Strange instructions in my brother's first kit.

I've been brewing for quite awhile and have only done all-grain for the last 15 years. My brother, who lives 500 miles away, just started with his first extract kit. He called me to go over the procedure and his liquid extract based kit says he should hold 3 gallons of the wort at 170F for 1 hour, top up to make 5 gallons and pitch. No boil!? I told him that was crazy talk, but he insists it's written there in plain English. WTF?

There's a few no boil kits on the market. Even some 20 minute boil kits.

Coopers and high gravity come to mind. You don't have hop utilization to worry about since it is pre-hopped, all you are doing is to take it to pasturization temps.

If it's hopped extract, that's exactly what he should be doing. Pasteurize it, but don't boil off the hop character.

That doesn't sound right at all. If it's canned extract it shouldn't need to be heated other then to dissolve it. The process of canning is to minimize microbes to allow for storage without spoiling. And I would say holding a prehopped kit at 170 that long will have an adverse effect. Plus I don't think it takes near an hour to sanitize something at 170 degrees. Could it have been a typo?

No, it's right. You are not sanitizing the extract, you are sanitizing the water.

You could also boil ALL of the water you need ahead of time and only heat up enough water to help clean the leftover extract from the can if you want.

Once the water is boiled and sanitized, separate some of the water and chill in the fridge or freezer. Mix some hot water with the extract and stir to combine well. Then top that with a portion of the chilled water to cool it.

SOME kits are prehopped and don't need a boil to get the bitter out of the hops.

Ah. Now I remember that my first kit was pre-hopped back in the late 80's. Can't remember my procedure anymore. Anyway, thanks, cause I figure it's best for him to follow the directions exactly and avoid confusion.