friend left me a bunch of ingredients.. help me make beer out of them!

[vonshu]

So my friend left town for a while and left me with a bunch of beer making supplies. I've been reading on the topic of brewing for a while but am still pretty much a noob. I was hoping I could list all of the stuff I have and somebody could give me some pointers on how to make them into tasty brew.

I have

box 1

-5 gal carboy
-Packet of Thomas Coopers Yeast
-Coopers Carbonation Drops
-Muntons CarbTabs
-4 Packets of Red Star Pasteur Champagne Active Dry Wine Yeast 052 (Best by Jan 2014 but I figure they'll still be ok.)
-packet of muntons active brewing yeast
-Several airlocks and rubber stoppers
-6ish lbs of Corn Sugar (dextrose)
-5 oz of priming sugar (dextrose)
-1.8kg Muntons Connoisseurs IPA Bitter 40 pint beer kit (ingr: 100% hopped malt extract (malted barley, hops, water), dried brewing yeast) (BB Sept 2012, so is this too far past its prime?)
-1.7 kg Thomas Coopers Premium Selection Australian Bitter (pure malted barley, hops, and yeast) (BB April 2010.. is this too old to use successfully?)
-1.5 kg Thomas Coopers Light Malt Extract (Says 209/09 on the bottom, not sure if that's the BB date, but if so seems pretty old)
-1.5 kg Brewferm Homebrew Kit Type Diabolo (ingr: hopped malt extract, yeast in separate satchet) (BB June 2013)

box 2

-1 gal carboy
-cane
-stopper and airlock
-1.25 lb. Craft a Brew Briess Pilsen Light dried malt extract (malted barley, water)
-Small packet each of aroma and bittering and flavoring hops
-packet of muntons active brewing yeast
-thermometer
-a bag of whole "specialty grains"


I don't necessarily need or want to use everything in one batch... just listing everything I have. And I'm looking to make a relatively high abv brew, preferably 7-10% if possible. Thanks for any advice!

 

[andy6026]

All the beer kits are still good, but you'll need fresh yeast for them.

The champaign yeast you can likely get away with too, but I'm not sure that it's particularly well suited to any of the kits you have (I wouldn't use it on the IPA or Aus bitter, but I don't know about the Daibolo)

The things you're missing that is almost essential are:

A Bottling bucket
A Bottling Wand
Bottles

So, the kits are fairly straightforward. They're likely either 5 or 6 gallon kits. You want to boil as much of that volume of water as you can (leaving about 1/3rd volume of your largest pot as headspace for avoiding hot-break boil-over). Once the water is boiling, take it off the heat and dump in the can. Stir it up. Then cool it down as fast as possible (ice-bath is best given lack of 'immersion chiller'). Pour it into your sanitized fermenter and top off with more water (preferably sterilized water) so that you end up with the 5-6 volume total. Oxygenate as best as possible (either shake it vigorously, or use a sanitized paint stirrer attachment on an electric drill), then put the lid on the fermenter, hook up a blow-off tube (look it up on here) and let it ferment keeping an active eye on the temperature. Wait 3 weeks, then bottle it.

Repeat for the other kits.

Building a recipe out of the extract and specialty grains is a little bit more 'blind' and you'll need to pick up some hops. I recommend starting with the kits first.

 

[andy6026]

I just noticed that you're looking for higher ABV beer. Just guessing but those kits are probably around 4-5.5 %. One thing you can do is simply reduce the water ratio when mixing the can in. Imagine it like making orange juice from concentrate. If you like it stronger, then simply use less water.

Another route would be to add some of the malt extract, some extra hops etc. I won't guess right now at how much extra, but 1-2 lbs would probably do it. And if you want 'hoppiness' then adding an extra 3-4 ounces of hops wouldn't hurt either.

 

[rodwha]

I'm not so sure how those outdated cans will be. I bought a few barely outdated (1-3 mod), but they obviously were kept in the garage as they all tasted much like molasses. These were Mr Beer kits that I used DME in place of the booster, and split US-05 yeast and added hops at 20 and 5 mins.

It's certainly worth giving the newest one a try to see. Maybe if it were stored well it would be OK. But don't get your hopes up. If nothing else it can give you a little experience (my first two were a flop).

 

[rodwha]

You also need a hydrometer and a means to regulate the temperature. Use a large plastic storage tote with water, and drink up a bunch of 2 liter sodas. Fill them with water and freeze them. You'll need at least 3 or 4, and I also had plenty of other bottles to help.

You'd be best to use a fermometer to check the beer's temp, but you can get close enough by using a floating thermometer in the water and assume the beer is about 5* warmer than the water.

And to aerate I use a whisk. Easy and quick!

 

[Alistechbumb]

If all else fails, you could split all that up between us that commented...lololol.

Seriously though brew it up. Practice with the older extract kit first and then work up from there. It will all be "drinkable" so give it a shot. Maybe get the feel and then brew your buddy a nice batch with some of the grain and extract. I had almost the same thing happen to me and ended up finding a decent recipe so I kegged my buddy up some, he was super appreciative! Have fun, brew, drink, it is the way of the force!

 

[kh54s10]

Personally, I would use the kits as they are, with some new yeast. I would then learn a bit more about brewing, then, try to use some of the ingredients to make a stronger brew.

I would not expect too much out of the older kits though......

As others have noted your are short on some pieces of equipment.

 

[KepowOb]

I'd stay away from expired kits personally. A new one isn't expensive, and it'll greatly increase your chances of making something that tastes good. Liquid extract doesn't age well.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[MindenMan]

It is possible the liquid extracts are oxidized, and may not taste good, but they might not be bad as well. Since the gear you got was free, you may as well use it, with new yeast and hops of course. You mention you would like to make a high gravity beer for your first beer, I also suggest you make it according to the recipe and ingredients you have. As long as you are using extracts, you don't really need to have a thermometer,as long as you let the wort cool down far enough to not kill the yeast, and not shock the carboy into breaking. Use anyway possible to cool your wort after boiling it. What I mean is, take the pot, you just boiled in, keep the cover on and set it into a sink with cold water, changing the water until the water no longer feels warm to the touch, and then you can pitch the yeast into the wort. Just make sure everything is clean and sanitized before letting the wort touch it, or your beer may get infected.