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85 Haro Designs said:
OK, I have a specific question about Mr. Beer's instructions.

To be honest I've moved on since Mr. Beer but I still have at least 6 cans of Malt Extract that I want to use. I found a recipe that utilizes 2 cans of Malt Extract (that I happen to have).

Here's the ingredient list: (directly from Mr. Beer's Website)..

Hill Town Honey Wheat
This crisp golden beer is just like the one you remember from back home. A nice smooth yet dry profile makes this beer go down easy. With a slight fruity undertone and delicate floral aroma, this beer will have you thinking of the old days with a smile on your face.

RECIPE INCLUDES:
1 Can West Coast Pale Ale
1 Can Whispering Wheat Weizenbier
2 Packets Dry Brewing Yeast (under lid of beer mix)
1 Packet Tettnanger Pellet Hops
1 Muslin Hop Sack
1 Packet One-Step™ Sanitizing Cleanser

YOU PR0VIDE:
1/2 Cup Honey

So my question is this........if I follow the Mr. Beer instructions they never have you boil the wort at all? Is this right - because Papazian says in his book that you should ALWAYS boil the wort for a minimum of 45 minutes.

I've done 4 batches from Mr. Beer's instructions (all using just one can of extract each) with booster in all, and then talbe sugar in the bottle for carbing. Well, the first batch was "good" and the rest either tasted like vinegar, chlorine, or champagne. I was impeccible with my sanitation of all the equipment on all 4 attempts. I used bottled water in every attempt as well.

Using the ingredients above - how would YOU brew this 2.5 gallon batch? I would LOVE to be successful this time.

Well, mr beers are no boil kits, and if you do boil then you run thr risk of major "Extract Twang" and carmelization of the LME which would make the beer darker than it should be...Saying that you could take it up to pasturization temp 165 degrees instead.

I think I'd go with 1.5 gallons water and bring it up to boiling. At that temp I'd add the wcpa can in first (taking it off the heat when you add it so you don't scortch it.) Then put it back on the burner...when It hits boils again, I would add in 1/2 pack of the tettnangers (don't bother with the hopsack, just strain it after since you only have one sack). Boil for 15 minutes. (I wouldn't normally boil, just keep it at 165, but you need it for your hops bittering)

After the 15 minutes are up reduce the temp on the stove and let the temp decrease to 165 degrees. (You might even lift the pot off the burner for a bit)

When it hits 165, Set a clock for 45 minutes.

At 20 minutes, remove from heat and add the whitbeer can. Then back on the stove.

At 15 stir in the honey.

At 5 minutes or at flameout add the rest of the hops pellets.

Cool in water bath to 180 and add to 1 gallon of water in Mr. Beer...

OR, even better if you have a pot that can handle a 2.5 gallon boil then add 2.5 gallons, plus another pint or so for evaporation loss... (This is what I would do- a full boil Mr. Beer would taste better than a dilute with water mr beer.)


Don't use any booster or table sugar...just the honey.

Obviously you'd aerate then pitch your rehydrated yeast.

Best o luck!!!
 
Hi there! Been lurking for a while and finally decided to sign up.

For years I've been entertaining the idea of getting into homebrewing. I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, but for whatever reason I just never made the leap. This Christmas my wife bought me a Mr. Beer kit with a number of extra brew packs. She had to know what she was getting into. I've been consumed with all things brewing ever since. My first batch was the Classic American Light. Fermented for two weeks, then bottled and stored at fermenting temps for two weeks, then in the basement (50 degrees) for another week. I have to say it came out great for my first time. My latest batch in progress is the Czech Pilsner. The first batch was still pretty cloudy when I bottled it, and this batch was looking the same. I wonder if this is because Mr. Beer recipes are no boil. Anyway, I've transfered the pilsner to a secondary and it's now nice and clear and will be bottled this weekend. My understanding is that it's not really true to style, so I got what's supposed to be a Pilsner Urquell clone recipe and scaled it to Mr. Beer size and hope to give it a try soon. With my basement being a relatively steady 50 degrees right now, I'm going to do a lager for my next batch. Since pilsners are my favorite, I'm definitely going to have to get into brewing lagers.

I didn't really intend to go the Mr. Beer route. Not that I saw anything wrong with it - it's finally gotten me started and I've been having a blast - but I knew I'd probably outgrow it pretty quickly. I'm already looking forward to bigger batches. Being the tinker I am, I can see me eventually going all grain. I've also got a spot in the back yard I'm thinking about growing some hops in. Then I'm in my basement, and I start envisioning a row of conicals along the wall. Ack! I think I may need help! :eek:

Chris
 
Wow thanks for the help.

I can do a 2.5 gallon boil so I'll go with that option.

When Papazian says that even when the kits say NOT TO BOIL, you still should.

I obviously had infected beers the last 3 times, I attribute it to not boiling the wort and possibly poor sanitization of the caps. Also I put table sugar in the bottles which made them all over-carbonated. (Which brings a new meaning to the old addage......champaign taste, on a beer budget)

And you think I should re-hydrate the yeast as well? How important is this step in overall performance of the yeast.
 
Chris, I feel your pain, my friend.

I had that same vision of conicals. Then I told myself....

"first you take a the pebble from my hand, young grasshopper"


LOL
 
85 Haro Designs said:
Wow thanks for the help.

I can do a 2.5 gallon boil so I'll go with that option.

When Papazian says that even when the kits say NOT TO BOIL, you still should.

I obviously had infected beers the last 3 times, I attribute it to not boiling the wort and possibly poor sanitization of the caps. Also I put table sugar in the bottles which made them all over-carbonated. (Which brings a new meaning to the old addage......champaign taste, on a beer budget)

And you think I should re-hydrate the yeast as well? How important is this step in overall performance of the yeast.

Well do what you believe is right...but Pappy also wrote the bible awhile ago...and if you listen to any podcasts, or read stuff around here there are debates against boiling lme for to long (extract twang)... best advice on working with the stuff is to do LATE EXTRACT ADDITIONS, really just to sterilize the stuff. But with hops you need some extract for utilization...that's why I suggested boiling the first can for 15 minutes with the hops, then taking it down to pasturization temps for the rest of the hour...

If you insist on boilng, then for god sakes add your honey at the final 10 or at flameout or else you'll boil away a lot of the honey's goodness (the flavors and smells)... Look at the mead threads for info on working with honey.
 
Nice, I appreciate all your attention paid to my request.

I'll take good notes and try what you suggested and I'll let you know how it comes out. I have my hopes up since I've been so unsuccesful with Mr. Beer to this point.

Here goes nothing.....
 
Just don't use any of the "booster" packs if you still have them...they really result in cidery tasting beers... Save the boosters for when you make Cider or Mead...I used half a pack of it in my last mead batch because I was maybe a pound or 2 shy of the amount of honey I should have been using for my yeast...so I figured it would give it more sugar to eat...but still hoping that it would give it some body.

Post your notes/results here for the other people who come on this thread.
 
I've been reading through these forums for a few days now as well as searching the web for answers and I came upon a little bit of contradictory information that I'm not sure how to resolve regarding Fermenting Times.

I've read that you should ignore the time tables Mr. Beer suggests and double them to create a better beer. Some of Mr. B's recipes say to ferment for a minimum of 7 days while others say a minimum of 14 days and to double that would be almost one month.

What puzzles me is that I've also read that you should never leave beer in the fermenter for longer than 10 days total because that will cause the beer to pickup a flavor called "Yeast Bite' from the decaying yeast cells at the bottom of the fermenter.

Can anyone shed some light on the accuracy of that statement? It appears that times varies depending on the style and recipe of the beer so is there truly an optimum Fermenting Period ?

Thanks :)
 
Thwizzit said:
What puzzles me is that I've also read that you should never leave beer in the fermenter for longer than 10 days total because that will cause the beer to pickup a flavor called "Yeast Bite' from the decaying yeast cells at the bottom of the fermenter.

Thanks :)


I think this is widely regarded as mythical. Almost everyone has numerous examples of beer being great after multiple weeks in the fermentor. I think over a month in a primary can be too much, perhaps. But even that is being on the safe side.

For the heavier mr. beer batches, 14 days should be fine. But don't hesitate to leave it for 3 weeks. In these cases, the only caution I suggest is this:

Don't move or take samples from your kegermentor until you are 99% sure it's fermented out (no krausen on top, or very little). This is because every time you take a sample, ambient air is taken in through the lid. Mr. Beer is not airlocked.

Also, if you leave it for a long time, the only thing keeping o2 off the beer is the layer of co2 from fermentation. That will be fine, unless you move the fermentor around and the sloshing pushes the co2 out and introduces o2.

My method is to let it ferment out for about 2-2.5 weeks, without moving it or taking any samples. Then I take a little sample right before I think I'm going to bottle. Usually the gravity is right and I bottle.

This is basically to get around the fact that mr. beer doesn't have an airlock on it. When you use a bucket or carboy or something with an airlock attached, you don't have to worry much about o2 getting in.

Good luck and have no fear!

monk

Edit: don't mean to say you CAN'T get yeast bite from autolysis; I just think most people agree that it takes way longer than 10 days.
 
Thanks so much for your reply. I had originally planned on keeping it in for 14 days so I'll stay the course.

Does the temperature of the room the affect how l should keep it fermenting? Do cooler temps (60-65 degrees) take more time and warmer (65-70 degrees) take less time?
 
The MRB guidelines of 7 days vs 14 is a result of how much fermentables you have in your keg. More being longer.

7 days ~ 1.2 lbs liquid malt extract w/ booster
14 days ~ 2.4 lbs liquid malt extract; 1 Hopped & 1 UME.

If you ferment at the recomended temps you should be OK. Using these giving times. As for the yeast bite, although possible I think this occurrs as result of really excessive times for beer sitting on the the yeast. Like as if your talking multiple months, coupled w/ high temps, long start-up or lag times, and poor sanitation.

I think that the dreaded yeast bite is an outdated concern. Assuming you are not irrresponsible enough to leave the fermenting wort for several months in the original fermenter. If you are trying to make a light ale or pilsner its more of a concern because any kind of flaw is really noticable. Watery beer won't taste like water if its got flaws. :D

My advice to you is this. Get a 3 gallon water PET bottle from Lowes ( look for the triangle with a 1 in the center to designate PET or PETE), then get a S-Style airlock & an orange carboy cap. The carboy cap & airlock will tell you when fermentation activity has ceased. The CO2 gas will slow down to just about nothing. Daily monitoring will tell you when its done. The fluid levels in the airlock will go to high & low w/ constant gas passing during fermentation as fermentation slows the bubble rate will diminish. Eventually the fluid levels will come together level-wise with the 1st & 2nd chamber.

see this link if you don't follow what I wrote.... ( This is one of my apfelweins at full bore).

Hang onto your keg and use it as a bottling bucket. (this is were you syphon to it and add the priming sugars in bulk. )

 
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Thwizzit said:
I've been reading through these forums for a few days now as well as searching the web for answers and I came upon a little bit of contradictory information that I'm not sure how to resolve regarding Fermenting Times.

+1 on what Schlenkerla and monk said. If you go with a 3 gallon BB as a primary, then you might as well add a hydrometer and a wine theif or turkey baster (to draw samples) you shouldn't rely on airlock activity as an indicator of completion of fermentation...generally 3 days of the same reading is an indicator that fermentatiion is complete. But like they said, with a mr. beer repeated openings of the fermenter shouldn't be done.

If you're not ready to make the jump to a carboy and airlock and want to stay with the mr beer fermenter for awhile, then get a 2 gallon cooler and use that as a bottling bucket...you can even mount a hose and bottling wand on the spigot for easy bottling.

With the rubbermade cooler you can even experiment with going all grain in a mr beer if you feel like stepping up from the canned extracts. You can mash with 1 & 1/4 gallons and sparge with the same amount of water...Which will give you 2 1/2 gallons of wort which would boil down close to 2 gallons (figuring in evaporation loss)....So you are doing the same type of full volume boils that the "big boys and girls" are doing outside on their propane turkey fryers...only inside on your stove and fermenting in your mr. beer,

You wont need to modify the cooler with a manifold or a braided hose. Just use a folding steamer basket in the bottom of the cooler then use a grain bag. The steamer lifts the grain above the spigot entrance which helps prevent stuck sparges... This is a good article on using the 2 gallon cooler if countertop partial mashing http://byo.com/feature/1536.html

The only difference is that you're not technically Partial mashing...but going all grain. A lot of the brewing software (free or online) allow you to tailor the recipes according to batch size...so you could take any 5 gallon all grain recipe and scale it down to figure out the grainbill....the only limit with the 2 gallon cooler is that it only handles 4 pounds of grain comfortably. If the recipes even scaled require more than 4 pounds of grain, then you could go with a larger cooler...or you could bulk out the rest of the grainbill with dme (but then you wouldn't be doing all grain tecnically...but your ratio of grain to dme would be higher than a typical countertop partial mashing for a 5 gallon batch...so your small batch of beer would be of a higher quality then the diluted PM bashes...

Just something to think about, before you relegate the Mr Beer to the back of the brew closet. :D

People trash the mr beer kits...but if you move away from their ingredient kits and stick to using it as a small volume fermenter then you have a lot of flexibility and the potential to make some awsome brews. No different from what people are doing on a larger scale.
 
my beer is super duper foamy. like when i pour some beer in a glass it only takes like me to fill the glass 1/10 th of the way up to have a full glass of foam. or maybe it is too foamy because i need to condition my beer longer? i tried this out on a premature carbonated beer that i drank at day 6 and not at the suggested day 7 of carbonation.

im just wondering if that is normal.
 
cola said:
my beer is super duper foamy. like when i pour some beer in a glass it only takes like me to fill the glass 1/10 th of the way up to have a full glass of foam. or maybe it is too foamy because i need to condition my beer longer? i tried this out on a premature carbonated beer that i drank at day 6 and not at the suggested day 7 of carbonation.

im just wondering if that is normal.

A big no. That's not normal. You bottled too early or added too much sugar. I'd put them all in the fridge now. Drink ASAP

The problem w/ MRB is that you really can't blindly follow the suggested days fermenting. These are only a guideline. See my post above and watch w/ the Youtube link.

Temperature and the amount of fermentables have the biggest influence on time. The age of your yeast has a good deal to do with it too. Older yeast means a slower start.

As for the time I'd always consider them a minimum. There is a general rule of thumb for fermenting ales.

1-2-3

1 week in the primary.
2 weeks in secondary.
3 weeks carbonating.

No secondary, go w/ three weeks. This assumes you are hitting the target temps and you're not making something w/ a crazy amount of fermentables. A High Alcohol Brew more than 6%

:mug:
 
I agree. That much foaming isn't normal. Most likely, you followed the directions to the letter and ending up bottling too soon. Mr Beer likes you to think that things are very clear cut and consistent in brewing...but they're not. If the temp of your wort at pitching was a little low, or your fermentation temp was a bit low over the week or so in the fermenter, it's likely that the beer didn't ferment out completely and you bottled with some sugar still in the mix.

I did this twice before I realized what I was doing, back when I started.
 
Thanks, Schlenkerla and Revvy once again I appreciate your taking the time to impart advice. This is a most friendly and helpful forum :)

Get a 3 gallon water PET bottle from Lowes ( look for the triangle with a 1 in the center to designate PET or PETE), then get a S-Style airlock & an orange carboy cap. The carboy cap & airlock will tell you when fermentation activity has ceased

then you might as well add a hydrometer and a wine thief or turkey baster (to draw samples


I'm seriously thinking about doing just that. I'm considering upping to the 5 gallon set up but to be honest, I don't think I'd drink all the brew I'd produce before it went off. Only being a few days into fermenting my first batch, I'll probably just be taking notes on all this for now and writing down which equipment I'll need for the next step and evaluate where I want to go after the first batch is done.

Thanks again :)
 
Thwizzit said:
I'm seriously thinking about doing just that. I'm considering upping to the 5 gallon set up but to be honest, I don't think I'd drink all the brew I'd produce before it went off.
Don't be afraid of a 5 gallon batch turning bad before you could drink it. Properly made home brew can easily last a year without losing flavor or getting off tastes. If you and your friend can't drink 5 gallons in a year, you may be thrown out of the beer drinking club. :p

Honestly, 5 gallons will go much faster than you think.
 
Thwizzit said:
Thanks, Schlenkerla and Revvy once again I appreciate your taking the time to impart advice. This is a most friendly and helpful forum :)

Glad to be of help.

and like Nurmey said...don't fear the 5 gallon setup. Even though you may not drink all the bottles right away, the longer they sit, the better they will get. You'd be surprised how different the beer will taste after a couple of months in the bottle. And with the higher grav beers such as barley wines..they often don't even become drinkable for a year.

I heard a podcast with Charlie Papazian (this week's basicbrewing.com where he's got a lot of beers in storage...in fact in last's months Zymergy he wrote about how he has bottles in storage that were winners of all the great american beer festivals going back to the first one. He opened several bottles for the first GABF and reviewd them...very few were the worse for wear...most of them actually got better with age.

As I'm starting to build up stock, I've started setting aside one of the 2 cases from a 5 gallon batch for longer term storage. I figure with 2 or 3 batches coming online in terms of drinkability, It will take a few months to finish the first cases...and when I'm ready to break into case 2 of each style, they should be really really good!

But before you commit, play around with the mr beer or the smaller carboy, work on your technique...even make up small batches of beer recipes found here and ferment them in your mr. beer....And then when you do step up to larger batches...don't throw away the mr beer...you can use it for apfelwein, mead or for fiddling with recipes to perfect them before you brew a 5 gal batch.
 
Ditto on the above...

5 gal batch ~ 2 cases of beer.

2 gal ~ 20 bottles

I like doing 5 gal for session style beers, bitters & pale ales that you can drink alot of w/o feeling too full.

The 2.5 gal batches are good for experimenting and making the seasonal beers, like a pumpkin ale or a rasberry wheat. Something you don't want alot of sitting around.

The 3 gal PET bottles from Lowes are $4.99 each w/ good brewing water. I've got 4 of them.
 
Schlenkerla said:
Ditto on the above...


The 3 gal PET bottles from Lowes are $4.99 each w/ good brewing water. I've got 4 of them.

Plus if the water that's in them isn't RO, then you have some good water to brew with.

Hey Schlenkerla, I'd be interested in some of your session recipes, especially the bitters. If you don't have it posted anywhere, and don't mind sharing, I'd appreciate it if you pmned it to me...or posted it for all to share.

I haven't done a bitter yet....Plus I'd be interested in your Haus Amber...I've been fiddling with recipe to come up with one that I like.
 
I have the same problem on my latest brew. I opened a bottle last night and the beer basically poured itself. And with all the carbonization all the sediment off the bottom of the bottle got mixed in with the beer. Guess I'll be waiting longer next time :(





Monk said:
I agree. That much foaming isn't normal. Most likely, you followed the directions to the letter and ending up bottling too soon. Mr Beer likes you to think that things are very clear cut and consistent in brewing...but they're not. If the temp of your wort at pitching was a little low, or your fermentation temp was a bit low over the week or so in the fermenter, it's likely that the beer didn't ferment out completely and you bottled with some sugar still in the mix.

I did this twice before I realized what I was doing, back when I started.
 
flashover600 said:
I have the same problem on my latest brew. I opened a bottle last night and the beer basically poured itself. And with all the carbonization all the sediment off the bottom of the bottle got mixed in with the beer. Guess I'll be waiting longer next time :(

How are you priming them? Are you using the "add sugar to the bottle" method? You might be over priming them...it's really hard to get the right amount of sugar in each bottle... Carb tabs are an option.

But better is to use a bottling bucket...Boil the amnt of corn sugar to 1-2 cups of water...add that to bucket then rack the beer onto it...making sure it mixes thoroughly throughout.

This little 2 gallon cooler costs under 10 bucks, and works great for bottling Mr Beer batches...as well as doing AG in your Mr. Beer (see a post of mine from yesterday)
11725.jpg
 
I guess I must clarify that I don't use "Mr Beer", I use the food grade bucket method. I do use the bottling bucket, it works great. This is my forth batch and it's the only one I've had problems with. I'm starting to think from all the reading i've done this morning that the 1-2-3 method is the way to go, not the whole "the bubbles have stopped" way. I'm thinking I should have waited longer for fermentation.

Revvy said:
How are you priming them? Are you using the "add sugar to the bottle" method? You might be over priming them...it's really hard to get the right amount of sugar in each bottle... Carb tabs are an option.

But better is to use a bottling bucket...Boil the amnt of corn sugar to 1-2 cups of water...add that to bucket then rack the beer onto it...making sure it mixes thoroughly throughout.

This little 2 gallon cooler costs under 10 bucks, and works great for bottling Mr Beer batches...as well as doing AG in your Mr. Beer (see a post of mine from yesterday)
11725.jpg
 
flashover600 said:
I guess I must clarify that I don't use "Mr Beer", I use the food grade bucket method. I do use the bottling bucket, it works great. This is my forth batch and it's the only one I've had problems with. I'm starting to think from all the reading i've done this morning that the 1-2-3 method is the way to go, not the whole "the bubbles have stopped" way. I'm thinking I should have waited longer for fermentation.

If you use the 1-2-3 method you'll get good results. Watching the airlock is not proof its done, but it has never failed me. If all things are going well and you can check it daily, you will know when its done. The two chambers of fluid in the airlock will be almost the same w/ a slightly lower level on the gas-pressure side. For this very reason is why I only buy the "S-Style Airlock".

airlock-bubbler.jpg

Officially speaking, measuring the Final Gravity (FG) with a hydrometer 2 days in a row w/o change is proof its done. This is as long you are hitting the target gravity.

The only time I do this Final Gravity measuring is when I'm making something that has really long slow ferment. My 1st Apfelwein was fermented at 53'F. It took ~12weeks to hit 1.005 and another week to hit FG target of 1.000. 13 weeks is a long wait at times taking the measurement is really warranted.
 
OK, this is my first post. It looks like there is a lot of good info here I'll be spending a lot of time trying to figure this home brew thing out. To my question, I got a Mr. Beer and my first batch started 2 days ago but there isn't any bubbles in the air lock yet. Is this normal or did I do something wrong?
i followed the instructions as written so it should be woking, am I being too impatient?
Thanks for your input.

Dave
 
Ramzev said:
OK, this is my first post. It looks like there is a lot of good info here I'll be spending a lot of time trying to figure this home brew thing out. To my question, I got a Mr. Beer and my first batch started 2 days ago but there isn't any bubbles in the air lock yet. Is this normal or did I do something wrong?
i followed the instructions as written so it should be woking, am I being too impatient?
Thanks for your input.

Dave


If you're using a newer style mr beer, there is no airlock just the small slits in the rim of the lid...so you wont see any evidence of activity..and if you have an older one that actually had an airlock, airlocks are really no indication that fermentation is complete...since it's a Mr beer, let it sit in the fermentor for 2 weeks....then bottlie it for 3...and referidgerate it for 2 days before drinking.
 
thanks for the reply, I suppose I have an old style because I have an airlock just like the one pictured a few posts above. I thought I should be seeing some activity, like bubbles, in it by now but there's nothing.

Dave
 
you're lucky to have an older style then...As long as you followed instructions there is a really good probability that it is fine...It's really hard to screw up beer.

Since you have an older model, you could consider actually getting a hydrometer to test fermentation. But right now, just have patience...your beer is fine.

In the meantime, read this thread, read https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=54362 as well as other threads around here.. and also http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

And start figuring out your next brew! That way when you bottle this one, the 3 weeks to bottle condition won't seem to drag on too long.
 
Again, thanks for the help, I must have an "inbetween" model, it did come with a hydrometer. This is the kit I have:
http://www.makebeer.net/kit.asp

I took the reading at the start (1.05)

thanks again, I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go.

Dave
 
OK, now that I pay more attention to what I have, I don't have a mr. beer I havr a Coopers. It that good or bad?
 
NEWBY HERE,
I recieved a Mr Beer as a gift.
I have several questions, if someone can help?
I brewed the kit per instructions, but my tap was leaking I had to reach into the mix to tighten it up, is that a problem?
I replaced the kits yeast with fresh Dottinghams.
Today is the seventh day, very little foam left on the surface.
How do I know when its ready to bottle?
Is table suger ok to use for priming?



Thanks
 
Revvy said:
I think it's better than a mr beer...since it has an airlock.

I couldn't agree more, I think they dumbed down their design by taking it out of the design. I spoke to brewmaster Gene and he agrees, they took it out for simplicity sake, and lower cost. The owner and those marketing fools had something to do with it all

IMHO - It was really dumb!! What were they thinking? :confused:
 
Cooper's actually has great canned recipe kits too. The mixes are far superior to mr. beer, in my experience. I've tried the mexican cerveza and IPA. Both very good. I was quite surprised. I think the Cerveza includes some corn sugar, but the IPA was all malt (no added sugars).
 
Schlenkerla said:
A big no. That's not normal. You bottled too early or added too much sugar. I'd put them all in the fridge now. Drink ASAP

The problem w/ MRB is that you really can't blindly follow the suggested days fermenting. These are only a guideline. See my post above and watch w/ the Youtube link.

Temperature and the amount of fermentables have the biggest influence on time. The age of your yeast has a good deal to do with it too. Older yeast means a slower start.

As for the time I'd always consider them a minimum. There is a general rule of thumb for fermenting ales.

1-2-3

1 week in the primary.
2 weeks in secondary.
3 weeks carbonating.

No secondary, go w/ three weeks. This assumes you are hitting the target temps and you're not making something w/ a crazy amount of fermentables. A High Alcohol Brew more than 6%

:mug:

so foam is a sign of being underfermented?
 
Brakshop said:
NEWBY HERE,
I recieved a Mr Beer as a gift.
I have several questions, if someone can help?
I brewed the kit per instructions, but my tap was leaking I had to reach into the mix to tighten it up, is that a problem?
I replaced the kits yeast with fresh Dottinghams.
Today is the seventh day, very little foam left on the surface.
How do I know when its ready to bottle?
Is table suger ok to use for priming?



Thanks
If you sanitized your hands by dipping it into your onestep before you stuck your hand in you should be ok, if not there's a slim possibility you could end up with an infection which would result in an off flavor...

Next time you reassemble tighten everything down and then sanitize it...Actually sanitize the spigot seperately first, then sanitize your hands and attach it to the mr beer, then fill the mr beer with sanitizer and check for leaks whil it is soaking inside with sanitzer,,,then turn on the spigot and drain out the sanitizer and sanitize the spigot. (It's also not a bad idea after to rubberband a small ziplock baggie over the pigot, to keep it sanitary during fermentation.)

It was a good idea to replace the yeast that came with the mr beer with fresher yeast...you never know how old the yeast in the plain silver envelope is.

If you read the last few posts in this thread ahead of your question, we were talking about when to bottle...since it's not a good idea to open up the mr beer to take hydrometer readings, letting it sit for 2 weeks will insure fermentation. Then bottle condition them for AT LEAST 3 weeks in a warm place, then chill them for AT LEAST 48 hours before drinking.

It's not really a good idea to prime with white sugar...most of us use Priming sugar, which is corn sugar...or Dry Malt extract {DME}, or you can use those priming tabs, putting one in each bottle...Table sugar often leads to a cidery taste in your beer...(Again look at the posts earlier today where we talk about using a bottling bucket.)
 
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