I brewed yesterday for the first time in probably 5 years. I brewed an extract kit Allagash Grand Cru kit. The kit was probably 2 years old. I thought that I had put the hops in the freezer, but apparently I had just left them in the box. The yeast pack was expired by a year (given the quarantine, I couldn't go out to get fresh supplies). Everything went pretty well until the end. The hops didn't appear to be dried out and had a moderate aroma.
A few questions:
1. Do you think I am OK having used a slap pack of yeast that is a year old. It hadn't fully expanded the pack like I had remembered in the past, though there seems to be some yeast activity this morning.
2. The recipe had a target ABV of 5.7% and I wanted to bump that up a bit, so I added some dextrose that I bought for a wine I have planned. I added 1# in the 5 gallon recipe. The OG was targeted at 1.06 and ended up a hair under 1.07. I understand that I must wait for FG to know for sure, but I am just looking for a ballpark alcohol percentage that the pound of dextrose may end up adding. I am guessing there is a rule of thumb.
3. I didn't not have enough ice and I have a well issue that is reducing my water pressure. Bottom line, it took around 3 hours to cool the wort. The pot that I am using is only 5 gallon, so I went very close to the top. I was unable to put the lid back on. I topped it off with well water added directly (not preboiled or conditioned). I had the lid of for probably an hour and a half, I am concerned this may be an issue. In the meantime, I had read it should be covered, so I transferred to my fermentation bucket, put the lid on and let it cool in that. I pitched the yeast around 72 degrees. I was more concerned with how long it had taken to cool then getting the temp down to 68 degrees as called for.
All of that said, what is the likely impact of what I did here.
Side note would be that I followed every direction to a T, was very finicky about sanitizing, temps were good, timing was good, no overflows. Only thing that went wrong was I through the plastic stop into the fermenter lightly and it hit the top of the hydrometer, bounced it into the bottom and broke off, I couldn't believe it, but lesson learned...
Here is the recipe (HBS subbed out some ingredients due to stock, but in my haste, I kept no record):
Extract:
6.6 # Wheat LME
Grains:
1# Pale
8 Oz. Crystal
8 Oz. White Wheat
1 tbs Smoked
Additives:
1 # Clear Candy Sugar
1 Oz. Sweet Orange Peel
1/2 Oz. Star Anise
1# Dextrose (added to bump ABV)
Hops:
1 Oz. Brewer's Gold (9.7AA)
Yeast:
Wyeast #3944 Belgian Witbier
Thanks for any input.