Nearly 16 year Old Can of Extract

In a Craigs List purchase of some equipment, (6 Gal Carboy, some thermometers, books, Hydrometer, and a cool Termometor holder) I found a can of Mountmeiick Light Lager. This can was dated 5/96 on the bottom. The yeast pack was gone but the can was in good shape. So I decided to "Brew" it, calling is a "CL Honey Lager" in Beersmith as I used the can and a Couple Pounds of honey and some Corn Suger to up it to a 5 gallon brew from the 3.6 gal. recipe.

Today I set up the kettle and opened the can. The extract smelled and tasted fine, just way, way, did I saw way?? darker than a Light Lager kit should be. I scaled the recipe up from the 3.6 gallon to a 5 gallon recipe below...

4 lbs Mountleiick Light Lager
2 lbs Clover Honey
5.0 oz Corn Sugar (Dextrose)
Boiled above 30 min.
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 17.0 mins)
1.00 oz Cascade [8.90 %] - Boil 2.0 min
1.00 oz Saaz [2.60 %] - Boil 2.0 min

Cooled it in from 212° to 65° in 12 mins. SG was 1.045

Used a WLP810 San Francisco Lager Yeast (with no starter) to take advanatge of the 60° constant temperature of my downstairs to Ferment and Lager condition. Tasted fine when I sampled the spample taken for the SG, will be a little over a month before I call it done. Will be a $12.00/recipe when said and done. I'm actually looking forward to this!

Yeah, I'd like to know how that turns out too. I've read that as LME ages (beyond it's use by date) it darkens. Maybe try it out on someone you don't like quite so much first.

I (and who am I?) would try it if I were in a "what the heck" mode.. But "today" I would use it in place of molasses in my beer bread and muffins.

I was in one of those what the heck modes today… It's been playing on my mind since I got the Craigs List stuff a couple weeks back. I found a recipe in Homebrew Favorites (the Book was also in the Craigslist buy) which used the Mountmellic Light Lager (was a contest place winner) and modified it a bit for my tastes. Small investment of yeast and hops and had the honey, just a month of time sitting in the corner doing it's magic.

It had a decent taste from the can and also after the boil, I'm expecting it to be very drinkable, with maybe some molasses/carmel tastes beyond what a fresh kit would have given.

bkl63 said:

I was in one of those what the heck modes today… It's been playing on my mind since I got the Craigs List stuff a couple weeks back. I found a recipe in Homebrew Favorites (the Book was also in the Craigslist buy) which used the Mountmellic Light Lager (was a contest place winner) and modified it a bit for my tastes. Small investment of yeast and hops and had the honey, just a month of time sitting in the corner doing it's magic.

It had a decent taste from the can and also after the boil, I'm expecting it to be very drinkable, with maybe some molasses/carmel tastes beyond what a fresh kit would have given.

Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how the final product tastes. I suspect it will be fine. If you were doing a really light beer you may have noticed some off flavors, but since you have a good amount of honey in there I imagine it will be good.

But I've read many post about using old Extract, maybe most were not 16 years old, but in every case, the people were happy with the results. ON the flip side, I have seen many posts using fresh ingredients where the flip side occured. Also in every post, there were people saying to toss the old extract. I would say in every case… Just Brew it!

It's Fermenting Away, took a bit over 24 hours before the Airlock showed some bubbles.

I was a bit nervous using an outdated can that was about 6 months over. It turned out to be a great base for one of my favorite brews so far. 16 years would definitely be pushing it for me. Good choice adding hops though. I'd like to hear how this one ends up as well.

I didn't notice the date on the bottom until "Brew Day" so I already had everything ready to go and went for it. Adding hops would be given, especially makig it a 5 gallon batch even were it new, but the the hops will have mellowed considerably over the years.

It's a given to be way too dark for the style, but it's smelling good and doing its thing. Still probably a month or more away from giving up a nice cold one. It's my first lager attempt and a "Frankenbrew" for sure. There was also a can of John McCann's Irish Oatmeal in the Craigs List buy. I thought about using that too in the recipe. Would have required some malted grains and a mash after pre cooking the oatmeal so I said no.

It's been fermenting for 23 days, It has reach the target FG of 1.005 form a start of 1.045. It smells and tastes like beer. Gonna cold crash it to 38° and keg and start to age it tomorrow. Will put 12 lbs of CO2 pressure on it and let it age for abot 3 weeks and then give it a taste. So far the process seems to be making a nice beer. I may add a pound of honey steeped in 150° water for a bit before I Keg it.

I have used old cans of Mountmellick Stout with good results, obviously I couldn't tell if the beer was darker than it should have been!

In around '94 or so, our club was having a competition. The high scorer in the Munich Dunkel category was quite amused that he had won. When I asked him why, he told me that he had used 3 2.2#cans of very old Blue Ribbon malt extract! I don't recall where he had gotten the stuff, but it had turned very dark... the stuff should have looked like a pils, but nailed a beautiful dunkel shade! He had used a good, clean yeast, fermented it on the cool side and... well.. made a pretty darned good beer!

So I added the honey/water mix on Friday once it was down below 40°, yesterday afternoon I kegged it and started to Carb it up. Last night I had friends over and pulled a sample. It's dark, literally "stout dark" but also has a nice honey flavor with the added Honey on Friday, I'm enjoying where this is going. I may have to serve it to friends in a Red Solo Cup… too many may be turned off by the color of the "Light Lager".

2 weeks kegged and lagering. Pulled a growler off to take it to some friends as we were brewing a 10 gallon English bitter yesterday. Everyone enjoyed it, I had been sampling it and found it to be a bit "Chalky" the week before, may have been due to some solids settling out. But it's really improved in the week since. It's every bit as dark as a stout. It's good now, but as it lagers it will get even better.

Slong as the can is not leaking its still good the only thing I would do is replace the yeast