Mr Beer - Read all about it and ask questions

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
i never did the mr beer thing, as i happen to live near a homebrewing shop that i later got a job at.

the one thing i keep telling people who have them, though, is that they're really useful for lagering in a home fridge, because most people have the space for a 2.5 gallon batch. one of the best homebrewed lagers i've ever had got made in a mr beer kit that one of my coworkers brewed, and then left in a fridge for 4 months while he went on a trip.
 
just got a MR Beer for an early Christmas present. I have wanted to try my own beer for quite some time now since i have a hard time finding beer i really enjoy in the stores.

so i have 2 questions:

1: im not a huge pale ale fan and thats what came with the kit, is there something easy to add to not over complicate my first beer to enhance the flavor? honey, brown sugar, anything like that, i know it says you can but i have no idea how much i should add or if i should just run my first batch as is?

2: i keep my house around 62 degrees during the day and evening, and 72 when i am home/awake. is this going to be bad for the fermenting process, any ideas on how to keep it at a more consistent temp?

thanks for the help, cant wait to get started!
 
1: im not a huge pale ale fan and thats what came with the kit, is there something easy to add to not over complicate my first beer to enhance the flavor? honey, brown sugar, anything like that, i know it says you can but i have no idea how much i should add or if i should just run my first batch as is?

you can do it as is, but my complaint about their kits (and most hopped kits) is that they lack body. The best thing you can do is go get .5-1lb of Carapils (crushed) at your local HB store. Steep in a hop bag for 30min @ 170deg. Makes a big difference in the final product, and costs about $2 for the grain and bag. I would stay away from adjuncts (honey, sugar, etc) for your first beer.

2: i keep my house around 62 degrees during the day and evening, and 72 when i am home/awake. is this going to be bad for the fermenting process, any ideas on how to keep it at a more consistent temp?

Put the MB fermenter in an Igloo cooler. Keeps the temps more stable. Go get a fish tank tape thermometer and stick it to one end of the fermenter to keep an eye on the temp. Add ice packs if necessary to keep temp under 70.

I started on a MB kit. I still use the fermenter for small batch experimental beers, but I get all my supplies from my LHBS. I recommend MB for anyone wanting to try homebrewing out, since it is cheap, and still makes better beer than most commercial brewers make.
 
you can do it as is, but my complaint about their kits (and most hopped kits) is that they lack body. The best thing you can do is go get .5-1lb of Carapils (crushed) at your local HB store. Steep in a hop bag for 30min @ 170deg. Makes a big difference in the final product, and costs about $2 for the grain and bag. I would stay away from adjuncts (honey, sugar, etc) for your first beer.



Put the MB fermenter in an Igloo cooler. Keeps the temps more stable. Go get a fish tank tape thermometer and stick it to one end of the fermenter to keep an eye on the temp. Add ice packs if necessary to keep temp under 70.

I started on a MB kit. I still use the fermenter for small batch experimental beers, but I get all my supplies from my LHBS. I recommend MB for anyone wanting to try homebrewing out, since it is cheap, and still makes better beer than most commercial brewers make.

good idea with the cooler, i wouldn't have thought of that. luckily i got 2 coolers for a wedding present last year, guess i know what one will be used for!
 
ok, my first beer is fermenting in a cooler now. i decided for this one to just go by the book and make it as designed by Mr Beer. in 2 weeks i will be bottling and deciding what beer to start next!
 
Hey,
I just wanted to update ask a couple of questions. I have my first batch ever in the Mr. Beer femerenting away. It is the West Coast pale ale that came with the MB. I pitched the yeast @ 8:00 pm on 12/20/08. It developed a good krausen by the next day. It now appears the the krausen is starting to break up. This is good right or is it too soon.

My next question. Is it possible to determine what he FG should be without having a OG. I will have a hydrometer by the time I bottle, but didn't have one when I made the wort. I also used 1 lb. of Muttons light DME in place of the booster pack. I plan to wait at least two weeks, maybe three before I bottle. Comments?

Thanks,
Stan
 
My next question. Is it possible to determine what he FG should be without having a OG. I will have a hydrometer by the time I bottle, but didn't have one when I made the wort. I also used 1 lb. of Muttons light DME in place of the booster pack. I plan to wait at least two weeks, maybe three before I bottle. Comments?

OG should have been 1.044, FG should be about 1.011 (4.2% ABV).
 
I pitched the yeast @ 8:00 pm on 12/20/08. It developed a good krausen by the next day. It now appears the the krausen is starting to break up. This is good right or is it too soon.

Well, not that I have any experience, but, my current/first batch did the same thing. I pitched the yeast on a Sunday afternoon and when I checked it Monday evening it had a thick head on it. I think I checked it again sometime on Wednesday and it had started breaking down and within a day or so it seemed to have disappeared. I think you're probably good to go. I do know that when I cracked open the cooler I'm keeping the keg in I got a very familiar smell and I my first thought was, "Wow, that smells like beer!!!" :rockin:
 
I do know that when I cracked open the cooler I'm keeping the keg in I got a very familiar smell and I my first thought was, "Wow, that smells like beer!!!" :rockin:

Yes, I love that smell. I have mine in a cooler also. I just want to keep opening it just to smell. LOL

I also recieved a classis american blone ale kit with it. This seems to be a "light" beer. I don't know if I want to make it or not. Does anyone have a way of "kicking it up a notch" so to speak?
 
makes me wonder how mine is doing, i did my batch on monday night and i still dont see a big head on mine. its stored in a cooler but my house is kind of chilly so im wondering if its going to take a little longer.
 
you need a hydrometer to figure that out, but they wont work with mrbeer because its not a sealed fermenter.

Well,
I am planning to rack it to a bottling bucket to mix the priming sugar that way as opposed to bottling straight out of Mr. Beer and putting sugar in each bottle. I thought that I would take a FG reading then as a way to practice that, and to see what I have. But, otherwise I don't think that I would openh the MB keg repeatly to take samples either.
 
Well,
I am planning to rack it to a bottling bucket to mix the priming sugar that way as opposed to bottling straight out of Mr. Beer and putting sugar in each bottle. I thought that I would take a FG reading then as a way to practice that, and to see what I have. But, otherwise I don't think that I would openh the MB keg repeatly to take samples either.

That's the best way to do things! More sanitary, more even priming in the bottles, and avoids getting yeast sediment in the bottles.

I wouldn't sweat too much over the hydro readings, esp. if you are bottling in plastic. If you want to take a hydro reading, fine, take one before adding the priming sugar to your bottling bucket.

Oh and kudos on the DME and Nottingham (looking back at the prev posts)... that is EXACTLY the way to go. :ban: The notty is a fairly dry fermenting yeast; it will probably take 1.044 down to 1.009 or so (44/5 = 8.8, 80% apparent attenuation, rounds up to 1.009). I use it for my pale ales because it really brings out the hops. Nottingham ferments very well anywhere from 57*F to 74*F so no worries about temps, making it nearly ideal for Mr. Beer applications.
 
:rockin:
That's the best way to do things! More sanitary, more even priming in the bottles, and avoids getting yeast sediment in the bottles.

I wouldn't sweat too much over the hydro readings, esp. if you are bottling in plastic. If you want to take a hydro reading, fine, take one before adding the priming sugar to your bottling bucket.

Oh and kudos on the DME and Nottingham (looking back at the prev posts)... that is EXACTLY the way to go. :ban: The notty is a fairly dry fermenting yeast; it will probably take 1.044 down to 1.009 or so (44/5 = 8.8, 80% apparent attenuation, rounds up to 1.009). I use it for my pale ales because it really brings out the hops. Nottingham ferments very well anywhere from 57*F to 74*F so no worries about temps, making it nearly ideal for Mr. Beer applications.


Thanks for confirming what I plan to do. It does help to have all of the great folks here answering our Noob questions. I picked up all of this by reading this entire sticky! There is a lot of great info in it. I am already planning on how to get the other half to buy me a equipment starter kit from my birthday! I am already feeling the need to step up to the 5 gal. batches.
 
Posted by nvr2low...

you need a hydrometer to figure that out, but they wont work with mrbeer because its not a sealed fermenter.

Hmmm...a hydrometer doesn't know the history, source, etcetera, of the liquid it measures.

Actually, I think the lid has an airlock engineered into it!

And, it isn't necessary to remove the lid to steal a sample, all you have to do to get a gravity test sample is lift the tap handle.

Of course, if you are storing the Mr. Beer fermentor in a cooler, lifting it up, and moving it around to gain access to the spigot, will probably agitate, and re-suspend, some of the sediment, which you may not want.

Pogo
 
Actually, I think the lid has an airlock engineered into it!

And, it isn't necessary to remove the lid to steal a sample, all you have to do to get a gravity test sample is lift the tap handle.

Of course, if you are storing the Mr. Beer fermentor in a cooler, lifting it up, and moving it around to gain access to the spigot, will probably agitate, and re-suspend, some of the sediment, which you may not want.

Pogo

Pogo,
Yes the airlock is engineered into the lid. Since I do have it in a cooler to control temps (my basement is too cold currently) I plan to siphon the beer out while the feremetner is still sitting in the cooler. I will leave it in the feremetner log enough to finish, but I want to do a FG just for grins and to practice for later batches.
 
I picked up all of this by reading this entire sticky! There is a lot of great info in it. I am already planning on how to get the other half to buy me a equipment starter kit from my birthday! I am already feeling the need to step up to the 5 gal. batches.

I did the same thing. It's AMAZING how much you can learn reading this thread. It's long, but I was so interested I read it in one sitting. Are you planning on ditching the Mr. Beer when you upgrade? I'm thinking of keeping mine for small easy batches and I might try a batch of that Apfelwien, did I spell that right?!!?!?
 
Shooter,
I think that I will keep mine around also. I am sure that I can put it to use somehow.
 
Homebrewing has been a longtime hobby in my family for several decades and the torch has finally been passed down to me. Unfortunately, the only surviving hobbiest lives half-way across the country and thinks I should know as much as he does. So I start off on the road alone for now... So here I present myself in these forums. And I have definitely been thinking that a kit is the best way to start off.

I have always believed in learning from the advice of those who are impassioned rather from those who are in marketing. So while I was on the verge of buying the Coopers Microbrew kit (for $100), I found all of you going on about Mr. Beer. It seems that I will try this one out first! I am also glad that I found this neighborhood so I can become a member of the community as I grow throughout my hobby.

Also, if you get a chance, I have started up a blog geared towards beginner homebrewers. I'd love to hear comments on the pages so please come by and share a pint at The Home Brew HaHa Cheers!
 
I have always thought that brewing my own beer would be something that would be very rewarding yet I never seemed to have the time to pick up my own kit. However, my brother got me a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas and I just put together my first batch today. Now all i have to do is wait for it to ferment. Hopefully this will grow into a lifelong hobby!
 
I am already planning on how to get the other half to buy me a equipment starter kit from my birthday! I am already feeling the need to step up to the 5 gal. batches.

I just got a 15 gallon pot and a 50' immersion chiller so I can do 10 gallon batches. 5 for me, 5 for everybody else to drink up. The equipment acquisition never ends, I'm afraid. :rockin:
 
I did the same thing. It's AMAZING how much you can learn reading this thread. It's long, but I was so interested I read it in one sitting. Are you planning on ditching the Mr. Beer when you upgrade? I'm thinking of keeping mine for small easy batches and I might try a batch of that Apfelwien, did I spell that right?!!?!?

I still use mine. It's great for experimental batches or apfelwein. Though after you have a few batches of apfelwein you'll end up looking like Ed's setup with three carboys dedicated to the stuff. :D

We have a friend who has Celiac's, my project for the new year will be to find a suitable GF (gluten free) recipe. I will be doing two gallon batches in the Mr. Beer and fermenting at room temp until I find a suitable recipe to scale up to 5 gallons.
 
I just got a 15 gallon pot and a 50' immersion chiller so I can do 10 gallon batches. 5 for me, 5 for everybody else to drink up. The equipment acquisition never ends, I'm afraid. :rockin:

10 Gallons?!?!? I'm afraid that 5 gallons will probably be the upper limit for me. I'm in a fairly small three bedroom townhouse with a tiny garage, pretty much filled with the car and the motorcycle. My two kids are currently sharing a room and I'm using the third bedroom as a small music studio. It will most likely also have to be my fermenting/conditioning/storage area as well. One more reason to get a bigger place I suppose...after this minor housing crunch that is!
 
Rite Aid had Mr. Beer Premium kits on year-end sale for $9.99, so I grabbed their last two.

However, I am having a lot of trouble regulating the temperature.

Can I use the standard water bath with ice/aquarium heater with these fermenters?

I am unsure if that would risk infection through the spout at the bottom.

Is there a good way to heat/chill these things?
 
thats an interesting idea, if your bottom seal is good and you didnt run the water up to the top i bet that might work.
 
Advice please....

Tomorrow will be two weeks in the fermenter for my first Mr Beer batch... the pale ale... the kit was a couple of years old, but the use by date still had 7 months...

Anyway, it still has a foam on top covering about 3/4's of the surface area. I tasted it for the first time and it tastes like yeasty flat beer. Should I bottle tomorrow or leave it till all the foam is gone?
 
Advice please....

Tomorrow will be two weeks in the fermenter for my first Mr Beer batch... the pale ale... the kit was a couple of years old, but the use by date still had 7 months...

Anyway, it still has a foam on top covering about 3/4's of the surface area. I tasted it for the first time and it tastes like yeasty flat beer. Should I bottle tomorrow or leave it till all the foam is gone?

Without a hydrometer sample to tell the gravity. I would assume that if it still has krauzen on top, it's still fermenting...when it falls clear that's a good indication that it's time to bottle...so in other words, no not yet.
 
Thanks, Revvy.

I didn't have a hydrometer when I did this batch, but I have since bought a bunch of starter stuff and now have one. Should I go ahead and take a reading now?
 
So, I just bottled my first Mr. Beer brew and I have a couple of questions. Okay, one question really and one mild concern.

The main thing I noticed is that around halfway through bottle seven, the flow started to decrease enough that it became necessary to slightly prop the back of the fermenting keg to get enough beer through the spigot to fill the bottles to the base of the necks, per the instructions. It was even more necessary on the last bottle. I moved the keg to it's bottling position yesterday and let it sit over night to settle down. The first six bottles are nice and clear when I shine a flashlight behind them. The last two are a little cloudier, I'm assuming that's from sediment that found its way through the bottling spigot. I don't have any real concern, I imagine they'll settle during conditioning and I'll pour them a little more carefully when it's time to sample. However, I'm wondering if there is a good technique to avoid this in the future. If not, no big deal. I imagine they'll be just fine.

Also, I have a minor ant problem here at the house, as do the neighbors, it's just common this time of year. I sanitized the end of the spigot and wrapped it in a Ziploc bag during fermentation. I noticed a small amount of beer in the bottom of the cooler when I went to get it out, not much, maybe quarter of a teaspoon. It was dried, so might have happened when I put in the keg and possibly flexed the spigot where it connects to the fermenter. I noticed a couple of ants had found there way to it. None appeared to have found there way through the spigot, but I wiped the spigot with sanitizer prior to bottling, just in case. So, anyway, to the point. Somehow, I noticed a single tiny ant floating in my final bottle of beer. Not sure where it came from. It's possible it just crawled into the bottle prior to me filling it, possibly going after the priming sugar. So, I'm curious what it's going to do to the beer. Perhaps it will make it so delicious that I'll start adding ants to all my future attempts. Most likely it will be fine, but I plan on cracking that one open first, probably let it condition a few weeks first. I figure, if that one is good, the rest should be safe. Not much I can do about it at this point!
 
I dunno if you know, but we have a Mr Beer Sticky where many of us help you all on. And we actually have covered it temp control there.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/mr-beer-read-all-about-ask-questions-46360/

You can fit it in most fridges, and I have also swamp cooled it...

fermenting.jpg


You have to sanitize and seal the spigot though...I sprayed it with sanitizer, then covered it with sanitized tinfoil, sprayed that with sanitizer, the wrapped it with a sandwhich bag (sanitized) and rubberbands also sanitized. I also added sanitizer to the water as well...better safe than sorry.

BTW when you unwrap it all....I re-spray every layer with sanitizer befor removing it, then make sure to hit the spigot with some...spraying up into the nose of the spigot as well.

As you can see it is also wrapped in a t-shirt as well to wick it upward, but I made sure the neck of the shirt was open for the airlock lid.

I also set it on an inverted bowl to keep the water level only about halfway up the sides of the keg, to preven any water from getting in the lid/airlock...
 
Fill a ziplock bag with some sanitized water (star-san) or something.. get a rubberband and wrap it/band around the spigot. That oughta protect it from nasties.
 
Revvy, that's exactly what I was looking for.

On a side note, the search leaves a lot to be desired on the thread level. Finding this info is difficult at best without making a new thread.
 
Revvy, that's exactly what I was looking for.

On a side note, the search leaves a lot to be desired on the thread level. Finding this info is difficult at best without making a new thread.

Well if you just looked at the top of the list of the beginners forum, where all the threads are listed, it is pretty hard not to miss the stickies at the top of the section, especially the one that says MR BEER...:D

actually if you use the advanced search, and change the parameters from thread titles to words in posts, and then type in the subject, you get better returns...you can even set those parameters to come up all the time for you...The advanced search is google driven...

The reason I mentioned the sticky more that anything is that A) a lot of us take pride in putting a lot of info in there about small batch brewing.

B) anti Mr Beer trolls....like any subject there are jerks out there who have a big bias/snobbery against mr beer, and they're swimming around like sharks...by kinda condensing the info in one place it's like a crowded swimming pool as opposed to the loan swimmer in the oceam...less chance of getting bitten, by some brewing snob. :D
 
Looks like some anonomous mod merged this thread with the mr beer....LOL

The midnight modder strikes again...(though I do wish they'd add a note at the bottom of the post when they do it...it feel weired to be suddenly transported across the interwebz...I get kinda vertigo.) :D

But the orignal post/thread question about temp control is missing from the thread...
 
Shooter - trub bottles are normal, and as you suspect, no worries as it'll settle out during conditioning. As for the ant in the bottle? Nothing to do about it now but wait it out. I suspect the alcohol in the beer will be sufficient to hold any ant cooties at bay, but only time will tell.
 
Shooter - trub bottles are normal, and as you suspect, no worries as it'll settle out during conditioning. As for the ant in the bottle? Nothing to do about it now but wait it out. I suspect the alcohol in the beer will be sufficient to hold any ant cooties at bay, but only time will tell.

Okay, I figured as much with the trub. I probably could have been more patient on bottle seven. It was flowing, just VERY slowly, but I bet I could have filled that bottle without tilting the keg if I'd been very patient.

As for that last bottle, with the ant, time will tell. I can't really see how it's going to be possible to not get any of the trub in that last one. I also was trying very hard to fill the bottles by pouring against the side, but that last bottle kept wanting to splash. They all did to some degree, but that last one seemed to really be an issue because there were small air bubbles on top at the end. I kept thinking, "no, aeration is bad!!" Once I sealed it up and saw the ant floating in the clouded bottle I figured it might not be the best of the batch.

I'm thinking of adding about nine to ten inches of vinyl tub to the spigot next time to help fill from the bottom up and avoid splashing.
 
Back
Top