Hi,
I've been lurking and while trying to learn and I'm interested in brewing my own. The wife learned of my interest and unfortunatly bought me a "make your own beer" kit when I really wanted to get the right equipment the first time. This isn't a Mr. Beer, but it's probably pretty close. It came with a little 1 gallon fermenter, an airlock, 6 plastic bottles (woo hoo), some DME, flavoring grains, hop pellets, yeast, sanitizer, and a lot of dextrose.
I made one batch per instructions which tasted OK, but it never quite carbonated in the bottles.
I'm done with this 1-gallon batch BS and plan to step up to at least 3 gallons. I'm going to get two 6 gallon buckets with spigots so I can do primary/secondary, then back to the first when bottling.
Now, the wife also got me a refill kit that is supposed to be used for three additional batches (which I would like to use). All three batches are supposed to be different recipes using different flavoring grains but they're all based on either light or dark DME. I may just experiment. Is there any hope for this or should I just start with fresh equipment and an ingredient starter kit?
Why would a kit like this call for 3/4 cup of dextrose to be added to the wort prior to fermentation? Is this their cheap way out of including more DME? After reading up it seems dextrose is usually only added prior to bottling to carbonate.
Finally, has anyone used those Coors Light plastic bottles? They come in an 18 pack "cooler box" and thought they'd be an easy way to avoid capping.
I really appreciate any help getting started.
Bobby
I've been lurking and while trying to learn and I'm interested in brewing my own. The wife learned of my interest and unfortunatly bought me a "make your own beer" kit when I really wanted to get the right equipment the first time. This isn't a Mr. Beer, but it's probably pretty close. It came with a little 1 gallon fermenter, an airlock, 6 plastic bottles (woo hoo), some DME, flavoring grains, hop pellets, yeast, sanitizer, and a lot of dextrose.
I made one batch per instructions which tasted OK, but it never quite carbonated in the bottles.
I'm done with this 1-gallon batch BS and plan to step up to at least 3 gallons. I'm going to get two 6 gallon buckets with spigots so I can do primary/secondary, then back to the first when bottling.
Now, the wife also got me a refill kit that is supposed to be used for three additional batches (which I would like to use). All three batches are supposed to be different recipes using different flavoring grains but they're all based on either light or dark DME. I may just experiment. Is there any hope for this or should I just start with fresh equipment and an ingredient starter kit?
Why would a kit like this call for 3/4 cup of dextrose to be added to the wort prior to fermentation? Is this their cheap way out of including more DME? After reading up it seems dextrose is usually only added prior to bottling to carbonate.
Finally, has anyone used those Coors Light plastic bottles? They come in an 18 pack "cooler box" and thought they'd be an easy way to avoid capping.
I really appreciate any help getting started.
Bobby