First brew a disspointment

What don't you like about the beer? It is bitter? Maybe you should do something besides an IPA.
If you post the recipe and your process, we can give you better answers.

For other styles, what kind of beer do you like?

 

Kits usually have the right balance of ingredients to be able to brew a pretty good beer, so without pointing any fingers, it is usually a mistake in the brewing process and not the ingredients that makes the resulting beer offensive. Starting out by using the all-grain brewing method is not the easiest way to get into homebrewing, but many people in this forum have done it. The all-grain process is a bit more complicated, thus easier to make a mistake that can cost you.

I suggest that you brew any basic style of your choice that you like, but try it with extract for a few times so that you can develop your technique of the brewing and bottling process. If you prefer to stick with all-grain, then try to be as perfect as you can in following the steps along the way. The mash is where you get your malt flavoring, thus it sounds like your error for your new batch probably occurred during that process.

For the batch that you just did, we can try to help you pinpoint where things might have gone wrong if you post the recipe including the yeast, the recipe's OG and FG and what your readings were. The brief info that list in your post does not scream of a brewing error, depending on what the preferred temp range is for the yeast that you used. The lack of good mixing of your priming sugar could present you with a problem, but you only have 9-10 bottles which it sounds like you'd prefer to dump anyway. If you keep them, protect them from doing any damage if any of them explode. I personally feel that IPAs don't begin to taste good until 3-4 weeks after bottling, so you can try keeping them that long and then drinking them after that.

 

How long had your beer been in the bottle when you tried it? Give it some more time to see if you like what it becomes. You brewed a gallon, so you are storing < 12 bottles of beer. You probably have enough space to hang on to it fore a bit. Try a bottle a week until you run out and see if there is a week where you think the beer really peaked. Use that info to inform your consumption habits of future beers.

 

I had the same thing happen to me with the All Day IPA. I only used Mr. Beer kits a few times in the past and didn't really know anything about all grain brewing. I just poured that batch down the drain yesterday. It was nasty... I went ahead and got a real brew kit for 5 gallon batches and I'm 6 days into a stout brew. I did everything right and I have high hopes this batch will turn out right. It sucks waiting that long to find out you wasted your time but try "try again".
good luck.

 

I think I found online at the Brooklyn Brew Shop the kit that you brewed, but the online info does not give any detailed instructions, gravity readings, etc, thus I suspect you did not realize that a hydrometer can be a huge help in the brewing process. You should get a hydrometer if you don't already have one, and take readings and then notes of those readings, which not only tell you the current status of your beer but also your notes will help you pinpoint where a problem arose if you run into a problem. A hydrometer only costs $10-$12 and is one of the best tool that you can have in your toolbox.

Since you bottled in Grolsch-style bottles, those are more heavy-duty than the standard amber beer bottle, so you should have less concern about a bottle bomb. However, you should still take precautions against such a thing, just in case. And when opening them, be next to your sink and have a glass ready for pouring just in case you have a gusher.

 

I'm not clear on your process here? How did you mash the grains? Or, what I fear from your description, did you boil the grains?

 

What kind of water?

 

Also keep the bottles at 65-70 degrees until priming seems complete.

 

howtobrew.com has great sections on extract and all-grain brewing. To put it succinctly, in all-grain brewing you conduct a mash that converts starches into sugar and you rinse the sugars from the grain to make your wort. In extract brewing, someone has done this step for you already and then concentrated the wort to make LME or dehydrated it to make DME.

 

To put it a little differently than what PWeis said, when you 'steeped' your grains for an hour, you really 'mashed' them. Usually the mash process occurs at temps from 150-160, but if your instructions said to 'steep' at 145, I don't know how that lower temp could have affected your conversion process of getting enough sugar out of the starch in the grains. (Not all grains can be converted because the grain must have an enzyme that creates the conversion process, and not all grains have that. That's why some grains may be steeped for only 20-30 minutes -- these grains are being used for flavoring and coloring only.)

Extract comes in dry malt extract (DME) in plastic bags or the liquid/syrup (LME) form in cans. The extract is the sugar after it has been converted from the starches in the grain and dried or left as a syrup. So that part of the brewing process is done for you, although you pay for this service because extract brewing is a bit more expensive than all-grain brewing.

John Palmer's book is free to read online Howtobrew.com (or you can purchase the latest edition for a modest cost at Amazon, etc.) and he explains the process better than I can. It's a well-written book and should be 'required' reading for any home brewer.

 

I don't trust Brooklyn brewery kits I would throw the yeast out. Who knows how old and unrefrigerated it is

 

I don't think there is a "beginner style" necessarily, just styles that are less complicated, or have a minimal potential for loss of funds.. APA, IPA, Brown, Stout, wit, porter... all pretty easy. Why not do a SMASH, and experiment with what you get out of alts, and hops. One of my favorite brews is just Marris Otter and EKG. Delicious, you don't drop a ton of $ on hops. That being said, don't get down about the first batch being rough, get your process down, have fun, and brew some more beer!

 

1st batch disappointment?
Join the club.