What's in Your Packet of Hops?

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Binkie Huckaback
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What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Binkie Huckaback » Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:09 am

I've not been able to brew as much as I'd like over the last few years, but out of the last maybe five packs of hops I bought, at least two from different suppliers have had a lot of stem in them and some even bits of twig. Having not bothered to contact the sellers to rectify matters, I think it would be unfair to name them here, but if any sellers read this, come on guys, this is really not on. I think it must be tempting to cut corners and 'bulk things out' a little as there's a lot of competition out there and margins must be tight, but this won't win you any friends.

McMullan

Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by McMullan » Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:28 am

Being plants, it's not unusual to find some stalk debris among the cones. Due to the need to harvest hops efficiently, it's unlikely sellers receive sufficient debris to 'pack out' repackaged hops for home brewers.

Got any pictures?

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Kev888
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Kev888 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:41 am

Yes, it is fairly normal for bits of plant and so on to be included, due to the way the hops are collected and processed - it isn't the fault of any particular retailers.

Just occasionally you might get an excess of them, or stones and soil in there; if these comprise a significant weight of a small pack then the better retailers would normally rectify matters for you.
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Robwalkeragain
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Robwalkeragain » Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:22 pm

It’s usual, they are mass processed. A brewery i know found a dead bird in a pack once.
If you want clean hops buy pellet or cryo!

Kingfisher4
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Kingfisher4 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:05 pm

Robwalkeragain wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:22 pm
It’s usual, they are mass processed. A brewery i know found a dead bird in a pack once.
If you want clean hops buy pellet or cryo!
Although, at least in theory, it would be even easier to grind even more debris and hide it in pellets than whole leaf hops I guess?

Binkie Huckaback
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Binkie Huckaback » Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:25 pm

It's just that when I started brewing, I can't recall packets of hops containing so much stem and never bits of stick. Perhaps I've just been lucky in the past. I've definitely never had a dead bird, soil or stones! as far as not being the fault of retailers, don't they buy hops in large quantities, split and package them with their own labels?

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Kev888
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Kev888 » Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:02 am

Yes, some of them split and repackage larger bales of hops, and the better ones do take the opportunity to remove any obvious rubbish they can spot during the process.

But some stem and stalk are normal and expected; this is built into the price brewers pay. It would be enormously costly for retailers to manually sift through it - not at all easy either, given the compressed nature of the hop bales - and there would be relatively little benefit for the associated hike in price.

Pellets are better in this respect, so might be worth considering if it worries you. No doubt there is still some stem/stalk in there which can't be spotted afterwards, but the producers tend to invest more effort in sorting out foreign matter - as I understand it mainly to protect the pellet-making machinery.
Kev

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Meatymc
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Re: What's in Your Packet of Hops?

Post by Meatymc » Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:06 am

I grow and obviously dry my own hops. It would be too time consuming and frankly unrealistic to remove every last bit of stalk on every hop plus you wouldn't want to as you use the dryness of the stalk to check when the hop is dry enough to store - if the stalk snaps clean when bent it's done.

Any stalk is a small percentage of the hops weight particularly bearing in mind a hop is 80% water which you need to reduce to 10% before storing.

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