Old supplies

Hey all, wasnt sure where to put this, so it ended up here.

an old ex-homebrewer and i got talking today and he was generouse enough to give me all his old supplies

Amongst a load of primary fermenters, siphoners, funnels a recipe book (looks pretty awsome, mainly wines and the odd beer) and plenty of other gadgets and gizmos, he gave me a load of chemicals. By that i mean things like Campeden tablets, sweetener, acids, yeast nutriants, the list goes on.

So im just wondreing if those "chemicals" will still be ok? he says he bought them around 1975-80, so they are pretty old.

Just thought id check before i go ahead and throw them into a brew heh.

cheers

Well, I personally wouldn't use chemicals that old, but if you're making beer you wouldn't be anyway. Beer doesn't really require chemicals except for sanitation, and maybe some gypsum for water Ph. Never had to use yeast nutrient.

I'd also pick up a more recent homebrewing tome, a LOT has changed over the years. I'm still a n00b, but I've read old recipes that people have posted that call for just "hops," for example. The quality and the variety of ingredients you can get today is much higher than what was available when the beer recipes in that book were developed.

Most of the chemicals are likely to be ok IF the packages are still sealed. Otherwise, I'd toss them. Wine making requires many things you don't need for brewing, anyway.

ahh ok, tis a shame

thanks any way people!

If his gift included tubing, I would recommend ditching that as well. Fermenters and the like should be fine but tubing is cheap and easy to replace (Home Depot, Lowe's, places like that).

yea ive got my own tubing and his looked a bit grotty =/

ahh well, still plenty of usable stuff =)