First Time "Newbie" Question

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craftbeercodes

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Okay, I did my first small batch of beer 3 days ago using a traditional Mr. Beer kit (plan on upgrading and buying professional materials soon) and the beer has been in my fermenter keg since then. I added some spices, vanilla and "loose pumpkin" into the keg. Is it bad to open it and add more flavors?
 
I don't think it's good to keep messing with it. The more you add in primary,the more it could get infected. Unless the additions were sanitized first.
 
We put the pumpkin in the oven for 30 mins at 375. So I feel it killed everything. Then just added brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice straight in, but now that I think about it, I don't think we added nearly enough to get decent flavor.
 
If you are wanting add more flavors, I would suggest putting something into the secondary, but I'm not familiar with Mr. Beer so not sure if it comes with one. Once fermentation is finished, you can always quickly add sanitized ingredients. Just try to make it quick to lesson the risk of contamination.
 
Unfortunately there isn't a second fermentation process. Just the single, then straight to bottling.
 
I would recommend you not mess with it any further. Every time you do, you're risking an infection...plus, you're adding to something you're not quite sure if it tastes good yet. Just let it finish out and drink it. Learn from it and apply what you learned to your next batch.
 
We used roughly three or four pinches of 5 different spices. Didn't want to go overboard, but now think it may not be enough
 
When adding spice to beer, less is always more. I'd rather add to little than too much and make it unpleasant to drink.
 
I would suggest you err on the less spiced side of things. Adding things willy-nilly is more likely to mess up your beer than add desirable flavors.
 
Appreciate all the insight. Normally I wouldn't, but with this being a Mr. Beer kit, I wanted to alter it a bit. When I start brewing real beer from scratch I'll be more elaborate and take everything into account. Was just more of a test run
 

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