Kit + Kilo Stout HBC?

[Greg2013]

Having somewhat settled in the new gaff i badly need to get a Christmas beer on pronto and have decided a kit+kilo stout is the way to go.I am ordering some more bits from HBC over the next couple days so i am looking for suggestions on a decent straight up kit+kilo stout from there please.Have not done a kitnKilo in so long and the range has expanded immensly,TIA. 

Edit: Either kitnkilo or one of the kits below.

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/beercider-kits-hbc-full-extract-kits-23lts-c-1_216.html

[johnrm]

Listening to Palmer and Zainasheff, they reckon that kits should be good once they're fresh and have been stirred correctly.
They did a side by side at one point.
Same kit, one fresh, one old and stanky.
The fresh one was pretty solid, the old one thin and lifeless.
My experience of kits has been mixed, I suspect storage and age may have contributed to a mediocre result in some cases.
Not sure what the homebrew shops stance is on kits- all kits that I brewed would have come from them.

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[johnrm]

I thought you were AG? Why risk a kit and kilo, just go for a mash kit.

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[Greg2013]

I thought you were AG? Why risk a kit and kilo, just go for a mash kit.

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I am AG and the short version is i had to offload all my AG gear and kegs etc to a friend for safe keeping as i have no room here to store them.All i kept was my peco boiler and a couple bucket fvs.Everything else stock wise has been depleted pre moving so i am starting from scratch.I just figured a kitnkilo was the easiest option is all,in saying that i just remembered HBC do extract mash kits also so i might go for one of those instead.

[Greg2013]

Edited OP.

[LordEoin]

Go with the Coopers Irish Stout (not the international stout) + a kilo of DME.
As usual, some steeped speciality malt will improve things. It doesn't really matter which one.
You can even stick with the kit  yeast on this one, it's pretty much us05 if i remember correctly.

[johnrm]

@le, any improvement in resulting beers vs freshness of kits in your experience?
How can you tell how fresh or well handled a kit is anyway?

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[LordEoin]

There's no real way to estimate it's freshness apart from the best before date and the julian date on the yeast pack.
But it's like a tin of beans. The contents are nothing like the fresh ingredients but remain stable for a long time provided there are no dents etc. Any harm to the freshness has been done in the processing and should be replaced with some speciality grains or hops or whatever you're into.
it's difficult to estimate the freshness of a mashkit too. How long has the grain been sitting? is the packaging airtight? How was it stored? etc
I bought a bag of crushed malt from a shop a while back and although it was still in date it was crushed 6 months previously.

[Greg2013]

There's no real way to estimate it's freshness apart from the best before date and the julian date on the yeast pack.
But it's like a tin of beans. The contents are nothing like the fresh ingredients but remain stable for a long time provided there are no dents etc. Any harm to the freshness has been done in the processing and should be replaced with some speciality grains or hops or whatever you're into.
it's difficult to estimate the freshness of a mashkit too. How long has the grain been sitting? is the packaging airtight? How was it stored? etc
I bought a bag of crushed malt from a shop a while back and although it was still in date it was crushed 6 months previously.

See that's the part that worries me about mashkits too,i don't know if they are all bagged up with the yeast and hops and then left sitting until someone buys them or if they are done on an as needed basis.I know i am overthinking this again guys sorry.I went ag but i have nothing against doing an extract kit though.Only one way to find out fecking buy something and brew it and see eh 

[Leann ull]

All the HBS make them up fresh, you couldn't have that many mash kits preassembled.
If your ag gear in in temporary storage the best kits I ever did were the 2 can St. Peter's kits which were very close to the real thing, that was before mangrove jacks showed up on the scene though, anybody ever do a comparison