Boonies LCPA recipe

[drsmurto]

Fill in your location details Tim, i am sure people could point out cheaper places to buy hops.

[Tim...]

Sorry about that, I didn't realise it wasn't filled in. Doing it now.

I live in Sandringham, Vic. Which is just south/southwest of the city. I buy my goods at Brewcraft in Oakleigh. I have been meaning to give craftbrewer a try, but I am worrying about storing excess hops, as I don't know how often I will be using each type.

On that point, if someone could tell me, how long will hops last for, and whats the best way of storing them? At the moment, I store and extra's in a ziplock bag (to be airtight) and shove them in the fridge. I even have a saaz hop plug in the back of my fridge somewhere, that I'm too afraid to use because its 6 months old.

[Old Gil]

I'm pretty sure you can keep em in the freezer for a fair while

[Tim...]

I'm pretty sure you can keep em in the freezer for a fair while

I was reading somewhere that the freezer is a bad idea. I'll get back if I find out where. Possibly this forum.

[pixelboy]

Yeah its best to store them air-tight in the fridge. If kept that way they should last for ages (12months +) with minimal loss of flavor and AA%

[Chris]

Air tight yes, but the freezer is fine- better than the fridge for keeping the hops fresh.

[drsmurto]

+1 for the freezer. Its where all my hops are in those zip lock sandwich bags once opened.

[Kevnlis]

I have been using ziplocks in the freezer as well, but it is amazing how much it helps if you can vacuum seal them. Anyone have a food saver they don't want?

[drsmurto]

I squeeze out as much air as i can and when noone is looking, i may even suck the air out....

[Kevnlis]

Gives a whole new meaning to the word "hope head"

[drsmurto]

Me? A hop head? Not likely....

[Tim...]

I squeeze out as much air as i can and when noone is looking, i may even suck the air out....

Haha, I do that as well. If anything, I'm sucking out the bad bacteria's and such, right? So there can't be anything wrong with it

[Kevnlis]

Actually there is a way to do the vacuum seal pretty well with a drinking straw and ziplock, I guess that is probably where the idea came from.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/521742/ho ... plock_bag/

[Tim...]

Alrighty, I think I may just follow the original hopping plan from Boonies LCPA Clone, and have an odd amount of hops left in the fridge.

So now I know how to store the hops.... how do you guys weigh out your hops? The last time I used 12.5g of a hop, I simply pulled out 2 small plastic containers, and put pellets into each until they looked like they had the same amount. The smallest scale I have looks like this:

And I can definitely say that its not the easiest thing to measure out small amounts on (ie hops). Does anyone have any crazy methods that just so happen to work?

[Kevnlis]

Jewelers Scale of eBay, less than $30.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/5-KG-Electronic- ... dZViewItem

[drsmurto]

I believe there are a few here who use the 'metric handful' method.....

i know that a 1/4 of a cup holds no more than 20g. As long as you dont pile it up. I use a cup these days......

[Tim...]

Jewelers Scale of eBay, less than $30.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/5-KG-Electronic- ... dZViewItem

Hmm. Sounds nice. The price will probably go up into the three digits in the last 5 minutes of the auction. Now I have to pay my ebay fee's to unban my account.

[drsmurto]

You'll find that KMart, target and the like sell digi scales for around the $30-40 which when you take into account postage is on par with evilbay.

Mine are 3kg with a 1g accuracy. On sale i think i paid 29. If you are going to weigh out your own hops you really need something more accurate than scales which i wouldnt use for anything other than a guesstimate.

Cheers
DrSmurto

[Tim...]

You'll find that KMart, target and the like sell digi scales for around the $30-40 which when you take into account postage is on par with evilbay.

Mine are 3kg with a 1g accuracy. On sale i think i paid 29. If you are going to weigh out your own hops you really need something more accurate than scales which i wouldnt use for anything other than a guesstimate.

Cheers
DrSmurto

Yea after noticing the 1g accuracy, I realised it wont be as expensive as I thought.

Are you saying you wouldn't use a 1g accuracy digital scale for weighing hops? Or are you talking about other scales? Im a bit lost. Im not too worried if I want 21g of hops, and the scales give me 21.5g due to accuracy errors.

[Kevnlis]

If you are not doing water chemistry accuracy to 1g is fine.