Milk Stout on a yeast cake with old ingredients

I had some free time yesterday so I decided that while I was moving my vanilla porter to secondary I would throw together my amateur attempt at a sweet milk stout. Anyway, I had been reading about using yeast cakes and thought I'd try and reuse the one from my porter.
Since it was kinda spur of the moment I used the old ingredients from my original equipment that my wife bought me (4 years ago!) that I couldn't bear to get rid of (they were all sealed, but they were 4 years old).
I was very surprised that the fermentation started within ~45 min and the airlock is going crazy! There are a lot of fermentable sugars in there but I didn't expect to see activity that soon.

Anyway, has anyone used ingredients that old? It smelled pretty good so I'm thinking it will probably be ok. My main concern was the grains being that old and that I was using a pretty old liquid extract. If it turns out to taste bad then I'm really just out my time since I had all the ingredients anyway, but I'd be happy with "tolerable".

Here is the recipe I cobbled together from reading others who had done the same and using what I already had:

1 can JB Dark Malt Extract
1 can JB Light Malt Extract
12oz crushed crystal malt
4oz crushed black patent
4oz crushed roasted barley
10oz oatmeal
8oz Malto Dextrin
8oz Lactose
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
2oz Northern Hop Pellets (Bittering)
1/2oz Fuggle Hop Pellets (Finishing)


O.G. 1.061
Fermenting at ~70 Degrees F

Apparently I scorched something (either the malt extract or the brown sugar), I had no idea till I moved the wort into primary. It didn't smell scorched but there was a half-dollar sized black mark in my brew pot that I can't get off, which brings me to my next question. Will removing this with either vinegar or baking soda cause any potential issues with my next batch? I was planning to use baking soda but I've also heard of vinegar being used to clean scorched pans.

TIA,

nb

I made a stout from 6 year old unhopped extract. There weren't any specialty grains, so I purchased some along with new yeast and hops. It worked out fairly well.

Baking soda or barkeepers friend will get that scorch mark off for you.

buraglio said:

Anyway, has anyone used ingredients that old? It smelled pretty good so I'm thinking it will probably be ok. My main concern was the grains being that old and that I was using a pretty old liquid extract.

Click to expand...

I read or saw something a couple weeks ago, about a 'well to do' beer company. One of the main 'attractions' to their beer was that they aged their grains two or three years before brewing with them.

Jesse17 said:

I read or saw something a couple weeks ago, about a 'well to do' beer company. One of the main 'attractions' to their beer was that they aged their grains two or three years before brewing with them.

Click to expand...

Cool. It sure does smell sweet and creamy, I hope it's good. I tasted the wort that I took the OG reading from and it was SWEET. I know a lot of that will likely ferment out but it certainly has potential. Fermentation was pretty furious for the first day, it's slowed significantly now after almost 2 days. I've never done a yeast cake batch or a beer this sweet before so it's all pretty new, fun territory.
I have pretty high standards for a cream stout so if it even meets the halfway bar I'll be pretty darned happy.

nb

Fenster said:

Baking soda or barkeepers friend will get that scorch mark off for you.

Click to expand...

I was thinking baking soda so that solidifies my plans. I'll have to read up on barkeepers friend. Thanks for the insight.

nb

A quick update to this thread...I took this brew to the local homebrew club and it was met with pretty good praise (I got a "this is a really good milk stout" from at least one of the senior members; not bad for my first real meeting and first brew share). I was walking (more appropriately, stumbling) pretty tall that night. Everyone that tastes it says that it is better than Mackeson's XXX, which is what I was shooting for. This was easily my best brew to date (the cream ale may be better, dunno yet), and it was totally on a whim and used old as hell ingredients.

nb