First brew results.

So I am a new brewer and thought I would share my first home brewing experience. I have been wanting to do this for a while and for christmas my father got me a Mr. Beer to start with. I think its kind of cheesy but it was over all a good introduction to home brewing. I got the mr. beer deluxe kit.
Came with a brewers book with alot of helpful pointers, the standard mr beer brewing equipment and 8 1 litre bottles. The reciepe that mine came with was the american series Pale Ale.

As I was making the wort I decided to add a few extra ingredients as suggested by my brewing book. I added 1 1/2 cup of white sugar, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and 1/4 cup cinnimon, and a dash of ginger. I fermented for 12 days and than bottled.

Once they carbinated I refrigerated them for two days. Than I tried one. Pretty damn good taste to it. Not much head but still carbinated and I don't know if that is from something that I did wrong but it was really good. Tasted alittle apple like and I am not sure why but I enjoyed it. Pretty strong too.

I went out and got a three pack of the Mr. beer stuff. I am about to bottle the bewitched red ale today. Should be good.

I also picked up a real home brew setup on craigs list. Two five gallon buckets, one to ferment in and one to bottle from (with spicket at bottom), 1 car boy for a bright tank, a nice home brew book and some ingredients, hydrometer, carboy cleaning equipment, some plastic racking equipment, and some plastic long spoons, bottle cappers, and 75 caps. I got all that for 75.00 I thought it was a good deal. Let me know if I over paid. Looking forward to my first brew out of this setup.

Josh

Compared to the starter kits I've been pricing (about three weeks of homework) it sounds like you got a great deal for 75 bucks. I'm glad to hear your Pale Ale starter kit turned out tasty, because I'm in that same boat you were in a few weeks ago. I'm waiting on my Mr. Beer starter kit to ferment for about 2 weeks before I bottle. I didn't get fancy with the ingredients, mostly because I wanted a baseline that I could use to judge a few more Mr. Beer brews against before I upgrade to proper equipment. Next up for me is the Mr. Beer St. Patty's Stout.

1/4 c. cinnamon? Sticks, I hope?

No I used powdered cinnamon. I am a n00b so I know I should have used sticks but it was kind of a "in the moment" thing.

About my second brew. I went to bottle it last night and I believe the beer went bad. Has been fermenting for 12 days just the same as before but when I went to test sip it the brew tasted very soured. And was super cloudy with Yeast on top still. There was a large amount of sediment but also sediment on the sides of the keg and floating yeast. Very unlike my first one. I am assuming that this beer has been infected and I am just going to start over again with another batch. Please let me know if I am far off on my assumption.

Josh

I say bottle it and see what happens, but your call. As for that apple cidery taste. My first Mr. Beer batch has it too. It's probably a combination of the beer being young, although I did two weeks, primary, three weeks carbing and one week chilling, and the use of the booster pack.