Sometimes when I brew, I'll use a recipe that requires ridiculous fractions of an ounce. For example a recipe might ask for 1.80 oz and I have two single ounce packages. This leaves me with 0.20 oz. I'm sure there are many people out there who might use the same hops every brew day, where they can simply save the hops and throw them in the next batch and this might not be a dilemma. For those of you who mix up your brew styles, recipes, or seek out strange hop varieties this provides a few questions about the uncertain future of the stragglers. It also poses a few options about recipe formulation.

Do you just bag your hops and throw them in the freezer?

If you bag them, do you give them a small shot of CO2?

Do you leave them out to go old so you can use them in a Saison or Lambic?

Do you vacuum seal small fractions of an ounce?

Do you simply throw the hops away?

Do you save it for dry hopping? Even if it is out of style?

Do you put them in tea bags and dry hop your pints?

Do you decide to brew only recipes with the same type of hops so that you aren't worrying about what to do with hops?

Do you round up or down on your recipes and adjust accordingly?

Do you save the fractions and use a bunch of them as replacements in your hop additions?

Do you buy them in bulk anyway, and wonder "what is this guy talking about?"

Mainly I'm just curious about what people actually do. I have faced situations before where it just wasn't feasible to keep hops and I tossed them. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but I thought about how much of an emphasis we place on hops in our recipes and the lengths that we sometimes go to get them. It was just humorous to me that I had to sit there thinking about what to do with them for a long while before tossing them.

 

[Hammy71]

Most of my hop purchases are bulk so this comes up rarely...but still does. If it's .5 oz or larger, I'll go ahead and vacuum seal it. But if it's less than that, it isn't worth the price of the damn bag to me. Course, now that I think of it, an ounce probably isn't cost effective either. The bags are damn expensive.

 

[Pkrd]

If I can I order online from a supplier who will measure out to 5gm (0.2oz).

Otherwise my excess hops sit around in the fridge, waiting patiently for their number to be called.

 

[NathPowe]

I buy in bulk (quite a few different varieties) and store them in vacuum-sealed mason jars in the freezer. Works great and makes the left-over hop situation a non-issue. I do occasionally buy ounce packets at the LHBS to try out new varieties, but I just make sure to use them all in a recipe, or throw the left-overs in a pint mason jar and vacuum seal it.

Only "downside" is that my freezer is basically full of jars of hops. Luckily, we don't use the freezer much for anything else anyway, so it works out.

 

[FarmerTed]

I don't save them (unless it's for a dry-hop in the same beer). Sometimes, I take the spare hops to work and leave them in a cup on my desk. I pitch them when they get nasty.

 

[ktblunden]

I buy in bulk as well, but I usually end up with some random small amounts of various hops at some point. When I have enough of them I'll just add them to a flameout addition or a dry hop on a big IIPA or the like.

 

[CarboyBoy]

The opened pouch the hops came in goes into a vacuum sealed bag, then back into the freezer. I use the vacuum bags that come on a roll, so I size the bag big enough to last 3 or 4 uses.

I've used hops stored in this manner up to a year, and the hops are just as aromatic and the bittering I get is consistent with what I got when I first used them.

 

[shelly_belly]

I just round 1.8 up to 2.0!

 

[grathan]

Round up. Always. I have like 20 or so opened bags atm and there is no way I will ever use them.. I wouldn't adjust the recipe accordingly. I have had maybe 1 beer where I've said "wow, that is too much hop flavor..." and that was Janet's Brown Ale.

 

[user 30639]

Most of them just go in the freezer. Although if I feel I'm going to have some leftover hops after a brew, I usually just do some dry hopping.

 

[harebearva]

Bout ever 2 months I will make what I lovingly call a Dumpf Bier. That's an IPA or American pale where I will use up (or dump in) what ever partial packs of hops and grain I have on hand. Makes for some really interesting and most often fantastic creations!

 

[heckler73]

round up in the late additions.

 

[Spartan1979]

Mostly I buy my hops by the pound so it doesn't matter. I do have bag full of odds and ends that I probably need to toss.