Mr Beer - Read all about it and ask questions

TeamGotOil said:

I am thinking of starting my next batch. Last(first) batch was several years ago and didn't turn out too well. I think, based on what I have read here, I didn't wait long enough. Anyway, my question is the instructions say to boil the water, then add the mix. Then put into fermenter with water already in fermentor. Everything I have read on here says the wort should then be boiled for up to an hour before being cooled and added. So, should I follow Mr. Beer instructions to boil the initial water, add mix, let wort cool, then add to fermentor? Or, should I boil water, add mix, then boil wort again, then add to fermentor?

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You'll want to follow the Mr. Beer instructions for that part. Mr. Beer is a prehopped no boil kit. Basically you need to boil for a few reasons,

1. The main reason not to boil is because it will change the hop character in the beer. The longer you boil hops the less flavor and aroma you'll get and the more bitterness you'll get. Because Mr. Beer prehops their beer you don't want to change the hop character they've put into it, unless you know what you're doing.
2. To sanitize the wort. You're using liquid malt extract, which is canned and therefore sterilized at the factory and anything that you introduce will be sanitized by adding it to the boiled water.
3. There are a few other reasons that aren't important unless you're brewing all grain.

Thanks for the info! That definitely cleared it up. I appreciate your time. Hopefully soon, I will be back at it!

Tombstone0 said:

You'll want to follow the Mr. Beer instructions for that part. Mr. Beer is a prehopped no boil kit. Basically you need to boil for a few reasons,

1. The main reason not to boil is because it will change the hop character in the beer. The longer you boil hops the less flavor and aroma you'll get and the more bitterness you'll get. Because Mr. Beer prehops their beer you don't want to change the hop character they've put into it, unless you know what you're doing.
2. To sanitize the wort. You're using liquid malt extract, which is canned and therefore sterilized at the factory and anything that you introduce will be sanitized by adding it to the boiled water.
3. There are a few other reasons that aren't important unless you're brewing all grain.

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TeamGotOil said:

I am thinking of starting my next batch. Last(first) batch was several years ago and didn't turn out too well. I think, based on what I have read here, I didn't wait long enough. Anyway, my question is the instructions say to boil the water, then add the mix. Then put into fermenter with water already in fermentor. Everything I have read on here says the wort should then be boiled for up to an hour before being cooled and added. So, should I follow Mr. Beer instructions to boil the initial water, add mix, let wort cool, then add to fermentor? Or, should I boil water, add mix, then boil wort again, then add to fermentor?

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If you're using one of the mixes, you don't want to bill after adding the HME. The reason you boil for an hour is to extract the bitterness from the hops. If you're using grains, you also need to drive off DMS. With the kids, these have already been done.

I've been brewing a few more Mr. Beer kits lately and i've had pretty good success so far.

Did the Diablo IPA with the extra LME softpack. Turned out very well, had good flavor and nice color. Seemed a little more malty than most IPA's.


Current one i have in the fridge is the American Patriot (Sam Adams lager style). Taste was a little lighter(forgot to pick up an extra softpack), but still tasted good, smooth.

Just bottled last week a Cherry Weiss, using the Bavarian Weissbier and dark cherries. First taste before bottling actually tasted very good, so we will see how well it does with the final fermenting with the sugar.
Also for this batch i picked up a bottle capper and used glass bottles for the first time.

And so it goes. My Weiss is good straight up, I'm sure yours will be fine.

Tombstone0 said:

You'll want to follow the Mr. Beer instructions for that part. Mr. Beer is a prehopped no boil kit. Basically you need to boil for a few reasons,

1. The main reason not to boil is because it will change the hop character in the beer. The longer you boil hops the less flavor and aroma you'll get and the more bitterness you'll get. Because Mr. Beer prehops their beer you don't want to change the hop character they've put into it, unless you know what you're doing.
2. To sanitize the wort. You're using liquid malt extract, which is canned and therefore sterilized at the factory and anything that you introduce will be sanitized by adding it to the boiled water.
3. There are a few other reasons that aren't important unless you're brewing all grain.

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1. If the malt manufacturer has added real hops (flowers &/or pellets) in various stages, then boiling will change the bitterness/flavor/aroma profile. If the malt extract was bittered with hop extract rather than real hops (as is the case with many brands), boiling will not affect flavor/aroma. FWIW I believe Cooper's uses real hops.
2. Regarding "To sanitize the wort. You're using liquid malt extract, which is canned and therefore sterilized at the factory. . .", in theory - true. In practice, not necessarily. I have personally tasted many a nasty, nasty contaminated no boil beer. It's a bad idea! If you are not adding additional malt &/or hops, you don't have to bring the wort to a full boil, but I would highly recommend you at least bring the wort to 180°F for a minute or so, just to pasteurize the wort. This will insure that you've killed whatever little critters that may still lurk in there. It is not enough to simply heat the extract up just to dissolve in water. Bring it on up to 180° if for only a minute.
3. If you are adding additional malt to the recipe and, especially, if you are adding additional flavoring &/or bittering hops, you will want to boil. It's not just for all-grain.

That's my two cents worth,
Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
Houston TX
www.defalcos.com

metaltff said:

I've been brewing a few more Mr. Beer kits lately and i've had pretty good success so far.

Did the Diablo IPA with the extra LME softpack. Turned out very well, had good flavor and nice color. Seemed a little more malty than most IPA's.

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The likely reason the IPA seemed malty is that you added the additional malt (good idea), but no additional hops. The softpack contains unhopped malt extract which will increase the alcohol content and body of the beer. But, if you will actually taste the LME in the softpack, it will taste very sweet. While the yeast will eat most of the malt sugars in there, it will not eat all of them. The more unhopped malt extract you add to a recipe, the sweeter and maltier the resulting beer will taste. Conversely, the more hops you add to the kettle and boil, the more bitterness you will get. If you increase one without increasing the other, you will affect the sweet (malt)/bitter (hops) balance of the beer. This is fine, if it's what you want, but only if it's what you want. If you would like a bit more bite in the IPA, next time, along with the softpack, add maybe a half ounce of Fuggles or Goldings to the boil, a quarter ounce the last 5 - 10 minutes of the boil for flavor, and another quarter ounce at the end of the boil for aroma. This will give you the hop bite, flavor, & aroma of an IPA. If it's a bit much, just give it a little extra age to mellow out, but it's a starting point. Hope this helps.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
Houston TX
www.defalcos.com

One thing that I think they skip over pretty well is when and how long to add the hops for? Can someone shed some light on this? I've been adding them after I take the pot off of the heat and I feel that I'm going to be kicking myself in the butt for that.

tborow said:

One thing that I think they skip over pretty well is when and how long to add the hops for? Can someone shed some light on this? I've been adding them after I take the pot off of the heat and I feel that I'm going to be kicking myself in the butt for that.

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If you're following one of the Mr beer recipes, you're doing it right. I think I read that they have some more advanced recipes that include hop boils, but if they do, they state that clearly in the instructions that come with the recipe.

defalcos said:

The likely reason the IPA seemed malty is that you added the additional malt (good idea), but no additional hops. The softpack contains unhopped malt extract which will increase the alcohol content and body of the beer. But, if you will actually taste the LME in the softpack, it will taste very sweet. While the yeast will eat most of the malt sugars in there, it will not eat all of them. The more unhopped malt extract you add to a recipe, the sweeter and maltier the resulting beer will taste. Conversely, the more hops you add to the kettle and boil, the more bitterness you will get. If you increase one without increasing the other, you will affect the sweet (malt)/bitter (hops) balance of the beer. This is fine, if it's what you want, but only if it's what you want. If you would like a bit more bite in the IPA, next time, along with the softpack, add maybe a half ounce of Fuggles or Goldings to the boil, a quarter ounce the last 5 - 10 minutes of the boil for flavor, and another quarter ounce at the end of the boil for aroma. This will give you the hop bite, flavor, & aroma of an IPA. If it's a bit much, just give it a little extra age to mellow out, but it's a starting point. Hope this helps.

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That's good info, thanks. I'll probably try one of their hops recipes in the future.

bpgreen said:

If you're following one of the Mr beer recipes, you're doing it right. I think I read that they have some more advanced recipes that include hop boils, but if they do, they state that clearly in the instructions that come with the recipe.

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So when they don't specify, how long should I let my hops sack sit in the wort for?

tborow said:

So when they don't specify, how long should I let my hops sack sit in the wort for?

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I think you put them in at flameout and leave them in until fermentation finishes.

bpgreen said:

I think you put them in at flameout and leave them in until fermentation finishes.

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Thanks, that would have been nice to know several batches ago.

I don't understand though, some recipes state to put the sack and wort in the keg while others just say to put the wort in the keg. Both recipes use hop pellets.

tborow said:

One thing that I think they skip over pretty well is when and how long to add the hops for? Can someone shed some light on this? I've been adding them after I take the pot off of the heat and I feel that I'm going to be kicking myself in the butt for that.

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Just keep in mind, any time you add hops to the kettle, you are compromising between bitterness, aroma, flavor, etc. The alpha acid is the primary substance in hops that contribute bitterness to beer. In order to impart the bitterness from the hops into the beer, those acids need to be isomerized - in most cases this comes from boiling. The longer the boil, the more bitterness (up to a point, of course - anything over an hour boil is marginal). Unfortunately, boiling drives hop aroma away, as those oils are volatile. This is why hops are added to the beer in stages: some for bitterness (beginning of the boil), some for aroma (end of boil), and some for flavor - a blend of both (last few minutes of boil). Total boil time is around an hour to 90 minutes. Hope this sheds some light on the subject.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
Houston TX
www.defalcos.com

1 Mr.Beer down...... Hooked line and sinkered into a bigger set up and starting to find things I want to try.... The Mr. Beer was usefull for an understanding and I will not knock it.

defalcos said:

Just keep in mind, any time you add hops to the kettle, you are compromising between bitterness, aroma, flavor, etc. The alpha acid is the primary substance in hops that contribute bitterness to beer. In order to impart the bitterness from the hops into the beer, those acids need to be isomerized - in most cases this comes from boiling. The longer the boil, the more bitterness (up to a point, of course - anything over an hour boil is marginal). Unfortunately, boiling drives hop aroma away, as those oils are volatile. This is why hops are added to the beer in stages: some for bitterness (beginning of the boil), some for aroma (end of boil), and some for flavor - a blend of both (last few minutes of boil). Total boil time is around an hour to 90 minutes. Hope this sheds some light on the subject.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
Houston TX
www.defalcos.com

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I think your help, is confusing more than anything. This is the Mr. Beer forum. Almost no boils of 60 or 90 min. The Hopped Malt Extract that comes with every Mr. Beer kit already has the bittering in there, the malt has already been through it's boil. That is why most of the Mr. Beer kits only add additional hops at flame out.

azmark said:

I think your help, you are confusing more than anything. This is the Mr. Beer forum. Almost no boils are 60 or 90 min. The Hopped Malt Extract that comes with every Mr. Beer kit already has the bittering in there, the malt has already been through it's boil. That is way most of the Mr. Beer kits only add additional hops at flame out.

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If you are only using hopped malt extracts, and/or you don't mind sweetening the beer by adding unhopped extract to the recipe, then, yes, you're right. But, the original poster stated that the beer tasted sweeter than he expected for an IPA. You're going to need to add hops to balance that sweetness from the unhopped malt out. Adding them after the boil doesn't help with the sweetness at all. It only contributes an attractive hop aroma.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
Houston TX
www.defalcos.com

Finally tasted our first homebrew tonight and it was a success! We combined the Cowboy Lager and Classic American Blonde HMEs into one batch, let it ferment for 3 weeks in the LBK, bottled, and waited 3 more weeks.

We were pleasantly surprised at how good it was! Obviously not the best thing we've ever had, but pretty good for a couple first timers!

We're upgrading to AG BIAB this weekend with a hoppy saison. Looking forward to the learning experience, and hopefully we'll end up with a great product. We're hooked!

I use this chart when using extra hops.


http://i.imgur.com/MLfsOVT.png

I have the Liberty lager from Mr Beer and it recommends the fermenting temp at 51-59 degrees. My basement is about 65 degrees. If i put the keg in a cooler with frozen water bottles would this keep the temp in the 50s that the Saflager 23 yeast requires? Has others had the same problem and how did they get it done? Has anyone fermented this yeast in the 60s and did it have off flavors?

SulBruin3 said:

I have the Liberty lager from Mr Beer and it recommends the fermenting temp at 51-59 degrees. My basement is about 65 degrees. If i put the keg in a cooler with frozen water bottles would this keep the temp in the 50s that the Saflager 23 yeast requires? Has others had the same problem and how did they get it done? Has anyone fermented this yeast in the 60s and did it have off flavors?

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Search "Swamp cooler". Works like a charm!

There are several guys on the MrBeer Forum that use the ice/cooler method. I haven't tried it.

JohnSand said:

There are several guys on the MrBeer Forum that use the ice/cooler method. I haven't tried it.

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Small wine fridge off craigslist $50 bucks or less, temp controller $60 bucks or less. For well under 100 dollars you get a solution you don't have to keep monitoring, and replacing ice bottles. You can get one that holds 2 lbks. and you're not chilling it down to low, so you really don't use that much money to keep it running.

If I have some liquid yeast from white labs that I accidentally did not store in the fridge and has been in my air comditioned home (70 degrees) for about two moths do you think it will still work?

Will it work? Yes. Will it make good beer.....well.....

You've lost a LOT of yeast viability, if not all at this point. You would need a big starter for sure. For the $6 - $7 dollars, I would just buy a new one.

ya just buy another one, no need to risk a whole batch of beer

Does anyone know the FG of the Mr. Beer West Coast Pale Ale? I just took a reading and it was 1.029. I didnt get an OG because I didnt have my hydrometer at that point.

I dont know how reliable the source becuz it was not directly from mr beer but i saw 1.011 to 1.014 for west coast pale ale. how long has yours been fermenting?

sockman91 said:

Does anyone know the FG of the Mr. Beer West Coast Pale Ale? I just took a reading and it was 1.029. I didnt get an OG because I didnt have my hydrometer at that point.

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1.029 would be way high for a FG. My guess would be closer to 1.014

It has been fermenting for 11 days so far. I may have gotten some bad yeast. If my hydrometer readings don't go down any further should I just bottle, or should I try pitching some new yeast?

dont pitch ANY MORE YEAST and dont bottle yet! you still need about ten days of fermentation left until it will be ready, maybe sooner but keep reading the gravity every other day. once it is about to 1.015 and is consistent at that level for a few days it is ready

sockman91 said:

Does anyone know the FG of the Mr. Beer West Coast Pale Ale? I just took a reading and it was 1.029. I didnt get an OG because I didnt have my hydrometer at that point.

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1.029 is about what I would expect the original gravity to be for the West Coast Pale Ale (1.2 lbs. malt extract) & some booster in 2+ gallons. Apparently, it has not fermented at all. If you have access to a homebrew shop near you, I would go buy a package of Cooper's or Munton's, and sprinkle it in. Hopefully, it'll kick off before the batch is totally spoiled. If no LHBS nearby, you may have to resort to baker's yeast. Better fresh baker's yeast than dead brewer's yeast. That's my two cents worth.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
www.defalcos.com

the OG should not be around 1.029 for west coast pale ale but in between 1.044 and 1.054. if i were you i would not add anything to this beer yet but let it finish its natural course. it should reach final gravity as expected around 1.013 in a week or so

I just plugged 1 WCPA and 1 Booster into Qbrew and came up with 1.038 for an OG with an estimated FG of 1.010. That's assuming the full booster bag was used and it was filled to the 8.5 Qt mark. If it's overfilled, or if less than the full bag was used, I could see the OG getting close to 1.029.

1.029 is definitely too high for it to be finished. But I don't think we know for sure whether it has even started.

Can you tell us all of the ingredients you used?

What is the temperature where you have the fermenter?

Did you see any krausen build up?

Is there a layer of sediment (trub) on the bottom?

The kit came with a West Coast Pale Ale HME, and a booster pack. I added a cup of brown sugar, but that's it. It was a two gal brew. It has been fermenting around 65 degrees the past 9 days. The temp was around 70 the first day or two. Im not exactly sure what krausen is but there didnt seem to much build up at all on top of the wort, just a tiny bit of foam. I didnt check to see if there was trub on the bottom.

bpgreen said:

I just plugged 1 WCPA and 1 Booster into Qbrew and came up with 1.038 for an OG with an estimated FG of 1.010. That's assuming the full booster bag was used and it was filled to the 8.5 Qt mark. If it's overfilled, or if less than the full bag was used, I could see the OG getting close to 1.029.

1.029 is definitely too high for it to be finished. But I don't think we know for sure whether it has even started.

Can you tell us all of the ingredients you used?

What is the temperature where you have the fermenter?

Did you see any krausen build up?

Is there a layer of sediment (trub) on the bottom?

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Yep! Now way you're going to hit 1.044 - 1.054 with one 1.2 lb. can in 2+ gallons, unless you add a LOT of booster! FWIW - 1 lb. LME/1 U.S. gallon = 1.036. The booster should be in the same ballpark. It's been a while since I've seen the old WCPA recipe, but I don't recall it calling for (and/or including that much Booster). My next question was the same as yours: What temperature has this been kept at? Have you seen ANY signs of fermentation (e.g. head/krausen)? Keep in mind that these ingredients are a minimum of 1 year old and possibly several years old. The yeast dies first.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
www.defalcos.com

sockman91 said:

The kit came with a West Coast Pale Ale HME, and a booster pack. I added a cup of brown sugar, but that's it. It was a two gal brew. It has been fermenting around 65 degrees the past 9 days. The temp was around 70 the first day or two. Im not exactly sure what krausen is but there didnt seem to much build up at all on top of the wort, just a tiny bit of foam. I didnt check to see if there was trub on the bottom.

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It sounds like your yeast is old and weak. It has fermented some (the brown sugar would have boosted your O.G. into the low 1.040's and now it's 1.029), plus you saw a little foam on top. At 70°F for a couple of days, it should have gone crazy if the yeast had been fresh. I would still recommend you add a fresh pack of Cooper's or Munton's if you have a LHBS nearby. Add the yeast and bring the LBK into a little warmer temperature until it kicks off. The fresh yeast may, or may not, kick in and finish off the fermentation, but it cannot hurt.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
www.defalcos.com

defalcos said:

It sounds like your yeast is old and weak. It has fermented some (the brown sugar would have boosted your O.G. into the low 1.040's and now it's 1.029), plus you saw a little foam on top. At 70°F for a couple of days, it should have gone crazy if the yeast had been fresh. I would still recommend you add a fresh pack of Cooper's or Munton's if you have a LHBS nearby. Add the yeast and bring the LBK into a little warmer temperature until it kicks off. The fresh yeast may, or may not, kick in and finish off the fermentation, but it cannot hurt.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
www.defalcos.com

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+1

It's a little difficult to tell exactly how much the brown sugar added. Measuring ingredients can be a bit problematic because it's less exact than weighing. Depending on how tightly packed the brown sugar was, you may have even gotten the OG up to around 1.052. Using the rul of thumb of 75% attenuation, you'd expect to get to about 1.013. But since the brown sugar is almost completely fermentable, I think you could get even lower.

As deflaco points out, you've had some signs of fermentation (the foam on the top is the krausen to which I alluded earlier) and your gravity dropped some, but not nearly enough.

I also agree that with healthy yeast, it should have really gone crazy.

Since the WCPA is part of the old line and Cooper's acquired Mr Beer in April of last year, you're using some old yeast. The yeast packets that shipped with the old kits were small to begin with (I used to save them up and use 3 at a time). Since the yeast is also old, you're looking at a serious underpitching situation.

The directions that came with these kits said to stir vigorously, but they didn't really explain why, so many people didn't understand that the reason for the stirring was to introduce enough air for the yeast to be able to produce unsaturated fatty acids and sterols during the reproductive phase. If you stirred to mix the ingredients, you likely didn't get enough air introduced. So you started with too little yeast, then didn't give the yeast what it needed to reproduce in a healthy manner. It's entirely possible that the yeast you ended up with won't be able to fully attenuate.

If you can get some yeast from the LHBS, I'd do that. If you can't, since you've seen some signs of fermentation, I'd wait a week before resorting to using bread yeast, but if it doesn't drop any more, bread yeast is technically the same species as ale yeast, but they're different strains and are bred to favor different characteristics, so a yeast bred to be used for brewing is much better. I've used bread yeast before just as an experiment and it works, but it would never be my first choice.

As an aside, as a rule of thumb, you should try to keep adjuncts (simple sugars, like table sugar, honey, syrup, brown sugar, Booster, etc) to less than 1/3 of the total fermentables in a batch. The WCPA + Booster already breaks that rule. With the addition of the brown sugar, you've almost completely flipped the ratio, and are getting almost 60% of the alcohol from adjuncts. You'll probably want to let this condition in the bottle for at least 2-3 months before drinking any.

bpgreen said:

+1

. . Using the rule of thumb of 75% attenuation, you'd expect to get to about 1.013. But since the brown sugar is almost completely fermentable, I think you could get even lower.

. . . If you can get some yeast from the LHBS, I'd do that. If you can't, since you've seen some signs of fermentation, I'd wait a week before resorting to using bread yeast, but if it doesn't drop any more, bread yeast is technically the same species as ale yeast, but they're different strains and are bred to favor different characteristics, so a yeast bred to be used for brewing is much better. I've used bread yeast before just as an experiment and it works, but it would never be my first choice.

As an aside, as a rule of thumb, you should try to keep adjuncts (simple sugars, like table sugar, honey, syrup, brown sugar, Booster, etc) to less than 1/3 of the total fermentables in a batch. The WCPA + Booster already breaks that rule. With the addition of the brown sugar, you've almost completely flipped the ratio, and are getting almost 60% of the alcohol from adjuncts. You'll probably want to let this condition in the bottle for at least 2-3 months before drinking any.

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I would expect a final gravity to drop down to 1.010 or less with the addition of the brown sugar to the recipe. You're a long way from that point. Bread yeast is not my "first choice" either. In fact, it's near the bottom of my preferred options here. But, again, better active bread yeast than dead brewing yeast. bpgreen is right, it's good that you've had some signs of fermentation: a little foam and the gravity has dropped somewhat. This means the pH of the wort has dropped and there should be some CO2 blanketing the wort. These will afford some protection. Fresh beer yeast is the best route if that's possible. I also completely agree with his assessment of adjuncts: 1/3 by weight maximum. I prefer closer to 15 - 20% if refined sugar is the main adjunct. Honey is more forgiving.

Scott Birdwell
DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies
www.defalcos.com

Does anyone know what the OG and FG for the Mr. Beer West Coast Pale Ale is supposed to be?