Adding DME to LME. How much water & boil time for the wort?

[Bomber]

I'll be attempting my first brew making this week. I have a simple Mr. Beer kit. I wanted to spruce it up. With the advice of slym2none, I purchased some DME in order to add flavor and raise the ABV.

The LME that came with the kit is a 1.87 lbs. can of a Coors Light generic type of thing. Hitting up the brew shop, I grabbed 1lbs. of dark DME. I also purchased (upon their suggestion) a bag of Yeast (to replace the bag that came with Mr. Beer Kit) and a bag of Hops.

The following is what I'll be working with....

LME 1.87 lbs. (hops included)

DME (plain dark 60 ebc) 1 lbs.

Fuggle Hops Pellets (4.1 alpha, 2.7 Beta) (the brew shop recommended to use only half of this bag)

Safale S-04 Yeast

The Mr. Beer kit instructions essentially suggest to boil 4 cups of water, take the pot off of the stove and then add the LME. Stir and done.

I will obviously need to boil the Fuggle hops. And, depending on who you ask I will likely need to boil the DME.

Any suggestions on what process I should take with each step and each product? How much water....How much time?

Thanks.

 

[JediJoel]

How big is the bag of hops?

Typically ingredients are done by weight, so adding half the bag would depend on the initial size of the bag. I would say add even less.

The general issue is that the can of LME is already hopped. So when you add the Fuggles you'll need to be complementing the already hopped LME. Personally I would do this:

Follow 4 cups to a boil thing
Add the LME
Add half the DME (.5 lbs)
Bring the whole thing to a boil
Add .25 oz of the Fuggles
Boil it for 15 min.
Cool the mixture to 70*F using an ice bath (or something)
Put it in the fermenter
Make sure the total volume is 8 liters (2.11 gal) since this is the size of a Mr. Beer recipe kit.

 

[unionrdr]

Unless you wanna preserve the hop flavors in the LME & not darken it further by boiling. Unless you just do a 20 minute boil for a flavor hop addition. And Mr beer being like 2 gallons, a full boil wouldn't be outta the question? Add the DME to the boil for the hop addition. Add the LME @ flame out, since it's still boiling hot, & pasteurization happens in seconds @ 160F.

 

[freisste]

I'm with Union. Don't boil the liquid extract. Add it at the end.

What was the original beer? A pound of extract is probably going to add like 20-25 gravity points to the beer (doing math in my head, so I could be off). If it was already like 1.050-1.060 OG, you could easily be transforming the beer up to like 1.070.

Not the end of the world, but it might not resemble the original beer. Good thing you got new yeast.

Edit: just read the original post again. I'll take the mention of "Coors Light" to mean this is originally a pretty low gravity pale beer. In this case (if it were me), I would bring a gallon of water to a boil, add the DME and half the hops. Boil for 20-30 minutes (watch for boil overs!). Turn off the heat, stir in the LME, and cool to pitching temps with the addition of cold water. Adding cold water isn't the best technique, but I'm making an equipment assumption here. When cool enough, add the yeast. Ferment for two weeks, add the remaining hops, and ferment another week. Bottle for 2-3 weeks, chill, and enjoy. Voila, IPA.