[Ed Meyer]

I almost started brewing about 25 years ago and just recently started again with extract brewing.  Came out very well at least I think so.  My question is when I quit about 25 years ago I stored all of my equipment, but also stored in a dry area about 40 pounds of 2 row grain.   
Is this still usable or should I just use it for bird seed.

Ed Meyer

[Stevie]

I would toss and buy new. ~$40 for new grain is better than brewing a possible dumper.

[HoosierBrew]

Yep, bird seed. Don't want your first beer back to make you frown. And welcome back !!

[klickitat jim]

Why not give it a go. Use the oldest packet of dry yeast you can find. Maybe the oldest hop pellets too. Might be fun experiment

[mbarnaby]

I would brew it up, I would do something like a braggot, saison, sour.  Something with strong flavors outside of the malt.  maybe just do a small test batch to try it out. 

[fmader]

Welcome back. This makes me chuckle a bit, because there's been several threads about people asking if grain is good after a year or so. If it was 5 years old, I'd say go with it. 25 years old, yeah, feed it to the winter starving animals. Aside from the question of it being stale or not, grain has come a long way as far as quality goes since the 80s.

[dannyjed]

please post a picture of this

[klickitat jim]

Dumping is the safe move. But who else has brewed a beer with ingredients that old? It might be awesome and before you know it homebrewers will be paying top dollar for aged malt.

[kramerog]

How does it taste?  First I would chew on some kernels.  If things are still promising, I would mix 1 pint of water with 2/3 of pound and heat to 155 F. After 20+ minutes taste the wort.  If still good, I would consider using it in a beer with strong flavors like stout.  It might be interesting in a beer that is supposed to be aged like a barleywine or an old ale.

[tommymorris]

Why not give it a go. Use the oldest packet of dry yeast you can find. Maybe the oldest hop pellets too. Might be fun experiment

Heah! How did you get my recipe for Old Ale?

[klickitat jim]

Why not give it a go. Use the oldest packet of dry yeast you can find. Maybe the oldest hop pellets too. Might be fun experiment

Heah! How did you get my recipe for Old Ale?

I knew it sounded to simple to be untrue