When there’s a sale going on for free kits with the purchase of something else, I always consider placing an order. But, since I’m new to this hobby, and I don’t (yet) have more than one batch brewing at a time, I was wondering how long of a shelf life you can expect for the ingredients in a kit (grains, DME, LME, dry or liquid yeast, etc). So, what do the experienced home brewers have to say? If I order a few kits at once, will the last one still be just as good if I don’t use it for maybe up to 6-8 months?
I’ve had great results with extract kits that are 5 months old including the dry yeast (refrigerated on arrival). All batches have brewed well and taste great.
Not sure about specialty grains though…these kits were simple LME/DME.
I’ve had NB’s extract kits sitting on my shelf for 18 months+ & used them. Did it make beer YES!, was it the best it could be? Well, maybe not but I drank it, seemed good at the time & I enjoyed em’
'nuff said, So hey, free is free…go for it if you need the supplies.
I would love an answer from the horses mouth on this, I had a similar scenario a little over a year ago. I emailed NB directly and never got a response.
I have gone as long as a year or so. Can’t say it was negatively impacted. I didn’t have a brand new kit to compare it to.
If you know you are going to stock up, the dry yeasts keep longer than liquid. Or just order fresher yeast a la carte closer to brew day.
