Old ingredients

I haven't brewed for about 5 years. After teaching a friend to brew recently I've decided to blow the dust off of my equipment and start brewing again.

In addition to the equipment, I have tons of ingredients left from when I was brewing all the time.

I have a large variety of hops that are still vacuum sealed and have been in the freezer the entire time.

I have yeast that has been in the refrigerator. I'm not so worried about this. I can do cultures and starters, so the age should not be a problem.

I have a couple of hundred pounds of specialty grains. The grain has been sealed in plastic bags and kept in plastic bins.

I also have a full unopened bag of the undermodified Budvar malt that was stored in a closed bin as well.

So, my questions are these.

Which method is the best for predicting the hop degradation in bitterness and aroma?

I'm assuming the specialty grains should be okay to use. I do have a few that were milled. I was planning on tossing those, but would they have any use?

Would the amount of roast make the milled grains more usable? ie milled light crystal vs milled black patent

What is the effect of age on base malts and other malts like munich, cara-pils, etc? What about malts like chocolate or caramel wheat, chocolate rye, peated malt, etc.

I'm going to use that Budvar malt. It is no longer available or I'd consider just getting a new bag. I'll be doing a double or triple decoction on it. Any thoughts on this?

I've looked around and I have not seen anything addressing old malt characteristics. Is there some resource I've missed?

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Beersmith has a tool that tells you how much alpha acids have been lost after X months. And it's free for twenty one days or something like that. The rest of your questions I can't be much help though. Sorry

The hop age tool in beersmith uses a hop storage index (HSI) to calculate loss in bitterness. This HSI is user editable and the default number of 25% seems arbitrary to me. There is no explanation of how to know what the true HSI is.

I would chew on some of the grains and see how they taste before using any of them. 5 years is a pretty long time.

The beersmith I have on my computer put a different HSI for each type of hops and asks for storage temp. But true that could still be innacurate

If the grains a just a bit stale smelling you can freshen them by lightly toasting them on a sheet pan in a low oven. But 5 years... At best I think you will not get any flavor profile out of them. At worst they may be rancid.

Munching them is probably a good idea, but you will probably know by the smell. If they were mine, I'd give them a sniff when I first opened the container/bag, and if they smell good, I would toast them and go. I would pitch the milled grains.

Please let us know what your results are. I would bet no one on this board has knowingly used 5 year old grains. Except some funky belgian??

+1 or +2 on chucking the milled grain. Why don't you go ahead and mill a few pounds of your base malts and see how it smells. If that smells rancid then it will be chuckable too. You never know! Not sure how you have stored the grains anyway. After you've milled it and it smells alright to you then brew a batch. What could hurt? A little lost time, water and effort.

I've used uncracked grain that was going on a year and have not had any problems. I keep mine stored in rubbermaid bins inside the house with temps in the mid 70's.

As far as your hops are concerned, if they have been kept frozen they should be okay. But watch out for freezer burn. You can tell if you have freezer burn and it will look wilted, dry and old with ice crystals on it. Ever seen frozen broccoli that has freezer burn. But if your bags of hops have never been opened then take a good look at em and smell them too. I believe if they smell "cheesey" then don't use or try them out.

Not sure if your yeast is either dry or vials or smackpack. I know that I tried to start some in a smackpack that was over a year old and it just didn't work. Dry yeast if stored in the fridge is usually good even after a year. But try it anyway, depending on what you have. YOU NEVER KNOW TILL YOU TRY.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think old hops are ideally suited for lambics. You get the preserving characteristics without the added bitterness from the alpha acids. If I had a pile of old hops I'd look into making a lambic. I might be wrong. That's my two cents, for what its worth.

Grain was stored in sealed bags in plastic bins at about an average of sixty degrees.

The yeast is a combo of vial and smack packs. I am sure if I streak them and step them up everything will be okay with the yeast.

Assuming the hops are not cheesy, I guess I'll just make a guess at the IBUs. I was just hoping to figure out a way to calculate for my recipes.

Part of my desire not to throw things out is the fact that I had gathered some hard to find ingredients that I can't get anymore.

I guess I'll be the guinea pig for this experiment and update this with the results of my experiences as I go along.

Fire up the kettle, throw in some ingredients, and brew! What the hell....you already have the ingredients, all it will cost you is some heat and some time. You may be pleasantly surprised!

Jim Karr said:

Fire up the kettle, throw in some ingredients, and brew! What the hell....you already have the ingredients, all it will cost you is some heat and some time. You may be pleasantly surprised!

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+1

Why not get back into the a swing of things w/the stuff you already have. At least if it tastes bad, or you mess up, it's not big loss.