I got a brewing kit from a friend and it has some ingredients. I don't like to waste anything, but I don't want to ruin a batch of beer either, so I was curious if I should use the malt extract. It may be around 10 years old or so... I was thinking of using it for a yeast starter. The cans are in good shape, no bulging or anything. Any thoughts?

Peter

so, liquid... I wouldn't use it in a beer!

Like you suggest, use it for starters

Starter

Does LME breakdown in a canned environment? Is there some chemical reaction that affects LME that has been canned in what I assume is a shelf safe container? Also if it is good enough for a starter. why would it be bad for a batch of beer? Where would the freshness go in a sealed can? If it were me I would open it, Look at it, smell it and my guess is that I would most likely make beer with it. Not to disagree with the more experienced brewers above but I hate wasting also.

Dan Listermann has pretty much identifed the cause of "cidery" beer as old LME. The working hypothesis at this point is that it's due to a degradation of FAN.

No wonder all of my extract brews tasted bad.

Right on DavidS..LOL

Someone gave me an eight year old can of Brewmart Dutch Pils. I decided to test whether or not yeast nutrient or yeast energizer could stave off the cidery flavors associated with old extract. I made three gallons of wort and split it among three imperial gallon jugs. One was kept as a control and the other two were treated. All were pitched with a full pack of US56.

First the Pils wort, at eight years old, was very literally as black as stout. I expected darkening, but never that level.

Upon bottling, I was very surprised that there was no cidery flavors in any of the three samples.

Turning this over in my mind, I began to recall an early brewing experience. In 1988 a friend of my brother had two tons of DME in his garage. The trouble was it made bad beer. Looking back, I can see that the problem was stale DME that produced a hyper sweet cidery flavor. There was a single exception to this. It was a batch where I decided to dump a bunch of spare yeast packs. It turned out fine. I thought that I had hit on the right yeast to prevent the problem, but could never figure out which one it was.

I am beginning to think that the cidery problem is more complex than simply stale extract. I think it has to do with yeast reproduction. The two batches that should have produced cidrey flavors both had over pitching in common. I think maybe that nutrients degrade in extract in time. If the yeast needs to reproduce in the low nutrient environment it produces the cidery flavor. If enough yeast is pitched that it does not need to reproduce much, the flavor is not produced.

I am going to try to find some old extract and split a batch pitching varying amounts of yeast, underpitching some and over pitching others. If I can't find old extract, I might just use Cooper's which has, at least in my experience, usually produced the cidery flavor.

Anybody have a nice can of old extract? I can make a deal!

Dan
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Dan, thanks so much for updating your data!