It took me nearly 15c years to realize the truth of that statement. One interesting thing I learned at Hop and Brew School at Hop Union was a way to judge the quality of pellets. Look at the outside surface. If it’s shiny, the pellets were processed at too high a temp and won’t be as good. Hop Union has pelletizers that are encircled in liquid nitrogen to prevent that.
^^^ Add to that better selection of varieties and longer shelf life. Love pellets.
That is interesting insight, Denny. Thanks.
I concur that pellets are more likely to stay fresher than whole hops. I do like to use my homegrown whole Cascade and Centennial in my brewing only as finishing hops in hoppy beers. As pointed out above, I find the whole hops tend to help add structure to the trub cone in the kettle and helps me keep it out of my fermenter during transfer.
20 months into my brewing career/hobby and I have only ever used pellets. For an upcoming brew I will be using mostly whole hops for my Germerican IPA. It will be bittered with Herkules pellets, then all the flavor, aroma, and dry hops will be Hull Melon and Mandarina Bavaria whole leaf. I have this scheduled for beginning ofMay, so I wont have any real thoughts on pellet vs whole until then, but if this thread is still active then, I will follow up after my brew day
The majority of the hops I use are pellets.
I have a kettle with a false bottom and I’ve fitted T40 stainless steel mesh over this. This catches all hop debris…pellet or leaf.
I sometimes use leaf hops if pellets are not available or in particularly hop laden brews where a mixture of flower and pellets gives a better run off after the boil.
I use them both but prefer whole-hops in my system. This is because I use coarse mesh hop-bags and pellets will flow right out of them. Haven’t found the right sort of bag for pellets that performs well.
Whole hops can be a problem if one uses a pump- I’ve had seeds jam the impeller in my March.
I thinking about purchasing pellets from Denny’s hop broker. I need to add three or four varieties to my collection of hops. However, the freezer section of my brewing refrigerator is almost full. A couple of pounds of pellets will be easier to get past SWMBO than a couple of pounds of whole hops.
Mark, if you decide to buy, I don’t think you can find a better source.
I did a little homework on Hop Heaven. It appears that the owner handles pro-brewing contracts as well as selling on eBay. Everyone seems to have good things to say about Ted. Most of the varieties are only offered in 1lb bags. It takes me forever to work through a pound of a single variety, as I usually only use around two pounds total in a year. That’s partly due to the fact that I use whole hops, and there’s a limit to the quantity of whole hops that can be used in a small batch without losing too much wort to the hops with my setup (I also prefer beers with a BU:GU ratio of 0.5 to 0.8 ). I am assuming that Ted offers 1/2lb bags upon request.
I am using whole hops from a bulk buy in 2008. Found them in the bottom of the freezer after it thawed from being accidently unplugged last month. Sealed in their vacuum bags there’s no degradation that I can see.
Makes me less suspicious of the 1lb of Nugget from 2012 in my freezer.
Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve had some varieties that seemed on the decline after 2 years.
Gee, I coulda told ya that! ;) He also has quite a few varieties in 1/2 lbs. if that makes things any easier for you. If you PM me your email addy, I can shoot you the 2014 order form so you can see what he has/had.
I used to contract through Ted. He’s great and his hops are great. Little pricier than we could afford at our size.