Mr. Beer Goes Horribly Wrong Part 2

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That's hilarious. I guess it is proof that Mr. Beer is a gateway into real homebrewing for some people. In 15 months, He went from drinking PBR and Bud Lite to BIAB partial mashing a Pale Ale.
 
Did he really only use 1 smack pack for a 15 gallon batch?!?!?! And I thought I was under pitching when I used 1 for my 5 gallon batch.
 
I guess it is proof that Mr. Beer is a gateway into real homebrewing for some people. In 15 months, He went from drinking PBR and Bud Lite to BIAB partial mashing a Pale Ale.

It was for me, I went from 2 Mr. Beer extract batches to a electric brewery, corney kegs, first name basis with the LHBS, the whole 9 yards except it only took about 3 months for me. Still use the Mr. Beer, I collect & save all the trub & the left overs that don't fit in the kegs, the gravity samples, let it settle out in the fridge, mix it all together, reheat it & dump it in the Mr. Beer and ferment it. Why waste it :cross:
 
It was for me, I went from 2 Mr. Beer extract batches to a electric brewery, corney kegs, first name basis with the LHBS, the whole 9 yards except it only took about 3 months for me. Still use the Mr. Beer, I collect & save all the trub & the left overs that don't fit in the kegs, the gravity samples, let it settle out in the fridge, mix it all together, reheat it & dump it in the Mr. Beer and ferment it. Why waste it :cross:

I will never knock the Mr. Beer system, it is the best gateway into brewing. I was kegging within about a month and putting 5 gallon coopers kits into corneys, but I continued to brew several more Mr. beer kits. But at the same time I was still doing partial mashes on a five gallon scale. It took me well over a year to attempt 15 gallons, and I'm still conflicted about whether or not I want to do all grain. One things for sure at this point however, I'm now a brewer for life.
 
One smack pack has 1.2 x 109 cells per ml, it was more than adequate for a beer with lower OG.

That only comes out to 1.50E11 cells in total, which is way way under what you would need to fermement a 15 gallon batch. According to yeastcalc.com the highest gravity you could ferment with a 15 gallon batch and one smack pack is 1.014 and that's assuming 100% viability of the yeast.
 
That only comes out to 1.50E11 cells in total, which is way way under what you would need to fermement a 15 gallon batch. According to yeastcalc.com the highest gravity you could ferment with a 15 gallon batch and one smack pack is 1.014 and that's assuming 100% viability of the yeast.
Well, it turned out fine flavor wise. The primary lasted about 16 days which was the only downside. When I made this as a five gallon batch, primary was finished afer four (with the same pitch of 1 smack pack). I don't taste any diacetyl or any other of flavors. All and all a very decent Pale ale flavor profile. I don't think under pitching is as big of an issue as people make it out to be.
 
Your filter is ingenious! I have the funnel screeb filter insert which i HATE because it clogs so easy(currently i use a hop spider/paint strainer bag, rack into a sanitized 5gal paint strainer bag in my bottling bucket, then pour the filtered wort through the screen funnel filter, a real pita).

Question 1: did you buy an AC filter and remove the media or can i buy just the poly media from home depot in a roll and sanitize the cut piece?

Question 2: do you wash and reuse the media or does it get tossed?

The brew/biab boil looks good, glad to see you've stuck with it. I was an under pitcher as well until recently i built myself a ghetto stir plate and started washing and harvesting yeast. I like your fermenter, the local brew-on-premises uses the exact same casks, but to save cleaning time they insert a plastic bag in the cask which works for them i guess.

I couldn't see the color of the finished beer very well but that might be my stupid droid and not the lighting.

Thanks man.
 
Your filter is ingenious! I have the funnel screeb filter insert which i HATE because it clogs so easy(currently i use a hop spider/paint strainer bag, rack into a sanitized 5gal paint strainer bag in my bottling bucket, then pour the filtered wort through the screen funnel filter, a real pita).

Question 1: did you buy an AC filter and remove the media or can i buy just the poly media from home depot in a roll and sanitize the cut piece?

Question 2: do you wash and reuse the media or does it get tossed?

The brew/biab boil looks good, glad to see you've stuck with it. I was an under pitcher as well until recently i built myself a ghetto stir plate and started washing and harvesting yeast. I like your fermenter, the local brew-on-premises uses the exact same casks, but to save cleaning time they insert a plastic bag in the cask which works for them i guess.

I couldn't see the color of the finished beer very well but that might be my stupid droid and not the lighting.

Thanks man.

Thank you for watching! You can see the color a lot better if you watch it on a PC. It's sort of an orange not quite gold not quite amber color. The cask is a mild PITA to clean but I've got a carboy brush bent just right way that I can clean it pretty efficiently, I demonstrate my technique briefly in my last HBW video.

1. I buy the roll and cut a square that's a little bigger than the diameter of my funnel. I've got the screen insert underneath but it doesn't clog because the sediment collects in the filter media.

2. So far I always throw the piece I'm using away after I'm done. You can't really clean them all the way and little bits will always stay trapped in the fibers. I guess I could prevent infection by soaking it (old sediment and all) in hot water right before I use it, but so far I haven't risked it. I work with HVAC professionally and can usually get a giant roll of the polypropylene stuff pretty cheap.
 
One smack pack has 1.2 x 109 cells per ml, it was more than adequate for a beer with lower OG.

I don't know where this information comes from but it is pretty commonly accepted that a smack pack is not sufficient for a 5 gallon batch over 1.030. Some will go to 1.050.

It will ferment the beer, but pitching the proper amount of yeast will make the same beer better.

For a 5 gallon batch of 1.050 ale and yeast with a production date of Aug, 15 Mrmalty is suggesting 2.4 packs or a 2.07 liter starter. 15 gallons is calling for 7.1 packs.

If you don't believe pitching the proper amount of yeast is important, that is fine. The beer will probably be good.

For me I believe that my beer is better when I pitch the recommended amount.
 
I don't know where this information comes from but it is pretty commonly accepted that a smack pack is not sufficient for a 5 gallon batch over 1.030. Some will go to 1.050.

It will ferment the beer, but pitching the proper amount of yeast will make the same beer better.

For a 5 gallon batch of 1.050 ale and yeast with a production date of Aug, 15 Mrmalty is suggesting 2.4 packs or a 2.07 liter starter. 15 gallons is calling for 7.1 packs.

If you don't believe pitching the proper amount of yeast is important, that is fine. The beer will probably be good.

For me I believe that my beer is better when I pitch the recommended amount.

1.2 x 10^9 cells per ml, comes from the Wyeast website. I wasn't aware of the existence of Mrmalty or the like. This ideal 100-200 billion active cells per 5 gallons seems like a lot of yeast...

Someone should do an experiment where they split up a 15 gallon batch 3 ways, then they can give one an exact pitch, one an under pitch, and one an over pitch, and taste the differences in all three once they're done. It's obvious that starting with a higher quantity of active cells makes the beer ferment faster, but I'd like to see exactly how it effects the finished flavor. I might try making this recipe again with a 5-6 liter starter and comparing it to the five gallons I've still got in secondary, but there's absolutely no way I'll ever entertain the notion of buying 7 smack packs for one batch of beer.
 
1.2 x 10^9 cells per ml, comes from the Wyeast website. I wasn't aware of the existence of Mrmalty or the like. This ideal 100-200 billion active cells per 5 gallons seems like a lot of yeast...

There's not a set number of cells per batch. It's based on volume and gravity. The higher the gravity the higher the cell count needed, the higher the volume the higher the cell count needed. I've brewed 5 gallon batches that require upwards of 300 billion cells.


Someone should do an experiment where they split up a 15 gallon batch 3 ways, then they can give one an exact pitch, one an under pitch, and one an over pitch, and taste the differences in all three once they're done. It's obvious that starting with a higher quantity of active cells makes the beer ferment faster, but I'd like to see exactly how it effects the finished flavor.

It just so happens that this very thing has been done.

I might try making this recipe again with a 5-6 liter starter and comparing it to the five gallons I've still got in secondary, but there's absolutely no way I'll ever entertain the notion of buying 7 smack packs for one batch of beer.

Yeah, buying 7 smack packs is ridiculous. But if you can't make a proper starter, brew a low grav beer that you can ferment properly with one smack pack, then use that cake to ferment the big one.
 
It just so happens that this very thing has been done.
Good read, although you can tell the writer was a huge proponent of ideal pitching rates. It was intereting though that more than half of his test subjects couldn't tell which was which, and of the ones who could some still liked the under pitched beer better. His results don't completely support his conclusion. The head retention thing was weird though, and the opposite of what I'd have expected. I'm definitely interested to do some yeast pitching experiments of my own now.


Yeah, buying 7 smack packs is ridiculous. But if you can't make a proper starter, brew a low grav beer that you can ferment properly with one smack pack, then use that cake to ferment the big one.

What if I ferment a higher OG beer improperly and just use that cake? Or make a big starter from a smaller starter?
 
Premnasbiaculeatus said:
What if I ferment a higher OG beer improperly and just use that cake? Or make a big starter from a smaller starter?

For the improperly pitched high OG beer, I would think the yeast would be too stressed to do a good job. I would harvest some of that cake and do a starter to see how viable the yeast is.

Making a bigger starter from a smaller starter is a common practice called stepping up. A lot of people do it for their big beers so they don't have to do one gigantic starter.
 
For the improperly pitched high OG beer, I would think the yeast would be too stressed to do a good job. I would harvest some of that cake and do a starter to see how viable the yeast is.

Making a bigger starter from a smaller starter is a common practice called stepping up. A lot of people do it for their big beers so they don't have to do one gigantic starter.

Cool, thanks for all the info.
 
What I want to know is how the heck he lifted 7 gallons of hot wort onto a stool placed on top of a cabinet! Not only is it heavy but one slip would mean 7 gallons of 160 degree sticky liquid all over himself and everything else.
 
I remember this guys first video, it made me crack up! I like how he knows he knows he is a noob but still shares his experiences. I havent checked it out on youtube but I bet he gets trolled to death...
 
What I want to know is how the heck he lifted 7 gallons of hot wort onto a stool placed on top of a cabinet! Not only is it heavy but one slip would mean 7 gallons of 160 degree sticky liquid all over himself and everything else.

It helps to lift weights :D But seriously, the main reason I haven't invested in a 15 gallon kettle, is I'm not set up to brew indoors and carrying 15 gallons of wort down to my basement would not be fun. The kettle I'm using holds about eight, but tends to be closer to 7 gallons after evaporation. Depending on specific gravity it usually weighs about 90 Lbs after cold crashing. Which is about the extent of what a man my size can manage safely. I just have to be vey very careful.


I remember this guys first video, it made me crack up! I like how he knows he knows he is a noob but still shares his experiences. I havent checked it out on youtube but I bet he gets trolled to death...

Thanks, I don't get trolled too much on youtube actually. When my video showed up on Liveleak and Reddit some comments were a little harsh but most of the negative ones were insulting in a personal way and written like they weren't expecting me to read them (those I just ignored). When that first Mr. Beer video got posted on here, people were actually really nice about it. That's the main reason I joined this forum.

I'd probably be the first to say that I'm not really opinionated enough to make good troll-bait. I made bad beer, it tasted gross. I agknowledged my numerous errors... people laughed. Now, If I'd made s@#$y beer and bragged about how awesome it was and waved around a confederate flag or something to that effect, I'd probably have gotten some good troll action.
 
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