Uh oh....

A friend brews with beer kits, and the kits regularly include a package of S-05. Not only that, but Pilsen dry malt extract already includes Carapils. There are many "Kolsches" made with both S-05 and Carapils. They're certainly not true to style, but for a new homebrewer, they're adequate.

 

The inclusion of US-05 and Carapils-containing DME are both compromises designed to sell easy extract kits to brewers who don't know or care about authenticity. Doesn't make them Kolsch's.

In the case of US-05, it's a concession to people who only use dry yeast. In the case of DME that contains carapils, it's a concession to the fact that they can't remove what's already in the DME.

Just for yuck's, I went and had a look at Northern Brewer's extract Kolsch kit. The instructions tell you to pitch at 78F or lower. And no mention of cold conditioning/lagering. Bollocks kit, with very little to do with style or tradition.

 

It's surprising how far away from true styles these kits have progressed. I remember a couple of decades ago when I made beer from a can that was suppose to make a lager. The instructions said to ferment at room temperature, and there were no instructions about lagering it later at cool temperatures. So the kit tradition of making beers not true to style goes back a long way. Good thing for them that there are not any German purity laws here

 

Do you have a growler, milk jug, or soda jug? And some aluminum foil? If so, you have the setup to make starters.

 

Colored glass will make it a little harder to see what's going on, but if that's what you have, I'd roll with it.