Hop Products and Formats
A brewer rarely buys a hop as nature grew it. Between the hop yard and the kettle, cones are dried, processed, and packaged into several formats, each with different handling, yield, and cost — a practical decision in every IPA recipe.
#The Main Formats
| Format | What it is | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Whole cone (leaf) | Whole dried cones, baled | Whirlpool, dry hop, traditionalist brewing |
| T-90 pellets | Whole hop milled and pressed into pellets | The industry default for all roles |
| T-45 pellets | Pellets enriched in lupilin, partly de-leafed | Aroma-focused additions |
| CO2 extract | Supercritical-CO2 resin/oil extract | Clean bittering, high-gravity beers |
| Cryo / lupulin powder | Cryogenically concentrated lupulin | Intense aroma, low vegetal matter |
#Whole Cone
The original format: cones picked, kiln-dried to about 8–10% moisture, and compressed into bales. Whole hops are bulky, oxidize faster (more surface area, harder to seal), and absorb a lot of wort, but some brewers swear by their gentle, "fluffy" character — Sierra Nevada famously uses whole-cone hops. They also act as a natural filter bed in the kettle.
#Pellets: The Workhorse
T-90 pellets are made by hammer-milling dried cones and extruding the powder under pressure. The name reflects that the pellet is about 90% the mass of the original hop. Pellets dominate brewing because they:
- pack densely and seal well, slowing oxidation;
- give slightly higher bittering utilization (cell walls are ruptured);
- store and ship efficiently.
T-45 pellets go further — chilled hop powder is sieved to discard much of the leafy bract material before pelletizing, concentrating the lupulin. This is a precursor concept to full cryo processing.
#Extracts
CO2 extract uses supercritical carbon dioxide to strip resins and oils from hops, yielding a thick green-gold paste. It is prized for clean, efficient bittering with no vegetal matter, no wort loss, and a very long shelf life — ideal for the kettle of a Double IPA where huge bittering charges would otherwise mean handling kilograms of pellets. Specialized downstream aroma extracts also exist for post-fermentation dosing.
Switching a recipe from pellets to extract, or whole cone to cryo, changes utilization, wort absorption, and the haze and oxidation profile. Substitutions should be deliberate and re-tested — see Recipe Formulation.
#Choosing a Format
Most modern IPAs are built on T-90 pellets for everything, with CO2 extract for clean bittering and cryo reserved for the aroma-critical whirlpool and dry hop of hazy beers.
#Continue Reading
- Cryo Hops and Lupulin Powder — the concentrated aroma formats
- Hop Additions and Timing — when each format goes in
- Hop Fade and Oxidation — why packaging matters
- Hop Contracts and the Hop Supply Chain — buying hops at scale