Hi, I just made my first batch of beer using the Mr. Beer kit and it turned out awesome! I can see this becoming an obsession in the future. For now I have my Mr. Beer kit which will have to do so I have a few questions to make my current experience brewing more enjoyable.
1) Can you brew other types of beer other than the Mr. Beer refill kits? If so what? Link to where I can buy on the web please.
2) If the answer to #1 is yes, can this kit which is for a 5 gallon setup be split to make in a 2 1/2 gallon Mr. Beer?
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/caribou-slobber-extract-kit.html
3) Where can I get plastic 12 oz bottles for bottling my beer? I'd rather plastic so that there is no chance of having exploding glass in my house.
4) Where is the best place to get Mr. Beer refill kits?
5) Does anyone have recipes to make Mr. Beer kits even better? I have seen some reviews of the Mr. Beer Octoberfest's Vienna Lager Refill Brew Pack
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PE17QM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 with people suggesting anywhere from a tbs to a cup of brown sugar be added to the beer. Would love to see some various recipes to make even better beer.
6) If I decide to move up to a bigger kit, what are your suggestions to a good kit that I will not grow out of.
7) I have a 5 gallon poland spring bottle. Can that be used to brew or do I need a specific carboy?
Thanks and happy brewing!
I don't have all the answers for you, but I suspect if you were to peruse this thread back, you'd find most of these topics have been covered.
Anyway,
1&2: All you're really getting out of the Mr. Beer kit equipment wise, is a 2.5 gallon fermenter. The airlock design on that fermenter is a bit lacking IMO, but it seems to work repeatably for the Mr. Beer specific extract products. You can certainly split a 5 gallon traditional extract kit from NB, (or others) to 2.5 gallons, or whatever ratio you want.
The big differences with traditional kits is that you do a full boil with the extract (and more importantly, the hops) so you will need a large kettle to do this. You also will need to get (at a minumum) a hydrometer & test flute. You could use the Mr. Beer fermenter for those kits, but not sure why you would. If you want to move up to better kits, just get an ale pale style bucket fermenter with real airlock...it's cheap.
Just check out NB's extract beginner equipment kits...They are by no means the only source for these kinds of kits, but they all consist of the same basic bits...fermenter, airlock, racking cane/siphon, sipon tubing, capper, caps, cleaner, sanitizer, brushes and instructions. You may wish to add on to that kit a 5 or 6 gallon glass or better bottle (Plastic) fermenter, an immersion wort chiller, and a supply of glass bottles.
The thing about the Mr. Beer kit is that it's designed to be easy. If you follow the directions, you will get repeatable results. When you are ready to start branching out to get more variety and put personal touches on your beer with specific ingredients and/or process changes, that's when you will want get the other tools/equipment mentioned above. These sorts of kits are usually in the $90 to $130 range.
3&4 I always try to give my Local Homebrew Supply Store the business, and most of them will be able to get these for you if they don't have them on the shelves. Unless they turn out to be hacks, the benefit they have over Internet Suppliers is that you can go in and get personalized advice. Support local beer, I say. That goes for your starter kits as well.
7. Obviously thse bottles are food grade, so you're good to go there. What you want in a fermenter is smooth inner walls. I know many of those style bottles are textured and/or ribbed...that would be no good. Lot's of opportunity for wild yeasts/bacteria to take hold. Also, you would need to be very careful to only put chilled wort into it. Plastic bottles can easily distort with hot wort. Lastly, I would think it would be difficult to clean thouroughly with a carboy brush with the handle. If you can't scrub every inch of it, don't use it.
Happy brewing!