Unsealed Hop Pellets in the Freezer

[FatDragon]

The vast majority of my nearly three pounds of remaining hops are unsealed in the freezer and have been opened for anywhere from four to twelve months. I finally cracked the first bottle of my session IPA made with some of those hops, and it has zero aroma in spite of a five ounce whirlpool and another two ounces of dry hop (and way too much bitterness because I miscalculated my IBUs). I kept the grainbill malty to make up for the lower gravity (and overdid the maltiness) and used S-04, so it kind've tastes like an overbittered ESB or something and isn't a complete loss, but it's nothing like what I was going for.

It's not horrible, so I'll take my licks and learn my lessons - a vacuum sealer is definitely an impending purchase - but now I need to figure out what to do with the two and a half pounds of hops that are in my freezer and have already been opened. Clearly they would work for bittering considering that this beer ended up so bitter, but I can't be sure of their AA% at this point, so I can't even use them for accurate bittering, so that's not a very attractive option.

Any suggestions other than using them for fertilizer and learning my lesson for my next big hops purchase?

 

[kh54s10]

After you get your vacuum sealer use almost all new hops and add some of your old hops. Maybe 90% of what is called for with the new hops then another 30% or so of the old hops. That way you are using them rather than just composting them.

 

[SaguaroMan]

Make a lambic!

 

[DoWBrewer]

Do the hops have a good aroma when you smell them? I wouldn't assume that you have no aroma because of the hops, it may be part of the brewing process. I recently used very fresh hops that had great aroma, but I none of it ended up in the beer.

 

[FatDragon]

I'll have to do a sniff test of each variety when I get home, but with the brew in question, the hops had the right aroma out of the bag, but not much of it. Still, the beer seemed to have decent aroma on bottling day - not in-your-face like I wanted, but there was at least something going on. Not so in the bottle that I opened.