First batch with ancient "Mr-Beer" style homebrew kit

So about a month ago a neighbor gave me a kit after hearing about my interest in homebrewing. It had been sitting in his basement for at least 7 years. I lost the instructions almost immediately after opening it. My question is this - there's enough dextrose included with the kit to bottle about 20 gallons of beer, but there's only enough malt/hops to make 4, 1 gallon batches. What was I supposed to do with the rest of the dextrose, any ideas?

It was for ALCOHOL BOOSTING BABY!!!!!

perhaps add it to the brews to get more alcohol.. Dextrose has more body than cane sugar, but is a lot worse than more LME/DME. Save it for bottling now.

Let us know how the kits come out with LME that old, I have doubts about quality of flavor.

I already made one batch (after doing a lot of things wrong, pitched yeast when wort was hot, didn't add enough sugar for carbonation, didn't boil wort long enough, and more) and it tasted like iced tea with a hint of beer flavor. Like beer was trapped inside, struggling to get out.

COLObrewer said:

It was for ALCOHOL BOOSTING BABY!!!!!

Click to expand...

Oh... let's say I just boiled up a batch and stuck it in the primary fermenter... would adding some of this dextrose to the primary do anything?

Don't be discouraged. A few more tries and you'll have it down!

I'm surprised you got any fermentation at all pitching the yeast while the beer was hot. Seeing as how you know most of what you did wrong I'm sure the next batch will be much better.

I suggest you explore the youtube home brewing realm. Tones of good videos on getting started.

What sort of recipe are you working with?

mrbigmuscles said:

Oh... let's say I just boiled up a batch and stuck it in the primary fermenter... would adding some of this dextrose to the primary do anything?

Click to expand...

Yes, probably make it taste like jet fuel. unless you aged it for a couple of years then it would taste like gasoline.

I would leave it out of your recipes and just use it for priming, maybe get some fresh hops and extract and try that also.

Pascal said:

What sort of recipe are you working with?

Click to expand...

It's dried malt extract, boiled for 60 mins, plus some kind of hops, boiled for 15 mins (I guess, since I lost the instructions). I don't know the "real" recipe for this thing.

[on preview] thanks colobrewer I'll leave it out.

Fifteen minutes isn't really long enough to boil hops for bittering. In some recipes you want to make additional hop additions inside of 15 minutes remaining in the boil for flavor, but you almost always want some hops to be boiled in you wort at least 60 minutes to balance out the sweetness of the malt. I would pick a style and search the recipe database on here for your next recipe. I'm not sure how much volume a Mr. Beer kit makes, so it may have to be scaled down, but after doing that I would follow the recipe perfectly for your first batch. Any recipe lingo that you don't understand could be cleared up by other members on here or probably researched elsewhere online. If you're really serious you might consider upgrading equipment to a starter kit from an online supplier such as Northern Brewer or morebeer or if you have a local shop let them put something together for you. Although I'm sure good beer can be made with your current equipment if you follow proper techniques and use the right ingredients.

update: the primary is foaming and bubbling like crazy. the last batch wasn't like this at all, there was barely any action. it turns out, when you do things correctly, you get better results...

and thanks for the advice and help everybody

If you pitch yeast too hot a lot of the cells will get boiled to death. That's the tiny screams you heard the first time. You must pray for forgiveness from the yeast gods. You have better fermentation this time because more of your yeast cells are alive making alcohol and co2.

That's the tiny screams you heard the first time. You must pray for forgiveness from the yeast gods.

Click to expand...

Haha!

I'm glad this batch is going better! What did you add this go round? Are you still using the hops from the old kit and are you brewing in the Mst.Brew kit style 1 or so gallon fermenter?

I did the same thing the first time around. My kit was 6 years old. Keep the jug for for future projects, get rid of the rest. Search recipes here ; find one or ten you like , order fresh supplies and start over. My first brew ( old mr. B... kit) tasted like --it. CHEERS

Just light malt extract and hops, Pascal. same equipment and everything from the old mystery kit.

cheers to everybody