abelseville

Recipes 

Hi, this is my first post so go easy on me. I finally found a question I couldn't answer with the handy search bar.

I was given a ten year old starter kit yesterday which contained a can of hopped LME, 2 pounds of DME, Crystal malt, roasted barley, hops and yeast. The can of LME seems to have some outward pressure. Question - Is any of this stuff possibly good to use still? Will any of it make me sick even after boiling or is my only risk a bad batch of beer?

Oh also a tub of B-brite.

hercher

Recipes 

I don't believe it will make you sick. I would get new yeast, as this may no longer be viable, after 10 years. The crystal and roasted barley are stale, so you'd be better off replacing those, as well.

The B-brite is fine.

__________________
Two Kids Brewery

Primary: nothing. :(
Seconary: Don't use one, generally
Kegged: Belgian Brown Ale (loosely based on Corsendonk's Brown Ale); Saison
Planned:

"For a quart of ale is a dish for a king." - Shakespeare

nasty_rabbit

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A friend of mine was in the same situation, 7 year old kit. We replaced the yeast and brewed it. After fermentation it was terrible. The only benefit was teaching him technique. If I were to have the opportunity to do it all over I would scrap it and buy new. He got to see what it took to make beer without the chance to get to drink good beer. + 1 on keeping the B-brite though.

abelseville

Recipes 

Thanks for the tips. I just tried to energize the yeast (expiration date 2000) and it's actually bubbling! Ill throw out the specialty grains though.

Frogmanx82

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Someone gave me some old Mr. Beer cans. You can tell when you open it whether the smell is good or not. Several of the cans I opened were definitely bad and I didn't really trust any of them. Its just not worth the effort to brew if you don't have good ingredients.

dirtyhalos

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what would be the shelf life on extract ingredient kits?

in particular i'm asking about the kits from morebeer.

srb4128

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I recently called northern brewers about saving a winter beer extract kit I just got for Christmas until next fall when I would enjoy it more. He strongly advised me against it and said I'd be better of brewing then letting the bottles age because the ingredients may well go to an 'off' flavor. Not sure if this Is 100% true in all cases, but it may give you some insight

srb4128

Recipes 

I

Sir-Hops-A-Lot

Recipes 

Why brew old ingredients? The process involves a lot of work and patience. Why would you want to invest all the time to brew, clean, and bottle to watch some wonky batch mature in the hopes that it will somehow defy the odds and turn out drinkable when you can simply buy a fresh kit and enjoy.
There are only two HBSs in my city and I avoid one because they aren't very careful about the storage temp and due date. Consider this: toss the old stuff!

twalte

Recipes 

Check this out before using an old kit. I got a kick out of this one.

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"You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons but at the very least you need a beer"
- Frank Zappa