Rennet and sell-by/expiry dates.

[ocailleagh]

Spurred on by the cheese thread below, I decided to give some halloumi a bash, but on checking the bottle of VegeRen I have here, I noticed its date was up in December 2008...will it still be useable do you think? I'd hate to buy a bunch of goat's milk only for it to be wasted... All advice welcomed :-)

[Green Aura]

Just try a few drops in a little cows milk and see if it works. Wasting half a pint of cows milk might be worth it?

I have no recollection of any smell, so maybe if it's smelly don't use it.

Edited to add - I don't usually go much by expiry dates, I don't believe things ping into unuseableness on a certain date. So I take them as a guideline that I need to check the item out - look smell etc.

[ocailleagh]

Heh..I didn't think of doing that sometimes I am blonde beyond the telling Thanks GA :-)

I'm not usually one for paying attention to the dates on thngs either, just figured that since its all enzymey, it may be dead by now...?

[benner]

Mine has an expiry date of Dec 2007 it worked fine a couple of months ago.

[Rosendula]

There are some things I have always kept long past their times-up date, but there were others, like meat and dairy products that I used to always throw away when they were past their date. These days, I've wised up a bit, partly thanks to good advice from Ishers, and partly because I also felt it was a bit odd that something would be fine to eat at 11:59pm, but was supposedly 'off' a minute later.

My son showed me the date on a 6 pint bottle of milk he was about to open, asking me if he should use it as it was 2 days past the use-by date. I told him if it looks OK, smells OK and tastes OK, it's OK (something else I learned here. Can't remember who said it though, sorry.) We finally threw the last little bit away this morning, 4 days after the use-by date.

[Annpan]

Ooooh I have past BB veg rennet in the cupboard that I forgot about

Rosey, I read just yesterday that milk, sealed and chilled (ie not allowing nasties to get a hold on it) can last 10 days past it's BB. Though I had to force my Sister to throw out a pre-made supermarket pasta salad, 2 days past - it smelled OK but you have no idea what is in these things and what bacteria could have got in.... I also made myself VERY sick once by drinking banana milkshake a few days past

So my rule is now.... anything that is in it's raw state is fine to judge by look, smell, taste.

[ocailleagh]

I completely agree on the whole best before thing generally, like I say, I was just worried it'd be too old to be effective.
Thanks benner btw :-)