Question for Mr Beer users...

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UdderJuice

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I am now considering trying the Mr Beer micro brewery as a 5 gal kit would just make more beer than I can drink and because the Mr Beer kit would take up less space in my apartment and I like the fact that you ferment it and then spigot the beer right into the bottles.

Anyway, I'm trying to understand their beer mixes. They have beer mixes that you combine with what they call "booster" which is just sugar and then they have beer mix and unhopped malt combos. Do I understand correctly that you don't use the booster with these mixes or do they still require booster?

Also, how flexible is this system for adjusting ingredients to come up with an orginal flavor/alcohol content?

Thanks.
 
I have only made the booster style MR beer kit.. But from my under standing you bont need sugar to make beer so im assuming thos unhopped kits are just that.

As for flavor/alcohol , you can add stuf to the process for flavor, and adding sugar will increase the alcohol content.

From everything I have heard Mr beer is the easy way to get started and if the 8 liters is fine with you it would be a great way to get into the brewing process.. I am making my first Mr Beer brew right now.. every thing seems to be comming along perfectly. less than 18 hours and it was fermenting :)

Jason

UdderJuice said:
I am now considering trying the Mr Beer micro brewery as a 5 gal kit would just make more beer than I can drink and because the Mr Beer kit would take up less space in my apartment and I like the fact that you ferment it and then spigot the beer right into the bottles.

Anyway, I'm trying to understand their beer mixes. They have beer mixes that you combine with what they call "booster" which is just sugar and then they have beer mix and unhopped malt combos. Do I understand correctly that you don't use the booster with these mixes or do they still require booster?

Also, how flexible is this system for adjusting ingredients to come up with an orginal flavor/alcohol content?

Thanks.
 
ebacherville said:
I have only made the booster style MR beer kit.. But from my under standing you bont need sugar to make beer so im assuming thos unhopped kits are just that.

As for flavor/alcohol , you can add stuf to the process for flavor, and adding sugar will increase the alcohol content.

From everything I have heard Mr beer is the easy way to get started and if the 8 liters is fine with you it would be a great way to get into the brewing process.. I am making my first Mr Beer brew right now.. every thing seems to be comming along perfectly. less than 18 hours and it was fermenting :)

Jason

Dedicated Mr. Beer user here. I have made four batches to date. You can use their unhopped extracts and kits in a variety of ways. A standard beer with them is either using a hopped can with booster or a hopped can with a can of unhopped extract for an all malt beer. The Booster will add a cidery flavor (not as much as table sugar would) and more body. Go to their website and you can see a ton of recipes with additional ingredients. Some of the recipes for stronger beers suggest using booster and unhopped malt extract. Here are the ones I have made to date and all have been good to great:

1) West Coast Pale Ale - first one, turned out good for a light beer
2) Otto's Octoberfest - turned out great, all-malt, rich malt flavor
3) Pumpkin Porter - still carbonating, but initial taste test was awesome!
4) Scottish Wee Heavy - still fermenting (using lager yeast) but taste test yesterday was good

I am planning to make Christmas 2002 Ale and Maple Wheat in the near future. Glad to see another Mr. Beer user. I too enjoy the ease of use, smaller batch size, and minimal space requirements of the kit.
 
sweepking said:
Dedicated Mr. Beer user here. I have made four batches to date. You can use their unhopped extracts and kits in a variety of ways. A standard beer with them is either using a hopped can with booster or a hopped can with a can of unhopped extract for an all malt beer. The Booster will add a cidery flavor (not as much as table sugar would) and more body. Go to their website and you can see a ton of recipes with additional ingredients. Some of the recipes for stronger beers suggest using booster and unhopped malt extract. Here are the ones I have made to date and all have been good to great:

1) West Coast Pale Ale - first one, turned out good for a light beer
2) Otto's Octoberfest - turned out great, all-malt, rich malt flavor
3) Pumpkin Porter - still carbonating, but initial taste test was awesome!
4) Scottish Wee Heavy - still fermenting (using lager yeast) but taste test yesterday was good

I am planning to make Christmas 2002 Ale and Maple Wheat in the near future. Glad to see another Mr. Beer user. I too enjoy the ease of use, smaller batch size, and minimal space requirements of the kit.

Yes, I would have to agree Mr beer makes it so easy to get started, I would think MR Beer would have a Grandpa beer kit that was say a 5 gallon kit.. as the 20 to 22 bottles of beer per batch is quite small.. I have ben considering a secong MR beer frementer to try some stuff like going to a secondary for a week befreo bottling.. to see if i can clear the beer a bit more.. or just plain more production.

My next kit for my MR beer is a Nut Brow Ale , i have heard this is a good mid way beer between stout and a ale.. It will be here tomarrow and it will be brewed as soon as i get my hands on it.

I laso have two ciders coming. they were on sale for 2 for $10 if there anything like a woodchuck or simular i wil enjoy them at $0.25 a bottle for the kit, cant beer that.

I may take your advice on the pumpkin porter.. sounds good. let us know when you crack a bottl open aftr its bottle conditioned. Sounds like a good xmas beer.

Jason
 
ebacherville said:
Yes, I would have to agree Mr beer makes it so easy to get started, I would think MR Beer would have a Grandpa beer kit that was say a 5 gallon kit.. as the 20 to 22 bottles of beer per batch is quite small.. I have ben considering a secong MR beer frementer to try some stuff like going to a secondary for a week befreo bottling.. to see if i can clear the beer a bit more.. or just plain more production.

My next kit for my MR beer is a Nut Brow Ale , i have heard this is a good mid way beer between stout and a ale.. It will be here tomarrow and it will be brewed as soon as i get my hands on it.

I laso have two ciders coming. they were on sale for 2 for $10 if there anything like a woodchuck or simular i wil enjoy them at $0.25 a bottle for the kit, cant beer that.

I may take your advice on the pumpkin porter.. sounds good. let us know when you crack a bottl open aftr its bottle conditioned. Sounds like a good xmas beer.

Jason

I bought the Cider too due to the special. It is just apple juice with water though so I am not sure how much of a deal it is. I will have to see when I make it. I should be trying the pumpkin next week. I have one bottle that didn't fill up all the way so I use those for a test after a week of carbonation and a few days of chilling. I will let the rest cold condition for a few weeks. It is my Thanksgiving beer...Christmas Ale is my next project.

I joined their Beer of the Month club...if you do that you can get another fermenter for $10. They send you kits every three months, and you can adjust what comes before they send it. I only have one fermenter going at a time, but it might be what you are looking to do.
 
sweepking said:
I bought the Cider too due to the special. It is just apple juice with water though so I am not sure how much of a deal it is. I will have to see when I make it. I should be trying the pumpkin next week. I have one bottle that didn't fill up all the way so I use those for a test after a week of carbonation and a few days of chilling. I will let the rest cold condition for a few weeks. It is my Thanksgiving beer...Christmas Ale is my next project.

I joined their Beer of the Month club...if you do that you can get another fermenter for $10. They send you kits every three months, and you can adjust what comes before they send it. I only have one fermenter going at a time, but it might be what you are looking to do.

Actually they have on sale right now a fermentor for $10.. for anyone.
 
ebacherville said:
Actually they have on sale right now a fermentor for $10.. for anyone.

Sweet. I also do the BOMC to save on shipping...that is key since I live in Hawaii!
 
sweepking said:
Sweet. I also do the BOMC to save on shipping...that is key since I live in Hawaii!

Makes sence.. shipping there is a bummer. Its kind of nice for me shipping from Mr Beer takes two days, there in WI and im in MN so its fast.. even with ground 7 day delivery, its her in a couple of days.. same with other beer wine places I try to order from with in the state... But I did just order from Canada as they were the only place I found that stocked Lombrusco wine making kits.. and american dollars vs canadian there made up for the extra high shipping prices :)
 
sweepking said:
Sweet. I also do the BOMC to save on shipping...that is key since I live in Hawaii!

Hey ebacherville, when you brewed the West Coast Pale Ale was there a lot of activity during the fermentation cycle? We both experienced very little bubbling and no foam on the surface of the liquid and are wondering if that is normal with the Pale Ale.
 
UdderJuice said:
Hey ebacherville, when you brewed the West Coast Pale Ale was there a lot of activity during the fermentation cycle? We both experienced very little bubbling and no foam on the surface of the liquid and are wondering if that is normal with the Pale Ale.

I got at the max about a inch of foam.. I would say fair fermentation.. but nothing explosive like my red concord wine, orange wine and Apple wine I'm fermenting right now.. it seemed correct to me.. since the MR beer kit has no airlock its hard for me to really tel you at least with a air lock you can actualy count bubbles going through it.
 
hey gang, i also just started the wonderful world of home brew, and am using mr beer. making my first batch of pale ale, going on week 2 of fermenting and still has bubbles in it, and a small layer of foam on top. my house is a bit cooler than the recomended temp, but only by a few degrees, so i assume that is the reason fermenting is taking longer than the book says.
 
tritanium said:
hey gang, i also just started the wonderful world of home brew, and am using mr beer. making my first batch of pale ale, going on week 2 of fermenting and still has bubbles in it, and a small layer of foam on top. my house is a bit cooler than the recomended temp, but only by a few degrees, so i assume that is the reason fermenting is taking longer than the book says.

Thats probably right, my house is heated to a constant 76 degrees (due to my other hobby) and on the 6th day in the fermenter it was pretty much done.
 
Sweepking, I was looking at that pumpkin recipie, on MrBeer.com, sound like a great holiday brew.. I think I will have to try that one.. if you crack one open let us know your thoughts.

Jason
 
ebacherville said:
Sweepking, I was looking at that pumpkin recipie, on MrBeer.com, sound like a great holiday brew.. I think I will have to try that one.. if you crack one open let us know your thoughts.

Jason

I definitely will let everyone know how it turns out. I tried a taste prior to bottling, and it tasted really good at that time...it had a really strong pumpkin flavor. My wife, who hates beer, thought it smelled great. I can't remember if the recipe calls for cloves...I didn't have any so I didn't put them in, but if you do, be careful...they can be very overpowering. One of my neighbors does a pumpkin ale of his own, and he learned that the hard way.
 
sweepking said:
I definitely will let everyone know how it turns out. I tried a taste prior to bottling, and it tasted really good at that time...it had a really strong pumpkin flavor. My wife, who hates beer, thought it smelled great. I can't remember if the recipe calls for cloves...I didn't have any so I didn't put them in, but if you do, be careful...they can be very overpowering. One of my neighbors does a pumpkin ale of his own, and he learned that the hard way.

Im not big on cloves either so i would probably go light on them.. but it sounds like a nice brew.. and fairly easy.. Tomarrow i will brew my Nut Brown.. that will be my first dark beer brew.. (or semi dark)

Later
Jason
 
ebacherville said:
Im not big on cloves either so i would probably go light on them.. but it sounds like a nice brew.. and fairly easy.. Tomarrow i will brew my Nut Brown.. that will be my first dark beer brew.. (or semi dark)

Later
Jason

Let me know how that nut brown comes out...I may just do a keg of that at some point. Are you doing it with Booster or mixing it with some unhopped extract? I guess you could do two cans of Nut Brown too.
 
sweepking said:
Let me know how that nut brown comes out...I may just do a keg of that at some point. Are you doing it with Booster or mixing it with some unhopped extract? I guess you could do two cans of Nut Brown too.

I will let you know, I am doing the booster version.. But if it turns out like everyone says it does i will probably order two more malt kits and make a double batch.

Jason
 
ebacherville said:
I will let you know, I am doing the booster version.. But if it turns out like everyone says it does i will probably order two more malt kits and make a double batch.

Jason

Well I got that English Nut Brow Brewing, should start heavy fermenting in in a few more hours.. From the smell of the mash its going to be a nice brew, has a nutty smell to it.. Cant wait...

Im going to the nearest brew shop (100 miles away) tomarrow to get a bunch of supplies for my 1 gallon wine making opperation... Currently I have 3 wines going, and need to add to that, i would like to have about 9 gallon test batches going at ones so im going to get a bunch more carboy stoppers and airlocks so I can expand my opperation.. I want to make a mead in this next batch. Im also going to get a bunck of beer bottles for this Nut brown batch.

Jason

Jason
 
ebacherville said:
Well I got that English Nut Brow Brewing, should start heavy fermenting in in a few more hours.. From the smell of the mash its going to be a nice brew, has a nutty smell to it.. Cant wait...

Im going to the nearest brew shop (100 miles away) tomarrow to get a bunch of supplies for my 1 gallon wine making opperation... Currently I have 3 wines going, and need to add to that, i would like to have about 9 gallon test batches going at ones so im going to get a bunch more carboy stoppers and airlocks so I can expand my opperation.. I want to make a mead in this next batch. Im also going to get a bunck of beer bottles for this Nut brown batch.

Jason

Jason

I am going to use the Nut Brown Ale to make a banana brown probably early next year. I have never tried making wine...I don't drink much of it to be honest. I have always wanted to try some mead though...let me know how that turns out.
 
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