Found some old kits... I trust they are brewable?

Lucky me... my wife has been clearing out the 'cupboard under the stairs'; I get home from work tonight to find two Woodeforde kits and a brupaks kit have emerged from that sacred place. This has rather shaped the answer to "what will you first brew in '25?" and also "will you invest in AG yet?", but poses some questions of its own.

Do I boil the wort? I tend not to, under the sound belief that these things are canned sterile, and than canned products have no real shelf life - only a made-up one, so I'm thinking "no"?

Do I replace the yeast - and what with? Again, I'm going to guess that yeast, dried and vac-packed, will do its thing upon rehydration. But if not? Any new sachet of brewer's yeast? The cupboard is dark, dry, constant temperature. The yeast is showing a best before date of October '22, which probably dates the kits.

The brupaks kit (Colne Valley Bitter) has hop pellets. Now, these niff delightfully already - which I presume means they have spent several years imparting their odour in to the cupboard. I also presume these are candidates for replacement... and so... with what? My preference would be to add the 'hop tea' in the fermenting bucket. So do I buy new hops? (which?) Can I get the same effect if I use hop oil?

Many thanks for reading :).

You won't go far wrong with Nottingham yeast or any generic Ale yeast. As for adding some hops...do you know what came with the kit? I don't think adding something like east Kent goldings would harm.

arent those no boil kits. - no i wouldnt boil no matter how old the kits are .
older liquid malt extract tends to darken with age . boiling it will only make it even more dark.

yes likely replace the yeast. it will still prolly work but age can lead to a longer lag time which i have noticed results in less than optimum beer quality. not due to the longer lag itself but possibly due to the fact that the long lag implies older stressed yeast which can cause issues in the final product.

any standard ale yeast will work like notty or so4 etc. but lately i like bry 97 a lot for clean ale ferments.

if you can already smell the hops then they are not sealed and likely oxidized. throw them out. i have had old hops impart a cheesy flavor to beer even though they smelled decent prior to adding them to the boil. not worth the 2-3 dollars IMO.

almost any hop you have lying around will do. anything will be better than nothing. but if you want to stick to style then choose a hop that was originaly meant for the kit. it depends on the style.


i have found adding a hop tea will work well sometimes. either at packaging or in FV.

the hop oil question is a big one.

hop oil adds mostly bitterness some flavor and little aroma.

deteremning how much bitterness to add will be difficult without first brewing the kit on its own without hop oil additions so thats not an option.

there are new hop terpenes that only add aroma or aroma/flavor without bitterness and a combination of hop oil and terpenes would likely do a lot for any kit. you may also be able to get to the same exact place with hop teas.

I've done out of date kits before, never done anything different except replace the yeast. Any decent ale yeast will do, Fermentis Safale S-04 has always been my go to. I've learnt the lesson about out of date yeasts in the past, either they just don't start or at best the initial fermentation is weak, simply not worth the risk for the sake of a few £ for a new packet.

I recently found 3 kits, in box never opended since moving house. 1x ginger beer, 1x Woodeforde Norfolk Wherry, 1x Bards Bitter and 1x St Peter's Ruby Red. And a couple of plastic wrapped DME packs that had gone completely solid.
All around 6 year out of date!

The DME, added to a part mash brew, was fine. But needed 36 hours in hot water, to gradually get folds of plastic out of the solid blocks.

St Peter's Ruby Red, with new Nottingham yeast, was just as I remembered it. But Bards bitter, also with new notty, was definately lacking. It must have needed new hops. The kit didn't include separate hops, so hadn't thought of needing replacement(s). But now guess, kit must have included hops in the malt tin.

For me, as I now have kit for doing AG, I'd probably just boil remaining Woodeforde kit up, with hop additions at 60 & 15 min. (Though the kits were all 'non-boil', in that instructions were to mix with boiling water, then top up with cold.)
I'm not sure why fluketamer is against boiling those, as I'd guess they're now, basically just malt.

peterpiper said:

I recently found 3 kits, in box never opended since moving house. 1x ginger beer, 1x Woodeforde Norfolk Wherry, 1x Bards Bitter and 1x St Peter's Ruby Red. And a couple of plastic wrapped DME packs that had gone completely solid.
All around 6 year out of date!

The DME, added to a part mash brew, was fine. But needed 36 hours in hot water, to gradually get folds of plastic out of the solid blocks.

St Peter's Ruby Red, with new Nottingham yeast, was just as I remembered it. But Bards bitter, also with new notty, was definately lacking. It must have needed new hops. The kit didn't include separate hops, so hadn't thought of needing replacement(s). But now guess, kit must have included hops in the malt tin.

For me, as I now have kit for doing AG, I'd probably just boil remaining Woodeforde kit up, with hop additions at 60 & 15 min. (Though the kits were all 'non-boil', in that instructions were to mix with boiling water, then top up with cold.)
I'm not sure why fluketamer is against boiling those, as I'd guess they're now, basically just malt.

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I would not personally boil the Woodfordes kit as suggested - you will be adding to the bitterness (which is already there) and boiling off hop flavour (some of which I expect is still there). If you boiled the full kit with water you would also have to boil it with loads of water in orde to get the best out the hops. I would make a hop.tea or dry hops it.