Stale ale.

[matth]

I thought I’d post this up as I have read conflicting reports of using old malt.

I have had a break from AG brewing for a few years due to having young children, but I had a few extract brews on the go and a load of old malt (crushed) in the garage - so I thought what’s the harm in just brewing with this and seeing what happens, I’ll mash the old malt, add some hops (the bittering hops were recovered from dry hopping) and then pitch the wort on to one of the extract brews leftover yeast in secondary - meaning I haven’t really spent much on this brew apart from a few extra hops.

The malt must be either 3 or 4 years old!! But has been in a plastic bag and tasted fine - definately didn’t taste fresh, but didn’t taste stale either.

The brew day was a bit of a disaster, but I am not using this brew to calculate anything, just a very cheep brew to see if I can get away with very old malt

I smashed my hydrometer, and in a hurry to replace it I bought the wrong one (a spirit one) which I didn’t realise until I tried to measure the sg of the wort. So I’ll just have to get a new one and wait till it’s finished and estimate how strong it is.


I’m aiming for a fairly light session ipa (hopefully the hops will make up for the malt)

Mashed at 63.5 degrees with a small rice addition.

Fermenting using S05

I’ll post the recipe below

 

[matth]

11 litre batch

Malt Bill
Maris Otter– 4°L 2.10 kg 1.038
Wheat, Pale - 1.5°L 0.50 kg 1.037
Pale Crystal Malt - 20L 0.20 kg
Cooked Rice– 1°L 0.10 kg 1.038

Estimate efficiency 60% due to age of malt

Hops
Random old dry hops (quite a bit of Amarillo in there) 60 min 15.00 g estimate 7.0%
Bouclier 60 min 10.00 g 7.0%
Pacific Gem 20 min 10.00 g 14.7%
Bouclier 20 min 10.00 g 7.0%
Pacific Gem 0 min 10.00 g 14.7%

Yeast
S05

Estimate 4.7% 62ibu

 

[matth]

A little update,
I brewed the above, plus another that had more lager malt, so I brewed something more akin to a lager with a Cali ale yeast fermented at 14-13 degrees which I then added a load of gooseberries too in secondary.

Both beers brewed as normal, and after bottle conditioning - are great, I can’t taste any staleness, yes there was a bit of a drop in efficiency, but not huge.

The first beer is a nice bitter pale ale, could of done with a bit more hop flavour/aroma for the ibu, but that’s my recipe not the malt (although some of the hops I had used had been in the freezer for 4+ years). the lagerish gooseberry beer i am really pleased with - I have had success this year with the Cali common yeast for more lager styles, but this has come out really interesting. It’s not obviously gooseberry, but it adds to the sourness - I’d say it’s a little bit like a smooth saison with a hint of gooseberry. I added the gooseberry in a bag but didn’t weight it. - so next time I think to have them more submerged might help in better fruit utilisation, although that could ramp up sourness too.

So my conclusion is - yes try to use fresh, but if you have old malt knocking around and it’s been sealed well and doesn’t taste stale just use it, it may be hard to get exact styles out of or to calculate for recipes, but you’ll still get beer - perfect time to be experimental.

 

[dwhite60]

Thanks for sharing. If stored well hops and malt both last quite a while. Last year I finished up some Centennial hops I had in the freezer about three years. I had open and closed these many times but they were always kept in the freezer.