Out of Date Can?

[Deep End]

I found a Coopers Mexican Cervaza at the back of my Cupboard, expired by two years. Is it worth mixing up? I figure the yeast has probably had the Richard, but I do have back up yeast. Is anything in the can going to be wrong? Cheers

 

[sp0rk]

boil the shit of out it
add some more hops and bob's your uncle, you should have a decent beer

 

[Deep End]

Boil it undiluted or add some water? I have no idea what to do with cans except K&K I have some hop pellets kicking around, would they do?

 

[jberries]

Yes add water, about 2 litres.

 

[sp0rk]

Yeah, 2-4 litres of water
what sort of pellets are they?

 

[Deep End]

Its a Brigalow Finishing Hop Tablet, spose to be added at the same time as the yeast.

 

[sp0rk]

you'll need to visit your LHBS to grab some pellet hops, you'll need enough for bittering, aroma and flavour
I suggest some cascade, lovely citrus/grapefruity flavours

 

[carniebrew]

I say throw it out, you have to spend more time & money to make it into beer, via DME, adjuncts, hops and yeast....all quite likely wasted.

BUT...can I warn you now...if you brew a beer from that can...then post back in a few weeks that it has a weird taste, and someone calls "kit twang, I got it in all my extract beers", I'm gonna go completely batshit postal!

 

[bum]

The goop will most likely be darker than fresh stuff - this probably isn't really important.

The malt may have taken on a metallic flavour - some people seem to be more sensitive to this flavour than others you may be one of those and not care.

Kits are pretty cheap though and fresh is best.

If you do boil the kit, the bitterness will not boil off as implied above. You'll only need to add flavour and aroma additions. [EDIT: unless you'd like it to be more bitter than the base kit but this is the same for all beers.]

Those finishing hop tablets will not do the job at all. They're designed to just add a bit on top of a "normal" kit (it is argued that they don't add much of anything desirable anyway and might be best used as a bin addition).

 

[sp0rk]

My bad, I'd been told a few times that boiling a kit can will drive off the existing bitterness
I didn't actually try it when i did kits, just went off what i was told

 

[bum]

I guess on a long enough timeline it might disappear but for normal homebrew boil lengths bitterness will certainly still be present.

But, honestly, if someone is going to the effort of doing what is essentially an extract batch, they really should just use unbittered extract. Much better beer.

 

[petesbrew]

2 years old? It's gonna taste like shit dude. I'm speaking from experience here.

You could always toucan or threecan it with other old kits, steep a bunch of spec malt, throw in a lot of sugar & some belgian yeast.

 

[mrkitewhitey]

Put a dollar-value on your time and effort. A new fresh kit will set you back $13ish.... Just go get one and KNOW that you'll not be affected by a potentially dodgy can.
Whitey

 

[GalBrew]

Dump it. I sure wouldn't bother with all the effort, go to Big W if you want a cheap tin of Coopers goo.

How much is your time worth?

 

[MaltyHops]

Dump it. I sure wouldn't bother with all the effort, go to Big W if you want a cheap tin of Coopers goo.

How much is your time worth?

Not using it to make beer is probably the go but don't dump it, keep it aside for making yeast starters when you get into that (if not already) - keep it somewhere cool if you can in the meantime.

I'm just into my last can, which is probably 5 years old now - pour it all into a wide tupper ware tub and 2 tablespoons into 500mL of boiling water makes about 1.045 starter wort. Stick tub into freezer when not using.