Hops became unvacume sealed

[Dan Pratt]

Hi,

I had the imported hops from Nikobrew arrive and i vacuum sealed them all and placed them into sealed containers and into the fridge at 2c. Anyway the day we were bagging them up when we got to the CTZ 17.5% AA the machine blew on the last bag.

We have since found that the sealing of some of these last few bags before the machine went wasn't right and they have now taken air in and it appears they have absorbed moisture. :unsure: They are still quite pungent on the nose at 17.5% but appear soft and darker green than they should be.

I tried to press the pellets between my thumb and forefinger to see if they were soft or brittle and it took alot of pressure to get them to slightly crumble or break.

Will these be ok?

 

[Florian]

Give them a smell, most likely they will be OK given the way they were stored.

I'm sometimes slightly amused by the way people get so paranoid about their hops.

I'm pretty sure when I joined this site there were not that many people who vacuum sealed their hops, some even kept them out of the freezer or god forbid even out of the fridge.
I'm all for perfect storage conditions and can be very pedantic with that sort of stuff myself, but at the same time I don't think all those people brewed beer with minimal hop flavour (and I'm not talking about those times when you apparently only could get old brown hops).

I've got quite a few bags that lost their seal over time and it doesn't really worry me or my beer too much.

 

[Camo6]

How long have they been in the freezer? I wouldn't worry too much especially since they're primarily for bittering. Reseal them if you can. FWIW I tend to double seal my channel bags and always let the sealer cool a bit before opening lid.

 

[Dan Pratt]

They have been in cold storage for 2 weeks now. I got my new sealer today and it had a broken lock mechanism, will be another week will I can re-seal them.

Glad to know they will probably be ok based on how hops got stored in the past decades or so.

 

[adryargument]

Think i read somewhere that in a fridge un-vac sealed they lose something like 10-12% AA per year...?

Two weeks, dont worry!

 

[Dan Pratt]

My replacement vac seal is being sent out tomorrow. Should have them resealed within a week.

 

[adryargument]

Again, im still using hops from 2009/2008...

 

[DU99]

i have some POR/cluster flowers 3 year old..under seal

 

[BottloBill]

Three simple words! HOP STORAGE INDEX (HSI) usually gives an indication how well the variety will hold AA in a controlled unrefrigerated and unvacuumed sealed environment before losing any Alpha and is around the 3 month mark from memory....

 

[Yob]

ooh I dunno about that, unsealed and not frozen.. at least, bare minimum, aroma oils fill fade quite quickly... sealed the process slows considerably. the colder they are the more the process slows.

Id not use unsealed, un refridgerated hops after a few days myself... particularly for aroma purposes

ed: I mean an open bag on the bench in the shed in summer, not the OP's situation naturally

 

[BottloBill]

True yob we wouldn't use them this way out of personal choice and the best for our brew. I was reading an article by a leading hop research company, they researched many varieties to get a good indication of the AA in particular and the loses based on basic sealed pellets at a certain temp thus the scale of HSI was born.

 

[lukiferj]

Worst case, start brewing IIPAs now and dont stop until they're gone.