celticdevildog
Well-Known Member
My brother-in-law used to do some homebrewing but decided to stop a few years ago. He heard that I was brewing and so gave me what equipment he had left and two beer recipe kits. I figure, what the hell they can't be that bad and if nothing else I can work on honing my skills with two free kits.
So here's the run down and a few questions for the masses:
1) They are both Munton's Hopped Malt Extract kits. One is 'Mexican Cerveza' and the other is 'Premium Pilsner'.
2) Both have a Best before date of Nov 2011. I have bought new yeast since I figured that part was really ka-putz but with the extract being canned will that go bad?
3) My experience so far is Non-hopped Extract with Specialty Grains. The directions for these kits fly in the face of everything I have learned on this site and from reading How to Brew and are the following:
1. Remove label and stand can in hot water for 5 minutes. Pour the can contents into the fermenter. Add 1kg sugar or Muntons Beerkit Enhancer.
2. Add 6 pints boiling water, top up with cold water to 6 gallons. Thoroughly mix to make sure all the contents are fully dissolved.
3. Stir in the yeast, cover the fermenter and leave to stand for 4-6 days and gravity shows less than 1.008.
Now, I have both a better bottle fermenter and a bucket fermenter (thanks to my brother-in-law). These instructions are telling me to mix everything in the fermenter which would automatically rule out my better bottle since I'm not getting anything other than liquid through the narrow opening at the top. Also, I'm fairly certain that adding boiling hot liquid to the fermenter is not exactly a good idea.
So, on to my questions.
1) Is it even worth trying to make these kits with them being expired 2 years ago?
2) Would it be better to heat the extract and sugar in hot water in my kettle and cool (like I have for every non-hopped kit I've done) and THEN transfer to the fermenter with top off water?
3) Am I over thinking it and this kit really is *that* easy to do and make beer.
I'd like to use these beers to help improve my temperature control with the fermentation but I don't want to waste my time and have a bad batch to start with.
Am I crazy?
So here's the run down and a few questions for the masses:
1) They are both Munton's Hopped Malt Extract kits. One is 'Mexican Cerveza' and the other is 'Premium Pilsner'.
2) Both have a Best before date of Nov 2011. I have bought new yeast since I figured that part was really ka-putz but with the extract being canned will that go bad?
3) My experience so far is Non-hopped Extract with Specialty Grains. The directions for these kits fly in the face of everything I have learned on this site and from reading How to Brew and are the following:
1. Remove label and stand can in hot water for 5 minutes. Pour the can contents into the fermenter. Add 1kg sugar or Muntons Beerkit Enhancer.
2. Add 6 pints boiling water, top up with cold water to 6 gallons. Thoroughly mix to make sure all the contents are fully dissolved.
3. Stir in the yeast, cover the fermenter and leave to stand for 4-6 days and gravity shows less than 1.008.
Now, I have both a better bottle fermenter and a bucket fermenter (thanks to my brother-in-law). These instructions are telling me to mix everything in the fermenter which would automatically rule out my better bottle since I'm not getting anything other than liquid through the narrow opening at the top. Also, I'm fairly certain that adding boiling hot liquid to the fermenter is not exactly a good idea.
So, on to my questions.
1) Is it even worth trying to make these kits with them being expired 2 years ago?
2) Would it be better to heat the extract and sugar in hot water in my kettle and cool (like I have for every non-hopped kit I've done) and THEN transfer to the fermenter with top off water?
3) Am I over thinking it and this kit really is *that* easy to do and make beer.
I'd like to use these beers to help improve my temperature control with the fermentation but I don't want to waste my time and have a bad batch to start with.
Am I crazy?