Hop age questions?

I’m looking to use up some pellet hops I bought last year in 2 batches.  Some are sealed in barrier bags, some are vacuum sealed, and some have been opened, sealed tight with tape. All have been in my freezer double ziplocked since I’ve bought them.  I sat down this weekend and reformulated my recipes
to use most of what I had using the “hop age” tool on Beersmith. Not knowing when these things were harvested, I figured the “months” from November 2010. Is this the correct way to figure this and to those who have used this tool, how accurate is it at refiguring the A.A’s?

I would use the harvest date and then the temp and packaging type used in in storage, at least that is what I have done in Promash.

Ziplocs are not O2 barrier bags BTW.  The foodsaver vacuum packing material is said to be O2 barrier.

The only time I adjusted for age, I ended up with way too much bitterness.  I store them in a freezer double bagged.  I don’t adjust for age anymore.  I do a lot of German lagers and buy a pound at a time of Magnum and Hallertaur.  I do 10 gallons per month.  So it can take me a year or more to go through these hops.  They do fine without age adjustments.

YMMV

I have to agree with the limited needed to age-prorate your hops.  I too keep my hops sealed in their metallized mylar bags in the freezer.  I do have a heat-sealing unit too, but its not a vacuum type.

I noticed no drop off in performance in the hops for at least 3 years.  I did move my hops from Florida to Indy and the bittering performance did drop off markedly as a result of the non-frozen transport.

I’d have to say that storage in oxygen barrier packaging in the freezer is far better a condition than modeled with any of the aging equations assume.  It appears to me that you can disregard aging for a few years under that storage condition.

I think vacuum sealing and freezing hops is a very good method of storing hops. As long as the hops were fresh prior to vacuum sealing/freezing they should last for a couple of years. They will lose some of their flavor/aroma/potency over time but will still be usable.

The one thing to do is smell the hops before using them. If they smell cheesy of lack fresh hop aroma they shouldn’t be used. Otherwise, I recommend using them.

I’ve never used the beersmiith program. However, I recently used pelletized hops that were opened back around 2007 and kept in the freezer, in a ziplock bag.  It seems as if they lost very little AA%. http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=10466.msg130467#msg130467

Edit: I used them as bittering hops for a lambic. I suspect they lost the aroma and or flavor contribution, but kept their most of their bittering potency.