Hi all! This is my 1st post so maybe a bit of an introduction before I ask my question… I’ve been brewing for over 3 year. It all started when my wife and son gave me a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas as sort of a joke and it went downhill from there! For the past year I’ve been brewing all grain and love the challenge of it and of course the beer!
Now my question… I picked up a sealed 10# bag of Muntons maris otter about a year ago and it has been stored in my basement. This was bought from a party store that was closing out all of their brewing supplies so I don’t know how long it sat there. I would like to hear personal experience of fellow brewers that have brewed with old malt and how the beer turned out. The reason I’m stressing personal experience is that the internet is full of “armchair experts” but that isn’t need right now.
Personal Experience: taste it. If something tastes stale you will know it, otherwise it’s good to go in. Worst case is that homebrew compost is really good, yet takes time. It’s worthwhile to taste all ingredients before using.
I have two negative experiences with old malt, but they were both packaging issues. One was open in a shed in Florida in the summer and was crawling with roaches. I used it anyway and got poor efficiency, but it tasted OK. The other was also treated the same way, but I think the maltster may not have dried it well enough, so that and the humidity here made it soft instead of crunchy. Efficiency also suffered, but taste was good.
So if the container was sealed properly and the grain isn’t soft, it’s fine.
That is nasty. There is a beer store here that decided to dabble in homebrew ingredients. They bought crushed grain in 1 pound packs. I saw weevils crawling in one of the bags. I know it is supposedly ok but I passed.
If the grain remained relatively dry in the sack then you should be fine. Taste it and see how it tastes. If it is bland tasting then it’s going to make bland beer. If you see mold or mildew on the grain then toss it for sure.
A couple years ago I found a bag of grain I had bought to make a beer about eighteen months prior and forgotten to brew. I went ahead and brewed the beer. The grain held up and the beer was fine.
I have 3 bags of Weyermann Bohemian Pils malt dated best before Oct. 15/2015. It is still fine. My basement isn’t that cool in the summer and I was kind of worried how it would affect my beer. I did buy a few bags too many in our group buy, but everything seems to be fine as far as I can tell. I should invest in some of those gamma pails.