Home Brewers: Vacuum seal your hops

– by Greg VacMaster® guest blogger

Home Brewers: Vacuum seal your hops

The uses for your VacMaster® at home are endless. For many the cult favorite hobby of home brewing can get expensive, spending a healthy chunk of change on your hops and grains. As with your food, it saves you money to buy in bulk, and proper storage is integral to keeping the overflow fresh. Of course, right now many enthusiasts are harvesting their own homegrown hops right now as well!

Use these storage tips to keep your ingredients fresh and your beer tasting great!

Hops

Whether you grew your own, or buy in bulk the key to keeping your hops fresh is knowing what will affect their preservation. Hops have a reputation for being tough to store, so many home brewers spend more money to buy fresh hops for each batch of beer. The key factors to look out for in hops preservation and storage are:

  • Air
  • Temperature
  • Sunlight
    • To keep your beer tasting fresh simply vacuum seal your hops in a VacMaster® Fresh bag and store in the freezer. The vacuum seal removes the air that will oxidize and compromise your hops, and the freezer keeps out the sunlight as well as provides the optimal hops storage temperature which is between -5­°F and 32°F.

    Grains

    Good news for your grains! These are much less temperamental to store than your hops are. The important thing when storing grains is to keep them dry and away from bugs and animals. Use your VacMaster® vacuum sealer to seal your grains into bags pre-measured for your recipes, or seal them in bulk to use when needed. 

    Follow these simple tips and keep your VacMaster® handy to be sure you always have fresh ingredients on hand for your home brew needs. 

    If you have any other ways you incorporate your VacMaster® into your home brew routine or any other hobby, we'd love to here, comment or share!