Question about adding sugar or dextrose

[stevenf]

Just for starters I'm fairly new to brewing with only experience using the Mr Beer LBK and refills. I have one Mexican Aztec Cerveza in the fridge cold crashing now and I have another Mexian Cerveza standard refill that I need to brew. When I brew it I want to add a .5lb of Light DME and some dextrose to the recipe. I've studied adding the DME and understand that process but I am not sure when and how I should add the sugar. I haven't decided how much I'm going to add yet, maybe .5 lbs. So anyone, when and how do I add the sugar? I was thinking of adding after the hot break with the can of HME.

[FrozenInTime]

Are you doing a hop boil? If not, no need to do a hot break. Heat water to boiling, turn off heat, dump in/mix well the DME and sugar to dissolve, dump in HME to dissolve well and press on with pride per the directions. Be aware when u start adding more fermentables to the batch, you need to give it more time to ferment. If u don't have a hydrometer, go 3 weeks in the LBK. Your not adding much more malt/sugar, but when u start adding to the batches, you need to start thinking about doing hop boils to offset the sweetness/malt. For hop boils, u will need to do hot breaks with DME.

Welcome to the forum.

[stevenf]

Thank you. I'm not doing a hop boil on this one. I do have a hydrometer but all my brews so far have just gone three weeks in the LBK regardless. Well, three weeks that includes two to three days cold crash. The recipe is pretty close to one that's on the Mr Beer list. I can't recall the name of it right off. Only real difference is I'm using dextrose in place of booster. Until recently I've been pretty limited on what I can do as there was no LHBS in my area and I really don't like paying for shipping on all this stuff. However, I have one now and will be visiting in a few days.

[Brewbirds]

+1 to what FIT says and keep in mind that as you add the extra sugars the ABV will get higher so it may also need more conditioning time.

I've read on here that the Aztec already takes a while to be drinkable.

[RickBeer]

Why are you adding dextrose?

[stevenf]

It was from the recipe on the mr beer site. It called for a half pound of DME and 1 packet of booster and the standard Aztec Mexican Cerveza refill HME. I don't have the booster on hand. What I had on hand is a pound of pale light DME and a pound of dextrose. So I was thinking of adding it in place of the booster. Now that I have found a LHBS and don't have to order all this stuff I may just use the lb of DME and skip the dextrose all together. So short answer; to get the ABV up a little and was trying to follow the recipe as closely as I could with what was on hand.

[mashani]

So short answer; to get the ABV up a little

There are sometimes good reasons to use dextrose or cane sugar. But that's generally not one of them.