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I keep them in a cool place and keep them dark. They seem to come out as good as they went in. When I open a 500g pack I vac it into small bags, about 100g. They live in a closed cardboard box under my brewery bench.

"christhebrewer":22jfmpg8 wrote: Do you agree that this is the best way to keep hops? The Andrew james machine I got came with a bunch of bags. If you snip off the top of the bag, take out some hops, and vac the rest in the same bag it would take a long time to run out of bags.
I couldn't go back to freezing hops.[/quote:22jfmpg8]
I think vacuum packing is one of the most important aspects for storing hops for any length of time. I do store all mine in the freezer though. And after reading here[/url:22jfmpg8] this morning, temperature does seem to have a significant effect on the rate of decline of the alpha acids.

I have never taken it into account when brewing as Beersmith assumes they still have the same AA as when harvested.If they are a year old they might have lost a couple of % so I might start using its hop age calculator to compensate.

I did a quick calculation in Beersmith of the AA lost from Cascade when stored at a fridge temperature of average 4deg C. This is different for each variety of hop, some store much better than others.
[img:22jfmpg8]http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1645/capturehdq.png[/img:22jfmpg8]
This is also assuming you harvested and dried them the same day that they went into the fridge. In reality they would already be 6 months old when you got them.

How does that compare to stored under vacuum at, say, 15c?
Also, while aa% is important, flavour and aroma are hugely important. Aroma is definately (in my limited experience) retained better in a vac bag than in a ziplock in the freezer.
It was my disapointment with frozen hops that prompted the vac sealer.

The 3 options Beersmith gives for storing hops are:

[list:11btk0lz]Poly/Plastic Bag
Oxygen Barrier Bag/Jar
Vacuum Packed Foil Pouch[/list:u:11btk0lz]

I don't know whether the first option is vacuum sealed or not.I will assume that the Oxygen barrier bags are vacuum sealed as what would be the point in using that type of plastic otherwise. The foil bags seem to be the best but are probably expensive and require a very hot sealer to get them closed. The result of using Oxygen Barrier plastic at 15c(59F) is as follows:
[img:11btk0lz]http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6974/captureemm.png[/img:11btk0lz]
It seems that vacuum sealing and freezing is the best combination for long term storage.

Hmmmm if thats the case I might take a 2Kg batch off you then <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D --> Where are you based?

Bray.Give me a ring if you like. There are a few options for collect/delivery.