Kit Best Before End Dates

[will]

I just bought some gear off of a friend who has moved house - along with it was a tin of Geordie Yorkshire Bitter, but I just found out the BBE is October 2007. As I gave him a fair price I'm not wanting to chuck this, but is it okay to use being 14 months "out of date"? I bought a similar kit yesterday and that has a date of November 2010 on it.

[sparky Paul]

Yes, it'll be fine.

You should replace the out of date yeast, but I would replace it with Safale anyway.

[Lillywhite]

Most kits on the shelves have a Best Before Date of around 20-24 months. You should get another yeast as SP recommends and you may find that your brew comes up a bit darker since malt extract tends to get darker with age whilst still in the tin but it shouldn't affect the taste of the brew. Just imagine you're drinking mild.

[will]

For prosperity: I used the yeast on a turbo cider and it's been fermenting brilliantly! I still haven't put the kit on, but I'll be using some Safale S-04 for that. I'll post how that goes.

[Ashflash]

I once brewed a kit that was 18 months out of date, using the yeast that came with it and it was fine.

[StrangeBrew]

I always check the bbe date in my lhbs as they will normally knock a bit off the price.
Recently bought two Coopers Stout kits, out of date in October 08 and got them for £7 each!
They had more on the shelf but I didn't have the cash in my pocket at the time so I'll pop in again and strike up a deal.