Use Or Lose?

[beer_baron]

Hi guys,

New to the brewing business but have caught the bug real bad.

I am planning to brew a big arse Amarillo monster tomorrow and need some advice. I have some light crystal left over from a previous brew, that I bought and opened about two months ago. The remaining portion has been stored in a tupperware container in the bottom of the cupboard.

Can I still use this or should I buy some fresh stuff? Is it OK to store your malts this way between brews? And if so, how long until they should used?

Any advise will be much appreciated.

Cheers,
BB.

 

[Mr Bond]

uncracked and sealed away in a dark place it will be fine for at least 12 months.

 

[razz]

If it looks and smells okay, and it's not moving, go for it.

 

[Aaron]

The grain will be fine if you have stored it that way. I have about 100kg of grain stored in air tight containers in my shed. There are others brewers that store much more.

 

[lucas]

i wouldnt consider myself any authority but if as razz says, it looks and smells fine, I'd boil it up to make sure there's nothing nasty in it and throw it in

 

[lucas]

ill make a note that i was assuming it was a crystal malt extract you were talking about

 

[beer_baron]

uncracked and sealed away in a dark place it will be fine for at least 12 months.

It was a 500gm pre-cracked bag from the local HBS. Have no idea how long it has been sitting on their shelf before I came along.

 

[Justin]

For the price of crystal, I would just buy a fresh bag and be done with it. No point risking using an old bag that's precracked though I would hazard a guess it would be fine. Given you only had a 500g bag to start with there obviously must be less than 500g left. So chances are you have to buy more anyway to make up enough for the batch. I'd just buy a new bag.

Grain and Grape sell a kilo of crystal malt for $3.95, therefore a half kilo is under $2 and you have less than a half kilo there. We're talking about trying to save a dollar worth of grain, hardly going to break the bank to buy another 500g bag. Up to you.

If you had a 25kg unopened bag of malt I'd say use it, but your talking about next to nothing.

Cheers, Justin

 

[beer_baron]

fair point

cheers guys.