Mr Beer - Read all about it and ask questions

I just had another cerveza. The carbonation is great. I love the bite. This was using straight table sugar into the bottle method (per mr beer). Had a slight apple ciderish flavor. I guess it's not bad if you trick your to thinking its not supposed to be a corona type beer. The fizz gets lost rather quickly though.

Ps I received my free thermometer/priming sugar magnet. Thanks mr beer. Better late than never.

 

Cool. Everything is fixable.

Read on, Macduff.

Since you got good carbonation on this one, I suspect your batch priming process needs to be tweaked a bit. I think you probably weren't getting it mixed evenly, so some beers were overcarbed and others flat. If you try it again, I'd recommend using 8-12 fl oz of water with the sugar. Stir it to dissolve the sugar and bring it to a boil. If the sugar doesn't dissolve, stir it again after it heats a while (I used to do this in the microwave and if the sugar didn't dissolve at first, I'd heat it for a minute, stir, then continue). I had good luck adding the sugar water solution first and swirling with the tubing coiled on the bottom as you described, but another approach is to fill the priming container halfway before adding the sugar water.

I'd also skip trying to make invert sugar. The approach you took probably didn't do that anyway. In my opinion, there's no need to get fancy with the priming sugar. I've always used plain old table sugar except for on time when I bought a kit that had "priming sugar" (probably corn sugar) included. The way I look at it is that the purpose of the priming sugar is to give the yeast something to eat and convert to CO2 (and a little alcohol). The amounts used are so small that it's insignificant compared with the total malt bill.

The apple cider flavor is from acetaldehyde. It's a sign of "green" beer, or beer that needs to be aged a little longer.

Extract beers tend not to produce much of a head and what head they produce will generally fade quickly. You can increase the head (as well as body and mouthfeel) of your beer by using some steeping grains. Many people say that adding steeping grains gives a fresher taste to the final product.

Something like carapils (or carafoam) will increase the head retention, body and mouthfeel with little or no change to the color or flavor. If you want to add a little color and flavor, using something like C-60 will work. There are other steeping grains, like c-20, c-80, etc; the bigger the number, the darker the grain. I mentioned C60 because I use that in a lot of APAs.

For a Mr Beer batch, I'd use about 4 oz of grain. It should be crushed, whether at the LHBS or at home (I have a mill, so I crush my own). Don't buy several pounds crushed; you don't want them sitting around crushed. You can put it in a muslin bag (or a paint strainer or jelly strainer) and soak it in about a quart of water. It's not technically required to put it in a bag, but you need to do something to make sure you leave the grain behind and some sort of permeable bag works best (you could pour through a stainer, I suppose).

Soak it in a quart of hot (150-170, but not over 170) water for 30 minutes, remove the grains, and bring the steeping water to a boil, then follow the normal instructions from that point on.

Another thing you can do is a partial mash, but that requires (at a minimum) more time for the mash vs steep and a full 60 minute boil.

You can get a great beer using extracts, as long as you use fresh extracts. You'll probably also want to use steeping grains and/or a partial mash to get a great beer, but you can get a decent beer just using extracts (like a Mr Beer kit).

I've been brewing almost 5 years and I generally do partial mash batches (extract + mash with specialty grains). Part of the reason for that is that my LHBS sells LME for a really low price if I buy in bulk. I rarely buy kits now and usually design my own, but sometimes I'll pick up Mr Beer refills on clearance after Christmas. I've made some really good batches (even 5 gallon batches) using Mr Beer refills.

 

So I just got a kit for $4, really just wanted the keg for oaking small batches. Anyway, it came with a can of West Coast LME and booster and I am wondering if its possible to enhance that to make maybe a West Coast IPA. I usually do all grain, so this is a step back and I need some help. What could I add to make this even better than Mr Beer expects.

Thanks,

Sheldon

 

Can't hop it while boiling the Hopped LME without making it more bitter, although that is your goal. May want to take the directions, and when you get the water to boiling add an additional 1lb of Light LME/DME (at flame-out), and 1/2 or 1 oz of wanted hops. Boil that for 60 minutes before adding the kit extract.

 

Thanks for the advice Skitter, may by too much hassle, especially adding the extract, may just too the ingredients and just use the fermenter as planned.

Sheldon

 

Sheldon, then just boil your water, add your kit lme and a lb of lme/dme, and have the hops just sit in the hot pot for 15 minutes before adding mix to fermenter. Not going to be as hoppy but will ad some flavor + aroma

 

I've done I hopped extract with a 30 minutes or less boil adding hops at different points for flavor and aroma. I would probably do the 1lb dme with flavor hops for 15-20 minutes, add the mr beer extract at flameout with a ton of whirlpool hops for say 20 minutes and then cool, ferment, and dryhop the crap out of it. Do this and there will be a ton of hoppiness and probably about 40ish IBU.

FWIW, the old hopville site had the mr beer hopped extracts in the system. The newer brewtoad (or some other program) may also have this info programmed in.

 

Thanks Brewski09. I have 3 5 gal fermenters going right now so I will probably wait for a real wintry day to do something with the kit.

Sheldon

 

I wouldn't use the lbk as a secondary. The lack of a good seal and oxygen permeability would be a real concern.

 

It works fine. If you are worried about it put a small amount of DME or sugars in at secondary to create a new co2 blanket in the head space.

 

I did something along the lines of an arrogant bastard play. Turned out pretty tasty. Used the mr beer lme as a bittering addition.

 

I just got a 1 gallon Brooklyn Brewery kit. Anyone have any experience with these compared to the Mr. Beer?

I'm making my first batch this weekend I think.

 

Quick question. I am planning on brewing 2 of the Mr Beer seasonal brews and my basement is only 58 degrees. Is this temp too low for the seasonal brews?

 

Depends, keep it up in the warmth until you get activity, take it down there and see if it maintains temp.

 

Can you get some Danstar Nottingham yeast? That's good down to 57 or even a little lower if you over pitch.

 

I've done some small batches like this, but not this specific kit. My biggest challenge is temperature control. It gets warm or way too cold pretty easily. I ended up using white labs cry havoc wlp862 and just fermenting cold, then letting it rise towards the end. If you can pretty consistently check and maintain the temp, you should be okay with any yeasts.

 

Awesome. Thanks. Any other advice for a first brew?

 

RDWHACraftB

 

Just got my first kit yesterday! Made the Pilsner already, and the winter ale will be next as soon as the pilsner is bottled.

Happy to be starting off in this hobby!

 

I have the exact opposite problem and put my fermenters in a nice chest with ice packs to keep it cool. All these fixes sound good to me. Have you used a warming blanket? My dad uses one with his 5gal setup at times.

 

Just give it time to properly condition before bottling it.

 

Would that mean the 14 days fermenting in the jug? I am thinking of doing it on or around day 15-16 (bottling) and then let it sit in the bottles for a couple weeks while I am deployed. Then a couple days in the fridge.

Thoughts?

 

Jug? Do you mean the fermenter (sometimes called LBK for little brown keg)?

I think your plan looks good.

 

Hello everyone. As like many of you I just got the Mr. Beer for a Christmas present. With 531 pages of info I stopped reading at 20.

My question is, the starter kit sounds like it makes a beer just above near-beer. I'm a beer lover but would like a little kick to mine (Alcohol content). Should I toss the starter kit or can I add something to get the first batch up to where a good domestic would be?

Excited to give it a try and I can see I have a heck of a lot of reading to do.

Thanks.

 

Near beer? I don't remember it being that mild when I started with Mr. Beer.

Anyhow, you don't have to toss the starter kit. Either double up the extracts that were in the starter kit by buying/ordering more. Or if you just want alcohol and body without increasing the flavor, get more "booster," which is basically corn sugar. Are you sure there isn't a package of booster in there already that you're leaving out of the equation?

 

Just looked at the site. I didn't realize the standard recipes were only 3.7% ABV. It's been a while, and they've also changed the recipes, so who knows. So, anyhow, just get another standard refill to match what came with your kit and add it, or here is the booster I was talking about. http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/82/nm/Booster_trade_1

If there is a LHBS (local home brew store) near you, you can get an equivalent there without paying Mr. Beer for shipping on such a small item.

 

I got 2 more kits for mine for Christmas, after moving away from pre-made kits I feel I have to add to mine. I will be adding 1lb of Light LME a piece and steeping 6oz of Carapils before I boil and dump the kit + LME into the pot

 

Trippel-A,

Thanks for the help. I may check around my area and see where the closest LHBS is first and upgrade. I also may need a different yeast because my basement temp is below the 68-76 degree rating of the yeast provided in the kit.

Thanks,

Bill

 

skitter,

I can see with all the help on this forum I will also get away from the kits and start playing with custom recepies.

Good luck and Happy Brewing.

 

I'd let it sit 3-4 weeks in the keg. I actually do a secondary despite the responses on this site regarding using a secondary.

 

Those temps are too high. 60-65 are perfect for most ale yeast.

 

haha ya, the LBK. I was in a hurry when I wrote that and had a brain fart.

 

On the MR. Beer website most of their yeast packs say the same temp rating of 68-76 degrees. The pack with my starter kit also says that. So are you saying that will still work at 60-65 degrees? If so that would be perfect.
because my basement temp is 62.

Now that said, I see systems that people use after the Mr. Beer have an air-loc on top to monitor the fermentation rate. With the vented cap on Mr. Beer how do you tell when the process is complete?

Thanks

 

An airlock clicking away is not a reliable indicator. It will stop clicking before fermentation is done.

The best way is to buy a hydrometer and sample tube and measure the specific gravity before adding the yeast and when you think fermentation is done. The change in gravity tells you how much of the sugar has been fermented, from which you can calculate estimated ABV very easily.

However, given that the LBK only holds two gallons, I didn't really like losing two sample tubes worth (about one beer).

You can see the krausen (the foamy head created during fermentation) through the wall of the LBK. That will eventually collapse and lots of sediment will settle to the bottom. This is not perfect, but a decent indicator that fermentation is done. You can also draw off a tiny sample and taste it. If it's sweet, the yeast has more work to do.

For most Mr. Beer recipes, which are not super high gravity nor very complex, the easiest approach is just leave it alone for two weeks. If there is a thick layer of sediment and no krausen after two weeks, you're going to be okay.

 

The temp range given by Mr. Beer is, like most of their instructions, wrong. If you ferment with that MB ale yeast at 76*F, your beer will not taste good at all.

It will, however, ferment with a nicer, cleaner flavor by pitching into 62-65*F wort, placing it in your 62*F basement for the first 4-6 days and then moving to a warmer area (65-70*F) to finish.

Let it sit in the LBK 3 weeks.

 

Thanks for the info Trippel-A. Can't wait to get started.