Re: expired malt extract

Mar 11, 2005 5 Replies

I wouldn't waste a valuable ingredient unnecessarily. It is easy enough to make up a batch. If you are concerned, mix it in with some water and get it partially diluted and then taste it. If you like what you taste, I'd say go for it. People forget that brewing, like cooking is a lot about taste. If it tastes good, it is good. Of course with brewing you need to train your pallet slightly to know what potential there is in a un fermented batch of wort. 10 to 1 odds it is very drinkable. But then I'm not a purist. I'll drink most anything.



I found 2 old cans of malt extract out in my shed last week. One was Gold
>Rush Pilsner without any dried yeast & the other one is coopers bitter. The
>Gold Rush can was stored on it's side & had alot of rust on it & seems to
>have expanded slightly, could not find expire date on can. Coopers Bitter
>can has best before 02/02/03 so it's 2 years past expire date. Will this
>still be ok to brew?. I'm brewing the Gold Rush atm & it's fermenting well
>with the included Coopers Bitter yeast. I thought some of the yeast might
>be dead but I started it up in a cup for 24 hours and it got all foamy so
>the yeast is ok. Going to use the same yeast for the coopers bitter as well
>after the gold rush has finished. Has any have experience brewing with
>expired malt extract? and if so how does it effect the flavour.
>
> Ok thanks
>
>

I tried to brew an expired kit... in my case it's "best before" date was four years passed. I had to ditch the batch because I couldn't get it to ferment out.

Steve

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:49:55 -0400, freebeer-at-rogers-dot-com said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

You didn't use the original yeast, did you? It was probably dead long before you brewed. The only problem with the malt would be a cidery taste, which some people like.

Thanks for your answers. I'm going to brew it, tell you how it goes.

Yup... I used the original yeast, but I also tossed in (rehydrated both, first) with a fresh packet. I didn't have much confidence in the old yeast, as you can imagine.

When I was sure fermentation had completed as much as it was going to, I threw in some yeast nutrient and tossed in some champagne yeast (rehydrated, etc.) just to see if that would make any difference. It dropped another 3 points, but stopped after that (target was, I believe, 1.008 and the post-champagne yeast attempt was 1.023).

Steve

Why not combine both cans and make a "two can screamer". No need for any dextrose or sugar and it usually tastes better than a single can brew

Cheers

Baldric

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