Mr. Beer

So for Christmas last year my aunt bought me some Mr. Beer kits. She knows i brew beer but instead of the Brewer's Best 5 gallon kits, she got me Mr. Beer 2 gallon kits. I know Mr. Beer isn't too great, but i'm not the type of guy to not pass up 12 gallons of free beer. Granted it won't be as good. Could i ferment 2 gallons of beer in a 5 gallon carboy? My worry is that there's too much headspace, but I figure it will soon all be pushed out with all the CO2. What are your thoughts?

You could pair up the kits and do 4 gal batches.

You should be just fine with a 5 gallon carboy. They're basically just LME kits, right? Maybe hopped LME? If you use a quality yeast and ferment it properly, you could make some really tasty beer.

They are all different so i dont think pairing up a red ale and heffeweizen would be too good. They are hopped DME it looks like. I'm slowly converting my bro in law away from bud light so these mr beer kits could be the way to fully do it.

The Mr.Beer fermenter can hold a 2.5 gallon batch for most styles, so you may find it handy for experimental batches in the future.

Do you have the old cans or the new ones (see the Mr.Beer site)? The old kits came with one HME (hopped LME) can with a pouch of Booster (adjunct) and yeast. The new kits come with a bigger can of HME and slightly more yeast, but no Booster.

Mr.Beer products are actually pretty good if you replace the Booster by DME and the yeast by known yeast, and you can easily combine HMEs as well as add DME and hops.

A good source of info and recipes is www.mrbeerfans.com as well as www.mrbeer.com

i don't have the fermenter. just the kits...the ones i have come with the booster. i'll have to check out that site.

Go ahead and do your single Mr Beer batches in your 5g carboy, it won't be a problem: we aerate wort before pitching, any air in the head space of your carboy will get used up by the yeast, and once they start peeing and farting the head space will fill up with CO2...

Cheers!

What I have done with a couple of them is make some really quick tasty beers. here is one I made a couple of years ago to find out what Bravo hops were like .... They are not bad.

Batch size: 2.75 gallons

3.0 lbs Pilsner LME
1.25 lbs Mr.Beer Vienna HME
2 ozs Crystal 40
0.5 lb Cane sugar

0.5 ozs Bravo (13.5%) @ 15
0.5 ozs Bravo (13.5%) @ 10
0.5 ozs Bravo (13.5%) @ 5
0.5 ozs Bravo (13.5%) @ 0
0.5 ozs Bravo (13.5%) Dry hop


PacMan Yeast
Irish Moss

OG: 1.059
IBUs: 45

Basically had a 20 minute boil. The HME adds about 22 IBUs for 2 gallons, so helps reduce the need for boiling hops. The HME is added to the fermenter (not the boil), and rinse the can out with very hot water.

It was just an experiment to try the hops and to get rid of a can of Mr. Beer I couldn't find any other use for.

This might spark some ideas for you.

The Booster is a mix of Corn sugar and Malto-Dextrin. You can use a pack to replace 12 ozs of LME in a batch which is not a high malt beer (wheat or Belgian, etc). I wouldn't substitute more than a single pack in a 5 gallon batch.