Sterilizing Dry Hops

[EagleDude]

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, so wanted to see what others thought. Since dry hopping is post-boil, I'm slightly concerned about introducing bugs during the dry hop addition. As a solution, I was thinking that I could measure out the hops I was going to use, vacuum seal them, then place the bag in boiling water for 5 minutes. The pellets would be staying dry, but they would cook a bit. Is this method going to effect the dry hopping negatively? Should I not worry about it and assume the alcohol in the beer will prevent any or most problems. I do have two 5 gallon carboys to dry hop, so if nobody has an answer, I can do one with no treatment and one with the boil in a bag treatment.

Any thoughts?

[Mills]

First of all, cool idea. I do not believe that the hops in the dry hopping process is what could give you an infection. It is the air and dust/bugs that could be hitching a ride into your vessel as you carry out the act of dry hopping. One way I avoid that is by dry hopping in the keg while running the c02 gas to be forcing dust away from the opening of my keg.

In another aspect, I think that you would see some chemical changes in the hops potentially effecting hop oils, and the green flavor that dry hopping gives to your beer.

Just some thoughts.

Mills

[TheMadHopper]

I wouldn't put something in plastic, boil it, and then add to my beer. Is that plastic rated for high heat?

One of the long time pro brewers out west (I believe it was Ken Grossman) did some studies and concluded that there is no lifeform that can live on hops that can spoil your beer.

Relax, don't worry, and just throw those hops in!

[EagleDude]

I wouldn't put something in plastic, boil it, and then add to my beer. Is that plastic rated for high heat?

One of the long time pro brewers out west (I believe it was Ken Grossman) did some studies and concluded that there is no lifeform that can live on hops that can spoil your beer.

Relax, don't worry, and just throw those hops in!

The bags are rated for boiling temps, so that is not a worry.

[siwelwerd]

The oils in hops will coat the cells of microorganisms and kill them. They were originally added to beer for their preservative qualities. So I really doubt anything is living on your hop pellets. Toss those hops right on in, and RDWHAHB.

[alan_marks]

Just wondering, what do commercial hop farmers do when they process leaf hops?

When I bought a bunch of leaf hops from Hops Direct they just came in vacuum packed and sealed bags, they went straight to my freezer from there. Been using them from my freezer for the past 9 months.

Alan

[brewranger]

also, the high alcohol content in fermented beer should be high enough to kill or deter most bacteria.

[ajdelange]

You should be OK with the heating process provided the bags are, as are most, FDA rated for boiling foods in. The essential oils of hops can be collected by steam distillation which I take as proof that heat at the temperature of boiling water does not destroy their flavor and aroma. I guess I would be concerned that heating would drive the oils out of the hops to condense/collect on the bag which would mean that not all the oils would go into the beer. I guess you could solve that problem by throwing the bag in as well as the hops flowers or just take the hit and get a bit less bang for the buck.

However you shouldn't have to do this. People have been dry hopping beers without sterilization for years. As other posters have noted hops are bacteriostatic and the beer contains alcohol. I don't think anyone else mentioned that yeast produce acid during fementation as a means of killing off bacteria which would otherwise compete for the nutrients in wort so you also have that going for you, especially in ales which tend to finish at lower pH than lagers.

An idea that seems interesting in this context is irradiation of the hops after sealing them in bags. Many of the foods we buy, and in particular other spices, are irradiated to control bacteria but the irradiation has the additional benefit of halting ripening of fruits and vegetables because any living cells in the food being irradiated are killed as surely as bacterias' cells. So I wonder if irradiation might not only be used to sterilize hops but to improve their freshness after storage. I have no idea whether anyone has investigated this. As it takes all kinds of approvals to irradiate a food product and as most hops don't require it becuase they will be boiled, I doubt that any processor would undertake to investigate this. Extension of shelf life might, OTOH, have occurred to someone.