Crushed Hops

[perryni]

I am planning on doing my first extract brew next week and have got all the ingredients ready to go.

I have been storing my hops in the freezer but when I had a quick look at them today i noticed that some of the leaves had been crushed to a powder. Will they still be ok to be used?

Cheers
Nick

[gnutz2]

Crushed leafs on hops will be fine, the buisiness end of a hop is the yellow lupin glands at the base.

But, as hops get older they loose some of their alpha acids so give less bitterness and aroma, some are better than others for storing but the more oxygen you keep away and the colder you keep them the better.

So if they were vac packed in your freezer they'll be fine.

HTH Baz.