First Timer (Mr. Beer)

Hey everyone. Just bought my very first home brew kit and I'm extremely excited to get started. It's a Mr. Beer kit. Figured i'd start small. Anyway I'm very excited to become a home brewer!!!

 

Welcome to the addiction. A good number of us start exactly where you are starting and grow from there. The process is easy for Mr Beer, just imagine the process, fun and great results when you graduate to all grain. Good luck and post results. My most complex Mr Beer was Novacaine, 9 months bottle conditioning if I recall correctly, but a very expensive, complex tasting and highly alcoholic brew.

Cheers,

Sheldon

 

Hey! Thanks for the reply. I'm getting started as we speak. I'll be updating so stick around for a good laugh. lol

 

So, I don't have a good seal on the keg. Is this going to be a problem?

 

No. The idea is that the lid allows CO2 to escape. That's why the lbk (little brown keg) has no airlock.

 

By the way- this video is good for taking your next steps with a Mr Beer kit

 

First thing to do is to toss the Mr. Beer instructions in the trash.

 

Thank you all for the information. Just finished up. The little brown keg is sitting in my closet with the door closed. It will remain there for the next 12-14 days at around 68 degrees when I will bottle. Then it'll be sitting in the bottles for another 2 weeks. I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. Any information and experiences you guys want to share would be very much appreciated and taken into account. I may wrap the under side of the keg in clothes or towels because the temp my house is at is on the low end for what the directions say. Any information would be nice. Thank you!!!

 

What kit did you brew...American Pale Ale?

 

Yea. It's official name was American classic beer. But I'm pretty that its an American pale ale

 

1) Low end of the yeast temp range is fine. The upper end stated in the MB instructions is too high. Remember that during active fermentation, the temp inside the LBK will be 5* or so higher than air temp.

2) better to give it 3 weeks in the LBK, followed by 4 weeks in the bottles at 70*F and then 3+ days in the fridge. Your patience will be rewarded.

 

The American Classic is a very light "lager" (lager ingredients with ale yeast.)

 

Yea I'm going to go with the 3 weeks in LBK and four weeks in bottles. I got it all mapped out n in my calendar. Just so happens I get to drink it on May 11th, whic, coincidentally is the same day I graduated boot camp. That's going to be a great way to celebrate!!! Ill keep everyone updated. Again, as much info as possible please. Every little bit counts. Thank you

 

I got that Mr. Beer kit for Xmas, I'm generally not a fan of the style, but I actually like that American Light Ale better than most commercial lagers. My go-to cheap case beer is Labbatt's Blue and I have to say I like this Mr. Beer one a better. That said, I'd brew a blonde or IPA before this again, for the price of a case of Labbatt's I can have ~2 cases of something better, I'm going to try a cider in the LBK.

 

So day 1 of fermentation looks to be going well. I hope it continues to go smoothly but I guess only time will tell. Will be asking questions should anything stray from the norm. As always, any tips, pointers, experiences, and overall know-how would be very much appreciated. Thanks. Ill keep everyone posted as to how it's going.

 

After about 3 days all action will cease and you'll wonder if its going stagnant or is it safe to just leave there, but it's fine. At least that's what I worried about, I'd think it'd be full of mold or mildew sitting around like that, but there's no oxygen or spores in there to cause it.

 

You'll be fine bud. Just stay patient. Forget about it if you can. Before you know it, you'll have your beer.

 

Thanks for the heads up fizgig. I can't help but check it out. N I'm sure if/when that does happen I'd start freaking out n ask about that. Again, thanks for the heads up in advance.
And as for my anxiety. Lets just say its been a long time in the making. I've been EXTREMELY interested in home brewing since I was in high school (for the art n science of brewing. Not the alcoholic beverage it produces). As me n my gf were walking thru my local wal mart, she pointed out the mr. Beer beginner kit. Me being 22 now, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Needless to say-I walked out of the store with a smile from ear to ear feeling like it was the best Christmas morning I'd ever had.

 

when I got my Mr Beer kit, it was packaged with the West Coast Pale Ale recipe. After two weeks primary, two weeks in the bottle, and two weeks cold conditioning, I wasn't disappointed. However, tasting bottles early curbed my enthusiasm. Be patient and it will all be worth while. No matter what the disaster, most beers level out with time. I picked up "The Complete Joy of Home Trewing" shortly after brewing that batch, and I learned a lesson that you will hopefully learn. It helped my anxiety a lot. "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a home brew."

 

I'd have a homebrew if I had some. Thinking bout getting another starter kit(5 gallon) that's a lil more advance n make another batch to keep my mind busy lol

 

"After about 3 days all action will cease and you'll wonder if its going stagnant or is it safe to just leave there, but it's fine. At least that's what I worried about, I'd think it'd be full of mold or mildew sitting around like that, but there's no oxygen or spores in there to cause it."


So I'm at this stage in the fermentation process and I know i should've expected it because I've been warned, but I looked at the little brown keg this morning and all action had ceased it seemed. It was deeply disheartening. But then I thought back to this thread. I hope you're right about this.

 

i had a 5 gallon wheat beer batch that never showed any airlock activity and it still fermented out 4.5%abv. just relax and let the beer do it's thing. a 5 gallon kit is a good idea, maybe start with midwest supplies and their 20 minute boil recipe kits. that'll be a nice step from Mr Beer. I use Northern Brewer's kit, but I brewed 4 mr beer kits and wrote a 2 gallon recipe before I did that. Full-on extract brewing isn't hard, but there is a lot more to do and a lot more to think about than the mr beer set up. it all depends on how much time, money, energy, and anxiety you are willing to dive into.

 

I hear ya. I only have one more week til fermentation is done! Then I bottle and in another 4 weeks I'll be enjoying my beer. Pretty damn excited!!! I'll keep that in mind. Thank you. I'm pretty optimistic about my first batch of beer. But I feel like Mr. Beer is a lil too beginner. I wouldn't mind doing something that involves a lil more thought process. Depending on how the Mr. Beer that I got brewing comes out, I want to invest more time, energy, and money into this. If it doesn't come out as planned i'll probably order another Mr. beer and start over again until i get that right.

 

Try the 1 gallon kits for switching over. It's small but good for beginners to get used to brewing AG.

 

I didn't know you could get 1 gallon kits. My ultimate goal is to get to AG though. I'll look into it. Do most LHBS have 1 gallon kits for AG?

 

Some do, but you just need a recipe. Any 5 gallon recipe can be scaled down to 2.13 or 2.5 gal.

You can make a mr beer size batch for well under $10 with grain. And only a little more for extract and some grains. Plus a little investment in equipment. For a small batch you need a pot big enough to hold the batch, strainer or strainer bag, and your mr. Beer keg. Hop sacks are nice, too.

Follow the same process of making wort, then combining with chilled water in the keg. It will work fine!

 

As said earlier, welcome to the obsession. I got a Mr. Beer for Christmas and mad my first batch on the 26th, on the 27th I went to my local hbs and bought a Brewers Beast kit with 2 pails, 2 carboys, 5 gallon brew pot...you get the idea, as I sit here I am waiting on my 16 gallon Bayou Classic and Blichmann burner and the mill is in transit and I have 4 cases in bottle conditioning, 10 gallons fermenting and maybe 2 cases in my new beer 'fridge and I thought racing was expensive!

 

Thank you. Sounds like you jumped into it head first. As for me, my funds wont allow me to go all in like that as I'd like to. But I've been studying, reading, watching you tube videos about home brewing since i was like 18 or so. But I'm saving up for it.

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

 

I've done a 1 gallon all grain kit. The site is http://www.brooklynbrewshop.com I brewed the Chocolate Maple Porter. It was stressful, and I felt like I was making mistakes left and right, but the beer turned out rather good.

 

So just an update-finally bottled my beer yesterday evening. I took a lil sip n i tasted it. It tastes like flat beer which is what the directions say it should taste like. I'm conditioning three of the one liter bottles in my fridge for four weeks n I'm conditioning the remaining five in my basement for the same amount of time. Not quite sure what the temperature is in either location but it said to lager (cold condition) it should be between 35*f-50*f n the others should be between 55*f-70*f. I'm in eastern Maryland by Delaware n it's damn near 80*f outside n it's typically cooler in my basement. The fridge is around 35*f-40f* if I had to guess. Anyway, again any tips tricks experiences thoughts concerns of any kind are welcome. Thank you all in advance for your input and for any past inputs.

 

Condition all around 70 degrees or you will have flat beer.

 

The instructions should say to let it carbonate for a week or two at room temp. Make that 2-3 weeks, THEN cold condition for a month.

 

Like the two dudes above said; get those beers out of the fridge or all you're going to have is cold, flat beer. Follow BigJack's instructions and you'll be good to go (although you could have one after a few days of the "cold condition" phase he mentioned just to see how green beer tastes).

 

If you want your brew to be the best it can be - Put ALL of your bottles in a place where it's 70-74*F for a minimum of three weeks so they can carbonate and condition out any remaining off-flavors. Then put a few in the fridge and leave them there for at least three days before you try one.

The waiting is the hardest part, but it's worth it!

BTW - Throw the Mr. Beer instructions in the trash. Read the FAQ's here and follow those instead for much better beer.