Seems to be a problem

My last batch of Brew Cat IPA doesn’t seem to have the cascade punch of other batches. Two things I’m thinking one I used to dry hop with cone hops of late I have used pellet and second the pellets were old. I just popped the keg and through some more in I’ll give it a couple days.

I know they say that hops have a shelf life, and I would agree. I have some thats been around for… lets just say, a while. I know that when I brew my preferred hoppy brews in the fall and winter, the aroma does seem much better. Just me, or are you gittin the same thing? Sneezles61

It could be that you didn’t get as much flavor with the pellets as you do with the cones, but I doubt it. I’ve never noticed a flavor difference between pellets and cones.

I don’t use hops as much as most homebrewers do, malty beers are my thing. So when I get C hops they tend to hand around for quite a while in my freezer. That said, I’ve only twice ever had to throw away hop because they got too old and lost their goodness. And for one of those, I was not very happy with the freshness of the bag of hops when I first got it. So hops can go bad, but if you keep them well (as I know you must), it would be a very rare thing. I’m guessing they were sub-par hops to begin with. Especially as these were pellets. Cones don’t last as well as pellets do.

I buy my hops bulk, they come nitrogen packed and vacume sealed. After I open them I keep them in the freezer in baggies. I guess I have to date them so I know what’s what. Luckily I just got four more pounds of hops so I can compare. Someone gave me a pound of citra hops but they were not vacum packed. I know the LHBS just got them in but don’t know how fresh they are. Better use those up first.

Think I will double the dose on the older hops, hate to toss them. If I use them for bittering do you think the alpha rating drops or just loss of the aroma?

I got a sweet little vacuum sealer for canning jars…$25…might be worthwhile unless you vacuum seal your baggies?

Home grown cones? How do you know acid levels?

I only use whole cone hops for dry hopping so not concerned with the aa rating. Sometimes I buy or use homegrown. Last years crop was not very aromatic so I didn’t use them except in a harvest ale which I just used extra water and tossed a boat load of them in.

The alpha acids will degrade over time, which is what lambic Brewers count on for their large hop additions without huge amounts of bittering. But you REALLY have to abuse them to make this happen, like storing at room temperature for a year or more with full oxygen exposure.

You may see a slight reduction in bittering, but I bet you won’t notice. I think it’s the perfect use of older hops that have lost their aromatics. :beers:

This is what I do with my homegrown hops. Store them in paper bags in a warm closet for at least a year before using them in a lambic or other brew that calls for aged hops. Totally destroys the alpha acids and the flavor. If they don’t look/smell aged enough when I need to use them, I’ll put in a low temp oven for an hour or two a few days before using.

For hops that are stored in sealed plastic bags the freezer, I’ve never been able to notice significant bittering potential degradation, though as said above, I have gotten degraded flavor.