What to do with Hopped Extract Kits?

A relative has given me 10 cans of hopped extract kits (2 Porter, 2 Stout, 2 Pale Ale etc)
Each is 4 lbs. I have never worked with these hopped kits before, I have always used un hopped, added my own hops and specialty grains.

Would it be best to just brew then in 5 gallon batches using 2 cans with no additions? Should I use two can with the additions of specialty grains and hops?Should I use one can plus extra unhopped malt and grains and hops?

A lot of the recipes in Clone Brews and Beer Captured are based on one can of extract plus extra dme, hops, and steeped grains.

You can do two-can batches with excellent results. The most important thing to remember about doing it is to add water to get the proper OG for the style. After that you're all good. Those doubles seem to take quite a while to mature in the bottle as well.
Hope this helps.

nerbl2001 said:

Would it be best to just brew then in 5 gallon batches using 2 cans with no additions? Should I use two can with the additions of specialty grains and hops?Should I use one can plus extra unhopped malt and grains and hops?

Click to expand...

Either of the last two sounds fine. For sure, you want to add some grains (even it it's just steeped 2-row) just to give it a spike of freshness.

you could throw some extra hops into the pale ales and make an IPA or something, but the problem is that you never know how much hoppiness is in those cans.

If I had these, and I had two of each kind, I would brew one up with additional DME and see how it was, and then tweak it with grain/hops/etc and use the second can. You'll at least get 5 good batches out of it this way, maybe even 10 good batches.


-walker

Do you boil hopped extracts? Somewhere here I thougth I read someone say you don't......

I used canned, hopped extract just over a year ago and it turned out well. I was shooting for an IPA and, believe it or not, it wasn't nearly hoppy enough, IMHO! But it made for a pretty good APA!

Here's the recipe I used.

Michael_Schaap said:

Do you boil hopped extracts? Somewhere here I thougth I read someone say you don't......

Click to expand...

You don't have to boil them, technically. But you can boil them for a short time if you want to ensure it is sanitary.

-walker

I would use one can with DME, specialty grains and hops for flavor/aroma. Ten home Brews! Woo Hoo!

Some people do some don't. Some kits have hop oils added for aroma and flavor, and if you boil those ones you'll obviously kill that effect. It's easy to get back with the addition of your own hops though. Usually the ingredients on the cans are pretty vague, they might say hop extracts but that's usually about it. It's a crap-shoot IMHO.

Remember that whether you use one or two cans... add grains... whatever. It all depends on what you want as far as alcohol, color, ect. Obviously 8lbs plus specialty grains will give a heavier beer then 4 lbs plus specialty grains. I would think that for something like a stout you would want 2 cans.... but with a light ale, 2 cans woudl be too much.... you know....