My first attempt at homebrew - Mr Beer

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Richard

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Ok, so a friend got me a Mr Beer kit for Christmas, so I have embarked on my first homebrew journey.

I followed all the directions except that I added a cup of light brown sugar to the boiling booster before adding the beer mix (West Coast Pale Ale). I've since heard that cane sugars are generally a no-no, and that I should have boiled it for at least 5 minutes if I was going to use it at all.

Anyway, I fermented it all for over 2 weeks, and then bottled it with about a half teaspoon of white sugar in each bottle. As I was bottling I tasted some, and it was a bit yeasty but ok.

What do you think? Is my beer going to taste like crap?
 
I think it will taste OK. Plain granulated sugar gives beer a cidery flavor that most of us want to avoid. Brown sugar is granulated sugar with molasses added back in. It might give your beer some interesting flavor. In the future, if you want to boost your beer, try getting some dried malt extract to add instead of the sugar. It will make much better beer for you. If you have a home brew store near you they will be able to help you out. While there, check out all the stuff for brewing. If you enjoy brewing with your Mr. Beer kit you may want to eventually upgrade to 5 gallon batches.
Let us know how your beer turns out. :mug:
 
I'm going to let the beer sit in the bottles for 2 weeks and then put the bottles in the fridge for a week before trying it. Is there any chance that the extra time will reduce the cidery taste?

I really need to find a homebrew store somewhere around here so I can use that malt extract you suggested. I'd also like to try some kind of liquid yeast instead of the yeast that comes with the Mr Beer mix.
 
You're beer will be as good as a lot of the BMC stuff.


Use a full 3.3lbs of hopped malt per batch. leave the sugar and it'll be good.
The time thing will help make the beer better.

In my opinion I wouldn't waste the money on a liquid yeast. Put the money to a proper fermenter or a 3 gallon pail and air lock so you can do secondary.
 
Defiantly go to a homebrew store. They are to men (and some women) what a candy store is to a kid. Where do you live? We might be able to help you find one.
 
Oh, one other thing I wanted to ask about...when I bottled my beer I forgot to let the bottles completely dry after sanitizing them. Will this be a problem?
 
orfy said:
You're beer will be as good as a lot of the BMC stuff.


Use a full 3.3lbs of hopped malt per batch. leave the sugar and it'll be good.
The time thing will help make the beer better.

In my opinion I wouldn't waste the money on a liquid yeast. Put the money to a proper fermenter or a 3 gallon pail and air lock so you can do secondary.

Are the Mr Beer fermenters problematic?

The only thing I worry about with secondary fermentation is how to get the beer into the second vessel without mixing oxygen in. The Mr Beer fermenter only has a tap, and it could take a while to pour the whole 2 gallons through the tap into a secondary fermenter - increasing chances of contamination.
 
fifelee said:
Defiantly go to a homebrew store. They are to men (and some women) what a candy store is to a kid. Where do you live? We might be able to help you find one.

I live in West Orange. I just found out that the Gaslight brewpub in South Orange has a supplies store, so I'll go there.
 
Richard said:
Are the Mr Beer fermenters problematic?

The only thing I worry about with secondary fermentation is how to get the beer into the second vessel without mixing oxygen in. The Mr Beer fermenter only has a tap, and it could take a while to pour the whole 2 gallons through the tap into a secondary fermenter - increasing chances of contamination.

Don't worry about exposing to oxygen. As long as you don't go splashing it about or whipping it up there'll be no problem.

In my opinion secondaries are one of the best ways to improve a beer, second to leaving out large amount of sugar and followed by bottle conditioning.

Mr beers are fine for primary. For secondary you want to be under an airlock due to there not being as muchC02 production.
The other thing with a Mr beer kit is you have to prime in the bottle which can be a little inconsistent due to the small amounts to measure.

To tell you the truth the best thing about MR Beer id the simplicity and the education value. It's an easy no committal way into brewing.
 
Ok, well I'm definitely going to do the secondary fermentation for the next batch. After secondary fermentation can I use the dried malt extract instead of sugar to prime the bottles before bottling?
 
Sure can. It can can take a little longer and you need to use a little more. It's a little more involved.

If you do a quick search for priming with dme you'll find the amounts you'll need.

You'll need to boil some water, mix in the requied malt then mix it with the full batch and gentley stir. To do this you'll need to rack (Siphon) from the secondary into a bottling bucket due to there being a sediment in the secondary that you do not want to disturb.

The good news is the MR. Beer container is ideal for this due to having a spigot.
 
I'm confused...didn't you say the Mr Beer container was no good for secondary because it doesn't have an airlock?
 
Mr. Beer doesn't have a traditional airlock, but has a couple of notches in the top by the lid to release gas. It should work just fine as a secondary.
 
I was saying it's ideal for a bottling bucket.

Rack from secondary (a 3 gallon pail with airlock) into the Mr beer fermenter then add the primer, mix then use the spigot to bottle.
 
The bottles Mr.Beer provides are OK but the standard 2 liter coke bottle is better. Clean them with the onestep stuff add 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, pour the beer into the bottle at an angle (the bottle not the beer), cap and wait 2 week then lager for a couple of weeks. I personally didn't like the pale ale that comes with the kit but the oatmeal stout that you can get is very good.
 
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

This is a really good website to determine the amount of priming sugar you need, be it dried extract, corn sugar, cane sugar, or honey.

I've never primed with dme before, but for the next batch I will be. I have found corn sugar great for priming, but I'm sure dme would give the beer and extra edge on the flavor side.
 
I haven't tasted my first batch yet, but I decided to start a second batch yesterday. The local supply store provided me with dme, which I boiled with the booster before adding the beer mix. This time I used the Octoberfest mix, so hopefully this batch will be nice and malty.

I plan on using a hose to transfer to the secondary fermenter (2nd Mr Beer container) after 10 days or so, but I'm not quite sure what I should do after secondary fermentation is complete. Should I just prime with dme, or is there some way of mixing the dme in prior to bottling?
 
If you are using one Mr. Beer keg to primary ferment, and another to secondary ferment you can mix the appropriate amount of DME and water for priming together in a pot, then boil and cool and add to the secondary MR. beer keg. With a sanitized metal spoon or utensil stir the cooled priming DME/water mixture into your beer GENTLY, then bottle straight from the spigot on the MR. Beer keg. The advantage to this procedure would be a more uniform carbonation level than if you had tried to individually measure out your priming DME into each bottle.
One more thing to keep in mind. The Mr. Beer system is a great way to learn the basics of brewing and to see many of the procedures in action. However, it has some drawbacks, not the least of which are the dubious quality of the liquid malt extract that comes with the kits, the poor quality of the provided yeast, and the large amount of booster (which is basically corn sugar) that goes into the batches, which lend a cidery dry taste to the final product. I started brewing with Mr. Beer and without it I would still be paying $1+ per bottle for good micro brew having no idea that you could brew great beer at home (for that I owe Mr. Beer infinite thanks). That being said, if I had not found this site I would have quit brewing after 5 or 6 Mr. Beer batches because the quality never was up to par. Mr Beer is like training wheels on a bike in the sense that it is an easy way to get started but there are some major inherent limitations. If your first couple of batches with Mr. Beer are not the greatest beer you have ever tasted, do not give up this awesome hobby based on that alone. There is so much to learn in this hobby that it is staggering, but I promise you that if you take the time to learn and expand your equipment, ingredients, and experience level you will be able to produce beer in your own home that meets or exceeds some of the best commercial micro brews available. Keep on brewing, ask questions when you have any, and welcome to the ranks. :rockin:
 
Thanks very much for the advice IDbrew. My father-in-law has a proper kit that he wants to give me, so I'll probably graduate to that after a couple of Mr Beer batches.

One more question...do you think I need to use a tube to transfer from the primary into the secondary, or should I run the spigot gently down the inside of the secondary?
 
I would recommend you sanitize some food grade tubing and run it from the spigot of the primary Mr. Beer to the secondary you are using. If you just use the spigot alone I think you would risk splashing and aeration. For sanitizing I would recommend either Star San or Iodophor, both of which should be available from your local brew shop.
 
I already have some onestep sanitizer, and some tubing. I was just thinking that there might be less splashing involved if I ran the spigot whilst holding the 2nd fermenter on its side so that the beer only travels about an inch or two.
 
If you are careful either method would work. Whatever seems easiest to you would be the way to go. The basic idea is just to avoid excessive splashing that may introduce oxygen into the beer. This would be a good time to take a small sample of your beer and try it as well. I always sample my beer when transferring from primary to secondary. The beer will be flat and warm with some slight off flavors from fermentation, but it will give you a general idea what the final product will be like and it should definitely taste like beer. Some folks like to wait until it is in bottles and aged, (there is nothing wrong with that either), but I have no patience and cannot resist a little sample taste whenever the opportunity presents itself.
 

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