Old malt extract

[janho]

I’ve got about 20liters of liquid malt extract that I forgot about, problem is, a bit of mould grew on top. Do you think I could scoop off the mould and use it to make a whiskey wash? Would the mould impart weird tastes to the distillate?

It would be such a shame to throw it away.

[rubelstrudel]

I believe that would be perfectly OK. You're adding yeast anyway to convert the sugars. A bit of wild yeast/mold will not make much of a difference.

If you're worried about infections, just boil the syrup with a bit of water first. That will kill all the nasties.

[fizzix]

If cans, make sure they're not bulging of course.
Botulism is no way to go through the holidays.

There's a few dispersed threads at Home Brew Talk regarding expired LME
that say to expect a darker and sweeter beer than fresh LME of the same type.
(You can go there and search "Expired LME" if you want.)
As with anything in life, many report the best/worst beer they ever made using it.

Since LME is boiled when making beer, I'm with rubelstrudel in boiling yours for distillation.

[janho]

Thanks Guys I will give feedback on the end product


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[OtisT]

Hi Janho. I’ve made two batches of whiskey from slightly moldy LME and both batches turned out just fine. In both cases, my local brew store gave me the LME for free because the beer makers would not want it. I did heat it up, mixed with water, to 160-170F before tossing in my ferment barrel, just to be sure the mold was dead.

Otis