Mr Beer - Read all about it and ask questions

I'm going to agree with the last few posters. If you don't have to use ONLY the ingredients that came with the kit, buy a pound of either Liquid Malt Extract or Dehydrated Malt Extract and either substitute that for the Booster or use them both. If you're limited to just MrB ingredients, buy a can of Pale UME and a new yeast and run with that.

Ferment for 2-3 weeks at 66 - 70 (use a cooler and/or towels as needed) for temp control.

Question - why wait 6 months? This will be ready in about 2.

I missed the 6 months part.

If the rule say stick to MrBeer then get a can of Pale Export UME and a can of Cream Brown UME. Make it a Scottish style Old Ale. Blow the judges socks off. Light on hops but rich on malt. BTW, MrBeer sells Safale S-05.

Without Booster: 1.058 OG, 1.015 FG, 5.6% ABV
With Booster: 1.083 OG, 1.021 FG, 8.0% ABV

Edit: I put in too a high figure for the Booster. 1.075 OG, 1.019 FG, 7.2% ABV. Easy brew, I may have to do it myself. The 5 months bottle conditioning will help this brew a lot.

Darklordenron said:

Well...what the heck would "enough beer" constitute? Way way over your body's physical limits, i assume?Thanks!

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I'm new to brewing but had enough friends home brews and brew pub's brews which really are just the best home-brewers making a living at their hobby right? At least that's what happened to a fraternity brother of mine. http://www.schmohz.com we kept telling him how good it was and well.....

Well for me it would be at least a dozen good IPAs from the local brewpub, or 2 sips of Bud light.

Wife got me a Mr Beer for Christmas. Being a good wife she fully understood and explained to me that this was a trial effort and it it works she fully expects That either I don't brew or it to get replaced in the near future.

HopfulAddiction said:

…
Wife got me a Mr Beer for Christmas. Being a good wife she fully understood and explained to me that this was a trial effort and it it works she fully expects That either I don't brew or it to get replaced in the near future.

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Huh? Did you mean to type?
… and if it works she fully expects That either I don't brew (give it up because I am a total looser) or it is to get replaced in the near future (With much better equipment, right?):rockin:

If you did, then I would try really hard to get the simple MrBeer Pre-hopped extract brews done RIGHT. No adding any weird stuff and keep it simple. Watch the fermenter temp for at least the first few days. A swamp cooler setup is good even if you THINK your house is cool enough. Man, talk about pressure. Still, once she tastes a few GOOD brews and gives the thumbs up, you got it made.

OK...So I read where folks taste test their beer along the way and thought I would give it a shot. I took a shot glass and went to where my Mr Beer cask is sitting and gave the spout a bump and what came out surprised me.

First, it tasted like beer. I think I'll be happy with it after the end of this week as my first brew.

Second, it was mildly carbonated. With the vent hole in the cask I didn't think the carbonation would build up to actually have the beer carbonated at this point.

So now the questions:

-Should I wait until the beer is no longer carbonated to bottle?
-Or should I just bottle after 2 weeks of it sitting there?

I did not take any kind of gravity measurement as I don't have a hydrometer. I also do not have one of those temperature stickers on the cask so I have no idea what's been happening with the temperature. I was planning on doing the most basic brew by following the instructions and bottling when they recommend bottling.

This Thur or Fri would be 14 days in the fermenter.

AR-Josh said:

OK...So I read where folks taste test their beer along the way and thought I would give it a shot. I took a shot glass and went to where my Mr Beer cask is sitting and gave the spout a bump and what came out surprised me.

First, it tasted like beer. I think I'll be happy with it after the end of this week as my first brew.

Second, it was mildly carbonated. With the vent hole in the cask I didn't think the carbonation would build up to actually have the beer carbonated at this point.

So now the questions:

-Should I wait until the beer is no longer carbonated to bottle?
-Or should I just bottle after 2 weeks of it sitting there?

I did not take any kind of gravity measurement as I don't have a hydrometer. I also do not have one of those temperature stickers on the cask so I have no idea what's been happening with the temperature. I was planning on doing the most basic brew by following the instructions and bottling when they recommend bottling.

This Thur or Fri would be 14 days in the fermenter.

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I think your two questions are really variations of the same question. I've never really thought it tasted carbonated, but it could. Yeast eat sugars and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as by products. At room temperature, most of the carbon dioxide will escape into the atmosphere, but some will stay in the beer. Some priming calculators take the amount of CO2 in suspension into account (it varies by the temperature) when they calculate the amount of sugar to use for priming.

Thank you all for your responses to my original post. pokerfreak nailed it on the head I cannot buy anything more for it other than additional flavorings but the brew has to be the same. so it sounds like the sugar/syrup/honey, coffee or maybe some form of chocolate durring the carbonation process is my best bet.

Brewmaster_Taz said:

…during the carbonation process is my best bet.

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I have used Honey to carb and found it did leave a slight hint of flavor. Be careful with honey though. Too much can dry out the brew and add unwanted Clover, Buckwheat or Wild Flower (Weeds) flavors in the final brew. (To test a honey, boil a small amount mixed in water for 10 minutes, let it cool then smell it.)

Brown sugar might change the color too much and coffee is not going to produce the same beer as the contest requires.

I think I would cut the Booster amount in half and make a 3/4 size batch. More flavor same kick. All you need is a few bottles left in 6 months. You’d get 16-18 beers instead of the normal 24. IMO, worth it for bragging rights.

As before, watch ferment temps. Keep it below 65* if you can and let it set in the fermenter for at least 2 weeks.

Let us know how it turns out come June.

Beer_Guy said:

Huh? Did you mean to type?
… and if it works she fully expects That either I don't brew (give it up because I am a total looser) or it is to get replaced in the near future (With much better equipment, right?):rockin:

If you did, then I would try really hard to get the simple MrBeer Pre-hopped extract brews done RIGHT. No adding any weird stuff and keep it simple. Watch the fermenter temp for at least the first few days. A swamp cooler setup is good even if you THINK your house is cool enough. Man, talk about pressure. Still, once she tastes a few GOOD brews and gives the thumbs up, you got it made.

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That's about it. I was pretty well into a growler of a local brewpubs IPA when I posted. :cross:

I made the same deal with her with mountain biking and only got her a $750 starter bike 2 years ago when she wanted to ride with me, She's currently in discussions with a shop about spending about 4 times that on her new build.

So far my plan is to brew the west coast pale ale that came with the kit. Then move on to the IPA kit she got me as a refill as the real test. But get new yeast (not sure what strain yet). Get a pound of light DME to replace the booster in the pale ale (save it for next falls cider). Possibly get some fresh hops (any suggestions?) to kick it up a notch, wait my ass off something like 2 (maybe 3) in the keg 3 or 4 in the bottle on the shelf, and at least a week in the fridge more like a month. Use dextrose instead of table sugar for bottling using something like a Gatorade cooler as a bottling bucket to get it measured and mixed well.

I'm in Michigan and it's January so the basement should easily be in the 60s which is where I want it fermenting and conditioning at right? It is currently at 66.7 with the heat vents open.

I only made it to page 40 of this thread before I skipped to more recent stuff so I may be missing something.

The beauty is she can't be the judge of my skill until I brew something I don't like. She rarely drinks beer, but when she does it's maltier and darker than I typically drink. She likes amber and brown ales while I live for double IPAs.

I'll gel my plan for a few more days then hit up the home brew store that just so happens to be on my route home from work, so that I can brew next weekend.

Love the planning your putting into it, 66 seems a little cold. The yeast that generally comes with mr beer says 68-76. The temp inside the fermentor will be warmer then outside air temp well its fermenting(about 5 degrees), so ideally you would want temp around 70. Maybe someone with more experience then me can weigh in on temp, but i keep my fermenting room (a walk in closet in my apartment) at 70 degrees with a space heater. You said you were gonna change the yeast so make sure you pick a yeast that has a flavor profile that will go with the beer, and also can live in a lower temp range.

I generally do two weeks in fermentor in my fermentor room, one week in bottle in my fermentor room, then i move the bottles to my living room which is a little colder for conditioning, Then i store as many as i can in my fridge and try to drink slowly so they can get better with age and lager.

philipsheperd said:

Love the planning your putting into it, 66 seems a little cold. The yeast that generally comes with mr beer says 68-76. The temp inside the fermentor will be warmer then outside air temp well its fermenting(about 5 degrees), so ideally you would want temp around 70. Maybe someone with more experience then me can weigh in on temp, but i keep my fermenting room (a walk in closet in my apartment) at 70 degrees with a space heater. You said you were gonna change the yeast so make sure you pick a yeast that has a flavor profile that will go with the beer, and also can live in a lower temp range.

I generally do two weeks in fermentor in my fermentor room, one week in bottle in my fermentor room, then i move the bottles to my living room which is a little colder for conditioning, Then i store as many as i can in my fridge and try to drink slowly so they can get better with age and lager.

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I know the instructions say 68-72, and the booklet says 65 is too cold, but the yeast will actually ferment down to 59. It just slows down a bit.

Cool temp just slows the yeast down, don't sweat that too much.

Please don't put chocolate or coffee(!) into a pale ale! Bleeeech!! Coffee and chocolate would go well in a SWEET stout, but not in a pale ale.

Honey ferments out almost completely, but it does leave a little bit of flavor behind. Not that noticeable in a dark beer, but in a pale it might be noticeable.

If you want to shop for hops, go to your local homebrew store (LHBS abbreviation) and smell the hops they have there. If you add just a small amount at the end of the boil you will get the aroma you smell. For a 2.5 gallon batch, a quarter ounce would be plenty for aroma.

Look into citra or amarillo hops -- nice citrus smell, yum! You'll knock the other guys' socks off.

I am getting ready to brew the St Patrick's Irish Stout w/ Creamy Brown - but wanted to order some higher quality yeast (rather than what comes w/ the kit). Does anyone have any suggestions? I prefer dry yeast, and have used safale before. Thanks!

The MrBeer yeast seems to work down to 62 or so - you'll have no problems at 66 and will likely get a 'cleaner' fermentation because of the lower temp.

Sounds like you are all set to brew some good beer.

barkscruff said:

...
and have used safale before. Thanks!

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Safale S-05 ferments really clean. I recommend it. I used Briess Golden LME in my last batch and it is a very mild and smooth Stout. The Cream Brown would have been my choice, but alas all I had on hand was the Briess LME.

HopfulAddiction said:

…
But get new yeast (not sure what strain yet).
…
Possibly get some fresh hops (any suggestions?) to kick it up a notch,
…
It is currently at 66.7 with the heat vents open.
...

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Before you start trying too many yeast, get the handle on brewing. I recommend Safale S-05 because it ferments very clean. Once you get further along you can experiment with yeast.

Here is a good Hop Reference Chart . In the third column it give styles the hops are used in.

If the room temp is 66.7, add 5-10 degrees to that and your wort is fermenting at 71.7-76.7*. Lower the room temp to 60-62. This will slow fermentation and keep it plenty low.

Once you get a pipeline going it is a lot easier to wait.

So it's been 8 days since I poured my wort into the fermenter. SO hard to wait, but I think I'm going to try to make it to day 14.

IowaState said:

So it's been 8 days since I poured my wort into the fermenter. SO hard to wait, but I think I'm going to try to make it to day 14.

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Just wait until you have them in the bottles and they are staring at you and begging you to open them.....

Building a pipeline helps down the road. So does drinking other craft brews to help determine what you want to brew next.

The bottles are saying they are thirsty and want to have beer in them. That or I'm going nuts.

Kealia said:

Just wait until you have them in the bottles and they are staring at you and begging you to open them.....

Building a pipeline helps down the road. So does drinking other craft brews to help determine what you want to brew next.

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I'm sure that does.
Currently tops the fridge are:
Stone Ruination
Short's Guava IPA
Short's Huma Lupa Licious
Rochester Mills Brewing Company Cornerstone IPA
Founders Red Rye PA
Arbor Brewing Company's Sacred cow
Bells Hopslam
Kewenaw Brewing company's brown
A few bigger bottle my brother in law got me for Christmas.
Other good stuff and many lesser beers for the unappreciative.

I think I'll be OK come brewday and for a while afterwards.

IowaState said:

The bottles are saying they are thirsty and want to have beer in them. That or I'm going nuts.

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Nope, you're not going nuts. They really do say that. In fact, the last bottle pleas the biggest because it doesn't want to be left alone.

E

Once I get them bottled up I assume they are going to change their tune to "Drink meeeee drink meeeee". I will be happy to oblige that though.

Anyone ever used raw sugar such as http://www.sugarintheraw.com/ for bottling? Sounds like refined table sugar can have a bad effect. Not sure if I want to spend the extra few bucks on dextrose until I decide brewing will be one of my things.

I have plenty of this around the house and it's a purer sugar than refined table sugar.

I would like to know what brown sugar would be like.

Just wanna throw down a quick comment to say the the Mr. Beer Kit is what indirectly started me down the path of research and got me to where I am today... Just ordered my kit but I would probably have never thought it possible with out seeing it at a local store.. LOL

HopfulAddiction said:

Anyone ever used raw sugar such as http://www.sugarintheraw.com/ for bottling? Sounds like refined table sugar can have a bad effect. Not sure if I want to spend the extra few bucks on dextrose until I decide brewing will be one of my things.

I have plenty of this around the house and it's a purer sugar than refined table sugar.

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Some guys have used stuff similar to that before. It adds a caramel flavor, IIRC.

There is no problem (for most palates) when you use a small amount of sugar for bottling. If 1/3 of the recipe is cane sugar, then the beer gets a "cidery" taste, and also the beer ends up *very* dry because there isn't much that the yeast can't eat in sugar-soup. The flavor of a beer is what the yeast leave behind, and they don't leave much behind when it comes to cane sugar.

Just go ahead and use cane sugar to bottle. It's not a big deal (for most people, in the beginning).

So I was in Bed Bath and Beyond, and they have about 6 or 7 Mr. Beer "refill" packs on clearance. I'm thinking of picking two of them up, and instead of using the "booster" stuff, pouring two cans of the same flavor in and doing a 3 gallon batch, hoping for decent brews to fill out the pipeline a little bit while waiting for more serious beers to be ready. I'm trying to avoid going to the LHBS for additional extract.

I figure 28 bucks for 9 gallons of easy mode beer can't be bad if the stuff is drinkable.

Any thoughts on this? And what can the "booster" packs be used for instead of as alcohol boosting fermentables? I'm hoping it can be used as priming sugar.

Double cans = usually a better beer. Think of it as "Imperial" Mr. Beer.

Booster = dextrose, perfectly fine for bottling. (Boil it first, to avoid infection.)

I just don't care for pre-hopped extract, that's my beef with beer kits.

Justibone said:

Double cans = usually a better beer. Think of it as "Imperial" Mr. Beer.

Booster = dextrose, perfectly fine for bottling. (Boil it first, to avoid infection.)

I just don't care for pre-hopped extract, that's my beef with beer kits.

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Thanks for the response!

So I'm about 10 days from bottling. I've already decided to use corn sugar for priming. My concern is the sediment at the bottom of the keg. Other that buying an Ale Pail, can anybody give me some advice?
Unfortunately I've placed the keg in my stairway closet on the floor and I'm sure I'm going to kick up the sediment at the bottom. Rookie mistake I know.

I say just let it settle out for a couple of days, but take my advice with a grain of salt.

If you look back in this thread many people have recommended using the booster for hard cider.

PacoTX said:

So I'm about 10 days from bottling. I've already decided to use corn sugar for priming. My concern is the sediment at the bottom of the keg. Other that buying an Ale Pail, can anybody give me some advice?
Unfortunately I've placed the keg in my stairway closet on the floor and I'm sure I'm going to kick up the sediment at the bottom. Rookie mistake I know.

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Move it an hour before you bottle and it will fall out to the bottom and be fine.

You can use anything as an "ale pale" - any bucket or whatever if you sanitize it

Whatever sediment that is left when you bottle will fall out as it bottle conditions anyway, so don't worry about it, the rest will go to the bottom when you cool it in the fridge before serving. Use a glass and don't empty out the last 1/2" - RDWHAHB!

daveyeah said:

So I was in Bed Bath and Beyond, and they have about 6 or 7 Mr. Beer "refill" packs on clearance. I'm thinking of picking two of them up, and instead of using the "booster" stuff, pouring two cans of the same flavor in and doing a 3 gallon batch, hoping for decent brews to fill out the pipeline a little bit while waiting for more serious beers to be ready. I'm trying to avoid going to the LHBS for additional extract.

I figure 28 bucks for 9 gallons of easy mode beer can't be bad if the stuff is drinkable.

Any thoughts on this? And what can the "booster" packs be used for instead of as alcohol boosting fermentables? I'm hoping it can be used as priming sugar.

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If you use two HMEs in a brew, it will be pretty hoppy. That may be okay if you like a hoppy beer, but I wanted to warn you just in case. Also, in my opinion, the problem with Booster isn't the Booster per se, it's using the Booster with a single can of extract. If you use two cans of extract and one Booster, it will taste much the same as it would without the Booster, but it will have a higher alcohol content. It may also mellow out the hops just a little (although not as much as some unhopped extract or some grains).

Kayos said:

... Use a glass and don't empty out the last 1/2" - RDWHAHB!

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I am SOOO tired of hearing this. When the beer sits in the fridge, the trub/yeast can get very compacted and tight. Just do not let it slosh hard back into the bottle and QUIT wasting good beer. And even if it does slosh back a little, you are not going to get that much stirred up. DRINK IT!!! The yeast worked hard. DRINK IT!!! EVERY BIT OF IT!!!

Sorry, I finally HAD to say something.

PacoTX said:

So I'm about 10 days from bottling. I've already decided to use corn sugar for priming. My concern is the sediment at the bottom of the keg. Other that buying an Ale Pail, can anybody give me some advice?
Unfortunately I've placed the keg in my stairway closet on the floor and I'm sure I'm going to kick up the sediment at the bottom. Rookie mistake I know.

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Cold crash it. Move the whole keg into the fridge for 2-3 days and the cold will help settle tings out and compact it a bit more.

Take it out at bottling time and proceed as normal. You'll transfer less trub.

I just ordered a 3-pack from amazon, this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013M2NJA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


Any tips on getting the most out of it? The guy at my LHBS said Mr. Beer's refill kits are usually watered down. I was reading on here and saw that DME works better than the booster as far as flavor. I also heard that people were using two cans of the extract... How does that turn out?

Thanks! And I know I'm a noob, sorry!

+1 Cold Crashing. I've never done it, but if you can fit it in the fridge reasonably, it should help keep the trub at the bottom of the fermentor.

When it's bottling day, move it one hour before you want to bottle it. Put the fermentor on the counter, over the top of your open dishwasher door. Bottle on top of your dishwasher door. Any leakage hits the dishwasher door, so it gets cleaned up the next time you run the dishwasher -- easy.

Above poster: one page back addresses the multiple-cans-of-extract-per batch. I know it's a long thread, but come on... really?? Please at least *try* to read the last 20 pages of the thread before you ask questions. Please. For our sanity.

MaxSpang said:

I just ordered a 3-pack from amazon, this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013M2NJA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


Any tips on getting the most out of it? The guy at my LHBS said Mr. Beer's refill kits are usually watered down. I was reading on here and saw that DME works better than the booster as far as flavor. I also heard that people were using two cans of the extract... How does that turn out?

Thanks! And I know I'm a noob, sorry!

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I brewed up Canadian Draught last night. Skipped the booster, did two of the same can and boiled it for 20 minutes to up the bitterness, added some leftover noble hops for a little more flavor. The cans were enough for four gallons but I put it all in a little less than 2 1/2 gallons. I wound up with 1030 original gravity; I guess this is supposed to be a light beer anyway, website says 3.8 ABV.

Anyway, I'd say do a single gallon batch out of those cans you ordered. Add some of the booster if you want; for me I'm wary of cidery tastes that might come from using "corn syrup solids" as a major part of the fermentables. Half of the bag might be okay, as someone in a previous post had mentioned. And check out the clearance section of your local bed bath and beyond, they might have the same post-christmas discounted boxes of this stuff that I got.

1.030 for two cans sounds like really, REALLY light beer.

Are you sure you mixed it properly?