What to do with my Mr. Beer ingredients

So i just found some of my extract cans from a Mr. Beer kit I got as a gift and since I already have a "Nice Setup" I was wondering what to do with the Extract??

Should I gather indredients for the style that is on the cans and just use them along with other extract or DME?

Any suggestions, I would hate to waste these.

Hm, 3-gallon starters?

Ahh now there is an idea. For some odd reason that didn't even cross my mind.

I have been using mine to make starters. I make a gallon batch. Put it into a plastic jug and when I need a starter I pour some into a pot and boil it for 15 min then cool it and pitch the yeast.

944play said:

Hm, 3-gallon starters?

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damn you

123456789

Haha. He got it in first lol.

My only question is that these extracts seem to be pre hopped and they are labled as Irish stout, Canadian draft, IPA and I also have another but cant think of it. somekinda Cowboy something.

My question is, Having never used a Mr. Beer kit, should I only make starters for those styles and would a starter even work if these are pre hopped?

Thanks!

All the ones I have are darker also. But when you add 1 or 2 liters to 5 gallons its not going to impact it much. I would not brew a belgian pale ale and use one of those but anything amber and up should be fine.

Ok that makes sense. Thanks alot for the idea (well at least some more detailed information )

I used my last two Mr. Beer cans as an extract addition for a partial mash. I just dropped my bittering hops a little since one of the cans was hopped. It's in secondary now, but seems to have come out well do far.

thats an interesting idea as well. I have yet to do a PM so maybe this could be a bit of an experiment.

Looks like im going to have to go search the stickies for partial mash info.

mix them all together and make a batch? who knows

How many cans of which extracts do you have? With some additional DME, steeping grains, honey, sugar, you can come up with something quite drinkable. I'm not saying add all of the above, depends what you've got. The MrBeer kits are kinda expensive to use as starter wort when just plain ol' DME will do.

-OCD

i have exactly Two octoberfests, Two High Country Candian Draft's, two whispering wheat Weizenbier, two American devil IPA's and two irish stouts.

I also have like 10 bags of there "booster". it says on the back that it is just Corn Syrup Solids.

The octoberfests actually produce some decent beer with a pound of amber DME per can. So, 2 cans, 2 pounds, an ounce of hops if you got em, and some yeast. The canadians, I used 2 lbs light DME, the booster and a pound of honey and the neighbors all loved it. The weiss, just add some DME, corriander and some citrus peel (lemon or orange), a hefe yeast would be great if you can manage it. Unfortunately, I've never played with the others. These are not award winning beers you will be making but they are very drinkable. If you have the sugar packs - and want some extra punch go for it. Lots of people are against it, I've used it plenty. Two sugar packs per (5 gallon) batch will give you an extra percent (roughly). You can get fancier - go to their site and check out the recipes see what to steep, what to mix, but at least you've got an idea what to do now.

Please - no flames - we get it - it's Mr.Beer. Maybe you rather drink BMC, or have your eyes dug out with a spork, but this stuff can turn out pretty decent - and he got it for free.

-OCD

awesome man I really appreciate the information! I am used to doing extract brewing but I just never gave the Mr. Beer a shot because I had my set-up before.

I basically just used the Mr. Beer keg for test batches and wine making. Now i feel like I will actually be able to use these!

I have six "kegs" kept buying the after Christmas specials at BBB just kept playing with ingredients. I did some kits then got lucky on an Ebay score and now switched to AG. Now I'm at 16 carboys, 9 cornys, lots of buckets, etc. It's all good. Even Mr.Beer beats the snot out of BMC.

I think I'm going to start giving the kegs away as gifts, with Apfelwine in them.

-OCD

I am really close to buying myself a nice 6.5 gallon carboy that my LHBS has on sale. I figure that its not possible to have to many fermenter's and I think you helped prove that

My partial mash was :
2 cans of Mr. Beer wheat extract(one hopped, one non)
2 pounds two-row
2 pounds wheat malt
1 pound flaked wheat

.5oz Cascade at 60m.

Pitched with WB-06.

OG was 1.046 or so. It tasted decent coming out of primary, but I've got it in secondary on strawberries now so can't vouch for the end result yet.

Killer - Was that for a 5 gallon batch?

Yes, that was for a five gallon. If you're not using fruit and especially if you're using unhopped extract you might want to hop it more than I did if you try something similar, but I don't mind a low IBU wheat much anyway.

If it were me I'd probably just make up the mr. beer kits per the instructions. I'd be curious how it tastes. It's seems that a lot of people start with Mr. Beer. I wonder if the beer is any good. You could re-gift some of the finished beer to whoever gave it to you in the first place. You may want to skip the booster packs and use some DME instead.

I'll be over to pick them up. If anyone else has Mr. Beer stuff they want to get rid of, send it my way. Especially the Wheat beer.

brian_g said:

If it were me I'd probably just make up the mr. beer kits per the instructions. I'd be curious how it tastes. It's seems that a lot of people start with Mr. Beer. I wonder if the beer is any good. You could re-gift some of the finished beer to whoever gave it to you in the first place. You may want to skip the booster packs and use some DME instead.

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Yeah, Mr. Beer is as good as any other extract kit, you just want to skip the booster and use their "premium" all-malt recipe, use a different yeast, wait at least a couple weeks longer than the instructions say to bottle and drink, and run the additions(or lack thereof) past someone more experienced....okay, so I guess my point is that the barrel and the LME are fine. I tried getting an oatmeal stout, and thankfully someone here told me that their directions for putting oatmeal in for a ten minute boil with no other grains was a bad idea.

Killer_Robot said:

I tried getting an oatmeal stout, and thankfully someone here told me that their directions for putting oatmeal in for a ten minute boil with no other grains was a bad idea.

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Instant Oatmeal OTOH - can aid head retention. Not the flavored stuff!!! 2 packets per 5 gallon batch.

-OCD

that sounds kinda yummy. I think I may try mixing the IPA and the Irish stout to see if I can get close to a black IPA. Anyone think this would work? I will do two cans of the american devil ipa and one can of the irish stout.

I like the beer we make with the Mr. Beer beer kits. Try putting the two together in a 3 gallon PET jug instead of trying to put together a 5 GALLON mix. It should be great. I take about 6 weeks for a batch. 3 in the primary and three in the bottle and then in the frig. for a couple of days.