Hops staling - sell for making extract?

[Woolsocks]

Everyone seems to have '07 hops for sale, due to hoarding them when we didn't know whether we'd get any hops in '08.

What do you do with them if you can't sell them? No one wants to buy them when they can get fresher '08 hops.

Do you sell them off super-cheap?

Seems like Hop Union or someone else ought to offer a certain price per pound of alpha for making alpha acid extract. This would keep us from wasting the hoarded hops, and would probably have a positive effect on the price of hops for the next few years. Do any of the hop processing companies do this?

[beertje46]

What CBC said...

[csquared]

Make lambics.

[Guest]

I'm in UK, so I'm not looking to buy, but I'm just curious - what is the received wisdom for shelf-life on vacuum-packed quality T-90 pellets?

I'd heard that even well vacuum-packed whole hops had a couple of years in them? - so T-90s if they were good to begin with should surely do better?

About 10 years ago, my old brewery stopped cold-storing whole-hop hop-pockets (c.80kg) & instead had their entire stock vacuum-packed & then didn't bother cold storing them, on advice from hop merchants, IIRC.

[mogabi]

Stop hoarding and leave a little for the rest of us. All my beers I had to reformulate because I could get NOTHING I use to use.

Vic
Elevator Brewing Co

[beauxman]

Sell them cheap to me!

In reality, if they have been stored cold (freezer?) and still unopened bags of pellets...I wouldn't see the need to discount too much below $4/lb!!!
-Beaux

[Tash]

Have you kept them cold...

If the hops are still vaccuum sealed and have been kept cold they're not going stale. This is a huge misconception that is carry over from your homebrew days...

Hop dealers used to have 2-3 year old hops for sale. The alpha does drop a tad but over all the 2007 harvest is OK...

[gitchegumee]

I've got to wonder whether stale (oxidized) hops would be any good for making extracts. If the oils are oxidized, then what are you extracting? Oxidized oils? Ralph, what's the consensus from the industry here? Do leftover 3 year old hops get extracted, or what?

[ralpho123]

Hops

Hello All,

With regards to the 2007 pellets, I saw some good replies. If kept in a vacuum and in cold storage, there is very little deterioration in a years time. I have experimented with hops kept a number of years and in proper conditions they hold up well.

While some hops could be extracted, most of the hops sold in the craft brewing scene are aroma hops and the cost of extracting prohibits doing this even if they were current year hops. It would take say three to four lbs of many aroma hops to equal what is in one lb high alpha hop for extract and when done extract is only worth what the total alpha is. Could go on and on here, but bottom line is it just isn't worth it. I saw the question about if a hop was oxidized and if it would be good. The value does go down as the hops oxidizes, just because it won't prouce the same volume as when it was fresh. Can be done and has been done. The extract is OK fom a quality standpoint, but expensive way to get extract. Remember there are charges per lb of hops extracted. It is not a very cheap process although with prices like last year it did become more lucrative to extract hops.

See some questions on hoarding. That did happen last year on a world basis. I see things have eased up considerably today. We do have many varieties available for sale today compared to very little last year. Don't see the need for any more hoarding in the forseeable future although there will always be that one hard to get hop. Not an exact science in the growing of hops and yeilds do vary from year to year.

Cheers,

Ralph Olson
Hopunion LLC