Hello Everyone! I started homebrewing when my wife bought me a Mr. Beer kit, and I've been learning and brewing ever since. I wrote up a very detailed, in depth post on my website, and here is just the text version of it. If you'd like to see the pictures and charts I have included, check it out here: www.brewingforbeginners.com/mr-beer-instructions
Anyways, here's the post - Enjoy!
If you are completely overwhelmed and have no idea where to start, then I highly recommend buying a Mr. Beer kit. I, like many others, started home brewing by first buying a Mr. Beer kit. These kits are fairly inexpensive, and the beer they produce tastes great. In this guide, I’m going to walk you through how to use your Mr. Beer kit to it’s fullest potential so you can get started making great beer at home as soon as possible with minimal investment.
If you’re feeling doubts about buying a Mr. Beer kit, or maybe you feel like you’re not a “real” home brewer if you use these kits, get those thoughts out of your head right now. If you make beer at home (no matter how), then you’re a home brewer. Period. You don’t need expensive equipment to be a home brewer. In fact, I almost wish I still had my Mr. Beer kit because sometimes I just don’t want to deal with the pain of a full on 5 gallon all-grain or extract brew day.
Enjoy the first steps of getting into home brewing because I promise you, the more beer you make at home, the more you’ll get into the hobby, and the more complicated you’ll make the process for yourself (which is a good thing by the way).
I’m going to base this guide off of the Mr. Beer kit I started with: The Mr. Beer Starter Beer Kit. This is their most economical kit, but not their most popular. It’s very easy to use, doesn’t take up too much space, and the bottles/fermenter are a hard, durable plastic that will last for a long, long time (I still have my Mr. Beer PET bottles and use them to bottle my home brew).
Materials
This beginner kit includes all of the basic, essential equipment you absolutely need to start home brewing. I also have some suggestions for additional pieces of equipment to buy, but i’ll get into that later. First, let’s go over the equipment that comes with your Mr. Beer kit.
Equipment Included:
-2-gallon Plastic Fermenter with lid and spigot hardware
-25 oz Plastic Bottles (PET) with screw on caps (11 bottles total)
-Hopped Malt Extract – 1 can
-1 Yeast packet
-1 no-rinse packet of sanitizer/cleanser
-1 bag of carbonation drops
-How to Brew – Mr. Beer instructional DVD
-Printed Instructions
Must-Have Equipment
In order to brew your very first batch of beer, you must have:
-Stock Pot (that holds at least 3 quarts)
-Can Opener
-2 Gallons of Water
-Measuring Cup (pyrex 2-cup glass measuring cup is perfect)
-Measuring Spoons
-Plate or small plastic storage box
-Table Sugar (used for priming/bottling 2 weeks after brew day)
Note about water – You may use tap water, or bottled water. However, you should stear clear from reverse osmosis or distilled water. Those two types of water are void of minerals and nutrients that the yeast thrive on. If your tap water tastes ok, just use that. If it tastes like crap and you want different water, I recommend buying artesian drinking water. You can get it cheaply almost anywhere (like walmart) for around a dollar per gallon.
Note about plate/small storage bin – You’ll want some type of surface you can sanitize and rest your spoons and things on while you brew. Sanitation is extremely important, so it’s not a good idea to just lay a sanitized spoon on your counter top. I recommend using a dinner plate or do what I do and get a small 1 gallon plastic storage bin from walmart and keep all of your sanitized stuff in there while you brew (your metal spoon, bottle caps, can opener etc..). This is a small step, but a very important one and you’ll see why when we talk about sanitation.
Optional Equipment
Funnel – A funnel is useful later on in the brewing process when you add sugar to each bottle to prime and prepare for bottling (more on that later). You can pick up a funnel at a dollar store, or you may already have a small one on hand. Just make sure it will fit in the opening of the bottle.
Thermometer – When you pitch your yeast (brewer’s term for adding your DSC_0011yeast to your un-fermented beer to start fermentation), you will want to pitch at a temperature that the yeast will like. If you pitch your yeast into boiling hot water, your yeast will die and your beer will not ferment. Optimal range for your Mr Beer yeast is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. A Thermometer is not absolutely necessary, and if you follow your kit’s instructions, I’m sure you’ll pitch at an acceptable temperature without a thermometer. But, if you’re like me and are a little OCD, then certainly a thermometer is an essential piece of equipment. Any thermometer will do; an instant read digital thermometer is one I use, or you could use a simple baking/meat thermometer.
Spoon/Spatula – A long plastic spoon (may 12 inches) is good for mixing your ingredients during the brewing process. A rubber spatula comes in handy while you’re brewing because at some point you have to get the hopped malt extract from the can provided into a pot of hot water. This process is much easier with a spatula so you can scrape every last drop of the malt extract out of the can. It’s totally up to you to use these, but you probably already have them on hand anyway. One note about using metal with your plastic fermenter: It’s not a good idea. Metal can scratch the inside of your fermenter and create little crevices and resting places for bacteria. Wild yeast and bacteria can ruin or create off flavors in your beer, so anything we do to minimize the chances of that happening is best practice. Consider it the same as using metal spatulas on non-stick cookware. It’s just a no-no.
Set-Up
Your first step should be unpacking your kit, making sure you have all the items, and assembling your fermenter. Your fermenter should come with a plastic lid, a spigot, a rubber washer, and a nut. Make sure an assemble the washer on the spigot according to the directions. The pointed side should be against the fermenter wall on the outside of the fermenter. The nut will tighten from behind, inside the fermenter. Do not tighten the nut with a wrench. Only hand tighten this spigot.
When I first got my Mr. Beer kit, I made a mistake and tightened the nut too hard and I also put the rubber washer on backwards (I didn’t read the instructions because I was so excited). Shortly after my fermentation started, I realized I lost about a bottle’s worth of my beer and it was all over my closet floor. Not fun to clean up and especially not fun realizing that was a whole bottle of beer my wife and I could not enjoy.
Your next step should be to fill your fermenter halfway with water, set it on the countertop and test it for leaks. Just leave the water in there for the next step, because now it’s time to sanitize.
Sanitizing
Sanitizing your equipment is one of the most important steps in the brewing process. To sanitize your fermenter and equipment, use half of the packet of the sanitizer/cleanser that came with your packet, and pour it into your plastic ferment (which should be half full of water). Save the other half of the packet for later because you will use it two weeks from now when you bottle your beer. Use your plastic spoon to mix the no rinse sanitizer in the fermenter until it is dissolved completely. Be sure to shake the fermenter over your sink and tilt it upside down to get every inch of the inside of your fermenter covered in the sanitizer solution. Don’t be alarmed if the sanitizer drips out of the top. There are holes in the lid to allow CO2 to escape during fermentation.
Now, if you have a little 1 gallon or so plastic storage container, dump your sanitizer solution from your keg into your small 1-2 gallon bin. Do not wash your fermenter out afterwards even if you see foam. This foam is harmless and is completely food grade 100% safe. There’s a common saying: Don’t fear the foam. Once you dump the sanitized solution out of your fermenter and into your small plastic bin, put your additional materials in there: your mixing spoon, spatula, and bottle opener, and thermometer. Let that sit, and prepare for the next step: brewing.
Let’s Start Brewing
Your first step should be to get a large mixing bowl fill it half way with the hottest water that comes out of your faucet, and place the can of liquid malt extract in the bowl. This will soften the malt extract and make it easier for you to dump it out in the later steps. Next, use your measuring cup and dump 4 cups of water (whatever water you want to use for brewing) into your boiling pot (brew kettle, brew pot, your stock pot) and bring this water to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the burner off and take the water off the heat.
Take your can opener and open the bottom end of your liquid malt extract can (which should still be in the mixing bowl). Slowly pour this into your hot water you just boiled. Pour it in slowly, and mix with your spoon as you pour to dissolve the malt extract in the hot water. You can use a whisk or your plastic spoon to get the job done. Use your rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the can and get every little bit of malt extract out of there. Sometimes people will put a cup of hot water in the can and wash the remaining liquid malt extract out. If you use a spatula and scrape the sides, that should do the trick.
Once this is done, fill your empty fermenter to the 4 Liter mark with your cold brewing water. Pour in the dissolved mal extract mixture after that, then top it off to the 8.5 Liters with the remaining cold water. At this point, nothing should touch your wort (unfermented beer mixture) unless it has been sanitized. The wort is vulnerable to infection at this point so please be careful and sanitize your equipment. Stir the mixture vigorously with your sanitized plastic spoon and ensure it’s all mixed together. Now would be a good time to take a temperature reading. If you’re around 70 degrees, you should move on to the next step. If you’re concerned about the temperature and it feels a little too warm to the touch or your thermometer says it’s over 80 degrees, you may want to put the fermenter in your fridge for 30 minutes or so to cool it off a bit. If the fermenter does not feel warm to the touch or your thermometer reads around 70-75 degrees, just go ahead and move to the next step.
Pitch Your Yeast
This is when you sprinkle your yeast into your fermenter. Dip the packet of yeast and a pair of scissors into your sanitizer solution. Cut open the yeast packet, and sprinkle it in the wort. Do not worry about mixing it around or anything like that. The dry yeast will rehydrate and get to work. Screw the lid onto the fermenter, and set it in a cool, dark corner somewhere in your house. The ideal temperature should be anywhere from 65-75 degrees.
Fermentation
Once you set your fermenter aside, no matter what your Mr. Beer kit instructions say, allow for 2 weeks for the beer to ferment. During this process, your yeast are consuming the sugars from the malt extract and converting those sugars into alcohol and CO2. During fermentation, do your best not to disturb the fermenter, move it around, open the lid and touch the wort, or anything that could risk the beer getting contaminated. Place the fermenter in a spot that you know it will be safe and untouched for 2 whole weeks. It’s fun to take a look at it every now and then to see how it’s coming along.
You should see foam (called krausen) forming on top of the wort within 3 days. Do not get worried if you don’t see the foam within a day. Your beer will ferment, so just relax and have a beer!
Note about temperature: If you are worried the temperature inside your home will be too hot (anything above 77-78 degrees), there are ways around that. Home brewers come up with clever ways to control fermentation temperature by building what’s called a fermentation chamber. For example, what I do here in Arizona, is use a chest freezer, plug it into a temperature controller (a device that uses a temperature probe and controls when your freezer turns on based on the temperature inside) that is set to my ideal temperature, and I put my fermenters in that.
When I started with Mr. Beer, I didn’t even consider fermentation temperature as an issue, and my beer turned out fine (in fact my wife really loved it). So, don’t over think it too much, but just be aware that it’s not a good idea to set your fermenter in front of a window that gets sun all day long. Maybe a cool quiet corner of a room underneath an air vent would be better. Don’t stress too much over temperature right now. The important thing is learning the brewing process, and as you learn, you’ll figure out which part of the process you want to improve.
Bottling Day
2 weeks after your brew day and start of your fermentation, your beer should be ready to bottle. To be completely sure, take a small sample of the beer. If it tastes sweet, you’ll need to give it more time to ferment. The sweetness is the sugars from the malt extract that haven’t been devoured by the yeast. If your sample is too sweet, make sure your fermentation temperature isn’t too low. A fermentation temperature that is too low will make the yeast go dormant and we do not want that! If your sample tastes like flat beer, then it’s ready to bottle.
Note: You may taste some off flavors in your sample. Do not worry! These flavors will mostly go away as you age your beer. This is typically called “green” beer and most new home brewers tend to freak out at this point. Don’t be afraid of off flavors right after fermentation, just trust the process and bottle the beer. You may also notice that the beer is cloudy, and not as clear as commercial beer. This is also normal. The cloudiness is from suspended yeast, and those yeast will flocculate (yeast forming into clumps and falling to the bottom) and rest at the bottom of your bottle.
You should still have the PET bottles that came with your kit (11 bottles), the caps, the rest of the sanitizer (half the packet), and table sugar. First, mix some warm water in your 1-2 gallon storage bucket, dump the rest of the sanitizer in, and stir until the sanitizer is completely dissolved in the water. Throw in your caps, give each bottle a quick rinse inside and out, and submerge each bottle one by one into the sanitizing solution, filling it to the brim with sanitizer. Repeat this step until you run out of sanitizer. You may be able to fill 2-3 bottles. Let the sanitizing solution rest in the bottles for 2 minutes, then dump it back into the container. Repeat this step until all of the bottles have had 2 minutes of contact time with the sanitizer.
Once you have each bottle sanitized, get your sugar, a tablespoon, and a funnel ready for the next step. Check out this video to see the whole process:
Priming
After we sanitize our bottles, we’re going to fill them with our fermented beer and add a sugar source (in this case it’s regular table sugar). The point of this is to carbonate the beer. The remaining yeast floating around in our fermented beer will eat up the little bit of added sugar, release CO2, and carbonate the beer. This is a simple step but you must pay close attention to detail, otherwise you’ll have some exploding bottles on your hands!
Your instructions should come with a priming chart, but typically for a 740ml (25 oz) bottle, you will add 2 teaspoons of sugar. All you have to do is put the funnel in the opening of the bottle, measure out 2 teaspoons with your measuring spoons, and pour the sugar into the bottle.
After you get sugar in each bottle, use the nozzle on your fermenter and fill your bottles all the way up until you have about 1.5 inches of headspace, or space between the beer and the opening of the bottle. Remember to tilt the bottle sideways to avoid oxygenation (this could introduce contaminants and cause the yeast to produce off flavors). Once you fill the bottle, put the cap on immediately, turn the bottle upside down a few times to mix the sugar, and set the bottle aside.
Once you have all the bottles filled, store them in the same location as before and in the same temperature range. Now it’s time to wait. The 2-2-2 rule is a good rule of thumb. 2 weeks fermentation, 2 weeks carbonation time, and 2 weeks conditioning. Now you should wait atleast 2 weeks for your bottles to fully carbonate. If you have the PET bottles (plastic), you should be able to monitor the process by squeezing the bottle. Once the bottle becomes hard when you squeeze it (a little less than a soda bottle for example), your beer is carbonated. You’ll see a little yeast layer at the bottle of your bottle. Remember when I told you the yeast would flocculate out and fall to the bottom?
Cold Conditioning
This is the final step of the Mr Beer brewing process. Cold conditioning is the process of storing your carbonated beer at low temperatures to allow the beer to mature and diminish any green/off flavors. All you need to do for this step is store your bottles in the refrigerator. If you can’t fit every bottle in there, don’t worry. Just know that the longer your beer is kept at warmer temperatures, the faster the flavors will change/develop/mature. As long as you can get your bottles into the fridge within a few weeks to a month, you’ll be fine. As you sharpen your home brewing skills and increase your knowledge, this is one step you’ll likely improve and perfect.
Let your bottles sit in your refrigerator for 2 weeks. I know how tempting it is to crack a beer open early before the 2 week mark, and you know what? You should. It’s not only important to get to know what a green beer tastes like, but you can taste your beer as it develops and get a better understanding of when that particular beers’ flavor is at it’s best.
Congratulations – You’re a Home Brewer!
Well, congratulations. You’ve made it this far, and you’re officially a home brewer. Take notes on things you did during the process that maybe you could do more efficiently next time. Take notes on how our beer tastes, smells, and looks. Ask questions on forums, search for the answers, and add the changes into your next brew day. You’ll start to get addicted and you’ll want to find out the why of everything. And I encourage you to do that. That’s how I learned, and it’s been great fun making mistakes that produce crap beer, and making the right decisions that produce great beer. Don’t be afraid to explore, try new things, make mistakes, and be honest about what you can improve on. Good luck on your journey and remember to have fun!
Anyways, here's the post - Enjoy!
If you are completely overwhelmed and have no idea where to start, then I highly recommend buying a Mr. Beer kit. I, like many others, started home brewing by first buying a Mr. Beer kit. These kits are fairly inexpensive, and the beer they produce tastes great. In this guide, I’m going to walk you through how to use your Mr. Beer kit to it’s fullest potential so you can get started making great beer at home as soon as possible with minimal investment.
If you’re feeling doubts about buying a Mr. Beer kit, or maybe you feel like you’re not a “real” home brewer if you use these kits, get those thoughts out of your head right now. If you make beer at home (no matter how), then you’re a home brewer. Period. You don’t need expensive equipment to be a home brewer. In fact, I almost wish I still had my Mr. Beer kit because sometimes I just don’t want to deal with the pain of a full on 5 gallon all-grain or extract brew day.
Enjoy the first steps of getting into home brewing because I promise you, the more beer you make at home, the more you’ll get into the hobby, and the more complicated you’ll make the process for yourself (which is a good thing by the way).
I’m going to base this guide off of the Mr. Beer kit I started with: The Mr. Beer Starter Beer Kit. This is their most economical kit, but not their most popular. It’s very easy to use, doesn’t take up too much space, and the bottles/fermenter are a hard, durable plastic that will last for a long, long time (I still have my Mr. Beer PET bottles and use them to bottle my home brew).
Materials
This beginner kit includes all of the basic, essential equipment you absolutely need to start home brewing. I also have some suggestions for additional pieces of equipment to buy, but i’ll get into that later. First, let’s go over the equipment that comes with your Mr. Beer kit.
Equipment Included:
-2-gallon Plastic Fermenter with lid and spigot hardware
-25 oz Plastic Bottles (PET) with screw on caps (11 bottles total)
-Hopped Malt Extract – 1 can
-1 Yeast packet
-1 no-rinse packet of sanitizer/cleanser
-1 bag of carbonation drops
-How to Brew – Mr. Beer instructional DVD
-Printed Instructions
Must-Have Equipment
In order to brew your very first batch of beer, you must have:
-Stock Pot (that holds at least 3 quarts)
-Can Opener
-2 Gallons of Water
-Measuring Cup (pyrex 2-cup glass measuring cup is perfect)
-Measuring Spoons
-Plate or small plastic storage box
-Table Sugar (used for priming/bottling 2 weeks after brew day)
Note about water – You may use tap water, or bottled water. However, you should stear clear from reverse osmosis or distilled water. Those two types of water are void of minerals and nutrients that the yeast thrive on. If your tap water tastes ok, just use that. If it tastes like crap and you want different water, I recommend buying artesian drinking water. You can get it cheaply almost anywhere (like walmart) for around a dollar per gallon.
Note about plate/small storage bin – You’ll want some type of surface you can sanitize and rest your spoons and things on while you brew. Sanitation is extremely important, so it’s not a good idea to just lay a sanitized spoon on your counter top. I recommend using a dinner plate or do what I do and get a small 1 gallon plastic storage bin from walmart and keep all of your sanitized stuff in there while you brew (your metal spoon, bottle caps, can opener etc..). This is a small step, but a very important one and you’ll see why when we talk about sanitation.
Optional Equipment
Funnel – A funnel is useful later on in the brewing process when you add sugar to each bottle to prime and prepare for bottling (more on that later). You can pick up a funnel at a dollar store, or you may already have a small one on hand. Just make sure it will fit in the opening of the bottle.
Thermometer – When you pitch your yeast (brewer’s term for adding your DSC_0011yeast to your un-fermented beer to start fermentation), you will want to pitch at a temperature that the yeast will like. If you pitch your yeast into boiling hot water, your yeast will die and your beer will not ferment. Optimal range for your Mr Beer yeast is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. A Thermometer is not absolutely necessary, and if you follow your kit’s instructions, I’m sure you’ll pitch at an acceptable temperature without a thermometer. But, if you’re like me and are a little OCD, then certainly a thermometer is an essential piece of equipment. Any thermometer will do; an instant read digital thermometer is one I use, or you could use a simple baking/meat thermometer.
Spoon/Spatula – A long plastic spoon (may 12 inches) is good for mixing your ingredients during the brewing process. A rubber spatula comes in handy while you’re brewing because at some point you have to get the hopped malt extract from the can provided into a pot of hot water. This process is much easier with a spatula so you can scrape every last drop of the malt extract out of the can. It’s totally up to you to use these, but you probably already have them on hand anyway. One note about using metal with your plastic fermenter: It’s not a good idea. Metal can scratch the inside of your fermenter and create little crevices and resting places for bacteria. Wild yeast and bacteria can ruin or create off flavors in your beer, so anything we do to minimize the chances of that happening is best practice. Consider it the same as using metal spatulas on non-stick cookware. It’s just a no-no.
Set-Up
Your first step should be unpacking your kit, making sure you have all the items, and assembling your fermenter. Your fermenter should come with a plastic lid, a spigot, a rubber washer, and a nut. Make sure an assemble the washer on the spigot according to the directions. The pointed side should be against the fermenter wall on the outside of the fermenter. The nut will tighten from behind, inside the fermenter. Do not tighten the nut with a wrench. Only hand tighten this spigot.
When I first got my Mr. Beer kit, I made a mistake and tightened the nut too hard and I also put the rubber washer on backwards (I didn’t read the instructions because I was so excited). Shortly after my fermentation started, I realized I lost about a bottle’s worth of my beer and it was all over my closet floor. Not fun to clean up and especially not fun realizing that was a whole bottle of beer my wife and I could not enjoy.
Your next step should be to fill your fermenter halfway with water, set it on the countertop and test it for leaks. Just leave the water in there for the next step, because now it’s time to sanitize.
Sanitizing
Sanitizing your equipment is one of the most important steps in the brewing process. To sanitize your fermenter and equipment, use half of the packet of the sanitizer/cleanser that came with your packet, and pour it into your plastic ferment (which should be half full of water). Save the other half of the packet for later because you will use it two weeks from now when you bottle your beer. Use your plastic spoon to mix the no rinse sanitizer in the fermenter until it is dissolved completely. Be sure to shake the fermenter over your sink and tilt it upside down to get every inch of the inside of your fermenter covered in the sanitizer solution. Don’t be alarmed if the sanitizer drips out of the top. There are holes in the lid to allow CO2 to escape during fermentation.
Now, if you have a little 1 gallon or so plastic storage container, dump your sanitizer solution from your keg into your small 1-2 gallon bin. Do not wash your fermenter out afterwards even if you see foam. This foam is harmless and is completely food grade 100% safe. There’s a common saying: Don’t fear the foam. Once you dump the sanitized solution out of your fermenter and into your small plastic bin, put your additional materials in there: your mixing spoon, spatula, and bottle opener, and thermometer. Let that sit, and prepare for the next step: brewing.
Let’s Start Brewing
Your first step should be to get a large mixing bowl fill it half way with the hottest water that comes out of your faucet, and place the can of liquid malt extract in the bowl. This will soften the malt extract and make it easier for you to dump it out in the later steps. Next, use your measuring cup and dump 4 cups of water (whatever water you want to use for brewing) into your boiling pot (brew kettle, brew pot, your stock pot) and bring this water to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the burner off and take the water off the heat.
Take your can opener and open the bottom end of your liquid malt extract can (which should still be in the mixing bowl). Slowly pour this into your hot water you just boiled. Pour it in slowly, and mix with your spoon as you pour to dissolve the malt extract in the hot water. You can use a whisk or your plastic spoon to get the job done. Use your rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the can and get every little bit of malt extract out of there. Sometimes people will put a cup of hot water in the can and wash the remaining liquid malt extract out. If you use a spatula and scrape the sides, that should do the trick.
Once this is done, fill your empty fermenter to the 4 Liter mark with your cold brewing water. Pour in the dissolved mal extract mixture after that, then top it off to the 8.5 Liters with the remaining cold water. At this point, nothing should touch your wort (unfermented beer mixture) unless it has been sanitized. The wort is vulnerable to infection at this point so please be careful and sanitize your equipment. Stir the mixture vigorously with your sanitized plastic spoon and ensure it’s all mixed together. Now would be a good time to take a temperature reading. If you’re around 70 degrees, you should move on to the next step. If you’re concerned about the temperature and it feels a little too warm to the touch or your thermometer says it’s over 80 degrees, you may want to put the fermenter in your fridge for 30 minutes or so to cool it off a bit. If the fermenter does not feel warm to the touch or your thermometer reads around 70-75 degrees, just go ahead and move to the next step.
Pitch Your Yeast
This is when you sprinkle your yeast into your fermenter. Dip the packet of yeast and a pair of scissors into your sanitizer solution. Cut open the yeast packet, and sprinkle it in the wort. Do not worry about mixing it around or anything like that. The dry yeast will rehydrate and get to work. Screw the lid onto the fermenter, and set it in a cool, dark corner somewhere in your house. The ideal temperature should be anywhere from 65-75 degrees.
Fermentation
Once you set your fermenter aside, no matter what your Mr. Beer kit instructions say, allow for 2 weeks for the beer to ferment. During this process, your yeast are consuming the sugars from the malt extract and converting those sugars into alcohol and CO2. During fermentation, do your best not to disturb the fermenter, move it around, open the lid and touch the wort, or anything that could risk the beer getting contaminated. Place the fermenter in a spot that you know it will be safe and untouched for 2 whole weeks. It’s fun to take a look at it every now and then to see how it’s coming along.
You should see foam (called krausen) forming on top of the wort within 3 days. Do not get worried if you don’t see the foam within a day. Your beer will ferment, so just relax and have a beer!
Note about temperature: If you are worried the temperature inside your home will be too hot (anything above 77-78 degrees), there are ways around that. Home brewers come up with clever ways to control fermentation temperature by building what’s called a fermentation chamber. For example, what I do here in Arizona, is use a chest freezer, plug it into a temperature controller (a device that uses a temperature probe and controls when your freezer turns on based on the temperature inside) that is set to my ideal temperature, and I put my fermenters in that.
When I started with Mr. Beer, I didn’t even consider fermentation temperature as an issue, and my beer turned out fine (in fact my wife really loved it). So, don’t over think it too much, but just be aware that it’s not a good idea to set your fermenter in front of a window that gets sun all day long. Maybe a cool quiet corner of a room underneath an air vent would be better. Don’t stress too much over temperature right now. The important thing is learning the brewing process, and as you learn, you’ll figure out which part of the process you want to improve.
Bottling Day
2 weeks after your brew day and start of your fermentation, your beer should be ready to bottle. To be completely sure, take a small sample of the beer. If it tastes sweet, you’ll need to give it more time to ferment. The sweetness is the sugars from the malt extract that haven’t been devoured by the yeast. If your sample is too sweet, make sure your fermentation temperature isn’t too low. A fermentation temperature that is too low will make the yeast go dormant and we do not want that! If your sample tastes like flat beer, then it’s ready to bottle.
Note: You may taste some off flavors in your sample. Do not worry! These flavors will mostly go away as you age your beer. This is typically called “green” beer and most new home brewers tend to freak out at this point. Don’t be afraid of off flavors right after fermentation, just trust the process and bottle the beer. You may also notice that the beer is cloudy, and not as clear as commercial beer. This is also normal. The cloudiness is from suspended yeast, and those yeast will flocculate (yeast forming into clumps and falling to the bottom) and rest at the bottom of your bottle.
You should still have the PET bottles that came with your kit (11 bottles), the caps, the rest of the sanitizer (half the packet), and table sugar. First, mix some warm water in your 1-2 gallon storage bucket, dump the rest of the sanitizer in, and stir until the sanitizer is completely dissolved in the water. Throw in your caps, give each bottle a quick rinse inside and out, and submerge each bottle one by one into the sanitizing solution, filling it to the brim with sanitizer. Repeat this step until you run out of sanitizer. You may be able to fill 2-3 bottles. Let the sanitizing solution rest in the bottles for 2 minutes, then dump it back into the container. Repeat this step until all of the bottles have had 2 minutes of contact time with the sanitizer.
Once you have each bottle sanitized, get your sugar, a tablespoon, and a funnel ready for the next step. Check out this video to see the whole process:
Priming
After we sanitize our bottles, we’re going to fill them with our fermented beer and add a sugar source (in this case it’s regular table sugar). The point of this is to carbonate the beer. The remaining yeast floating around in our fermented beer will eat up the little bit of added sugar, release CO2, and carbonate the beer. This is a simple step but you must pay close attention to detail, otherwise you’ll have some exploding bottles on your hands!
Your instructions should come with a priming chart, but typically for a 740ml (25 oz) bottle, you will add 2 teaspoons of sugar. All you have to do is put the funnel in the opening of the bottle, measure out 2 teaspoons with your measuring spoons, and pour the sugar into the bottle.
After you get sugar in each bottle, use the nozzle on your fermenter and fill your bottles all the way up until you have about 1.5 inches of headspace, or space between the beer and the opening of the bottle. Remember to tilt the bottle sideways to avoid oxygenation (this could introduce contaminants and cause the yeast to produce off flavors). Once you fill the bottle, put the cap on immediately, turn the bottle upside down a few times to mix the sugar, and set the bottle aside.
Once you have all the bottles filled, store them in the same location as before and in the same temperature range. Now it’s time to wait. The 2-2-2 rule is a good rule of thumb. 2 weeks fermentation, 2 weeks carbonation time, and 2 weeks conditioning. Now you should wait atleast 2 weeks for your bottles to fully carbonate. If you have the PET bottles (plastic), you should be able to monitor the process by squeezing the bottle. Once the bottle becomes hard when you squeeze it (a little less than a soda bottle for example), your beer is carbonated. You’ll see a little yeast layer at the bottle of your bottle. Remember when I told you the yeast would flocculate out and fall to the bottom?
Cold Conditioning
This is the final step of the Mr Beer brewing process. Cold conditioning is the process of storing your carbonated beer at low temperatures to allow the beer to mature and diminish any green/off flavors. All you need to do for this step is store your bottles in the refrigerator. If you can’t fit every bottle in there, don’t worry. Just know that the longer your beer is kept at warmer temperatures, the faster the flavors will change/develop/mature. As long as you can get your bottles into the fridge within a few weeks to a month, you’ll be fine. As you sharpen your home brewing skills and increase your knowledge, this is one step you’ll likely improve and perfect.
Let your bottles sit in your refrigerator for 2 weeks. I know how tempting it is to crack a beer open early before the 2 week mark, and you know what? You should. It’s not only important to get to know what a green beer tastes like, but you can taste your beer as it develops and get a better understanding of when that particular beers’ flavor is at it’s best.
Congratulations – You’re a Home Brewer!
Well, congratulations. You’ve made it this far, and you’re officially a home brewer. Take notes on things you did during the process that maybe you could do more efficiently next time. Take notes on how our beer tastes, smells, and looks. Ask questions on forums, search for the answers, and add the changes into your next brew day. You’ll start to get addicted and you’ll want to find out the why of everything. And I encourage you to do that. That’s how I learned, and it’s been great fun making mistakes that produce crap beer, and making the right decisions that produce great beer. Don’t be afraid to explore, try new things, make mistakes, and be honest about what you can improve on. Good luck on your journey and remember to have fun!
