A friend has a bunch of homegrown hops that he froze without dehydrating. So they're essentially frozen wet hops. Has anyone ever brewed with hops in this condition? Is it worth trying?
I tried that once and the results were not good. However, they were several months old when I used them. If they were just frozen you might have better results.
I did it, but it was a few days to a week. No problem. Just realize that they will drop the temp of the wort drastically if they are still frozen upon adding.
When you freeze, you tend to lyse lots of cells. You could end up with a much more vegetal flavor than you like. This is me speculating -- I've never done it myself.
I think this is what happened to my beer, but it was more tea-like than vegetal. Mostly, the hops just had an extreme lack of flavor so the herbal tea note was about all they contributed.
I have frozen fresh wet hops for the last 2 years and haven't had a problem with grassy flavors. I think this happens when you pick the hops too early. According to Vinnie Cilurzo, the best way to tell if hops are ready to harvest besides a papery crunch when you squeeze them, slight browning on the tips, opening of the petals, and dark yellow lupilin in the hops is to take hold the hop cone by the pointed end and pull back on the petals. If the petals don't start to come off after two or 3 pulls, then they aren't ready yet. I have used them for bittering, flavor, aroma and dry hop additions. Everyone who has tried my beers made with frozen hops like them and there have been no adverse comments. While it is true that the hops become mushy when you thaw them out, this is more of a perception issue. I haven't noticed that it affects the flavor or aroma. I have gotten terrific flavor and aroma from frozen hops. Though a vacuum Foodsaver bag would be ideal I haven't got one yet. I put 5 ounces of wet hops ( equivalent to 1 ounce dried) in 1 gallon Ziplock bags, squeeze them down, and roll up very tightly, and then tape shut and freeze. You end up with a roll of hops about 9 inches long and 11/2 inches around.When I am going to brew I remove them from the bag and slice them off in 1/4 segments to maximize utilization. After cooling the wort I strain it through a fine mesh strainer bag and twist and squeeze it after sanitizing my hands. I don't really lose much wort this way even though sometimes my wort will look like hop soup before straining. There is a German research paper that extolls the superior stability of frozen wet hops. Commercially this probably isn't done because of tradition and cost of freezing and storing them.
