Separating 5 gallons into 2 Primaries?

[barkscruff]

I am relatively new to home brewing - have made a few successful Mr Beer batches, and what I hope will turn out to be a good AG 1 Gallon from Brooklyn Brew Shop. I want to try to make a 5 gallon extract, because (A: Mr Beer's ingredients arent that great & B: I know doing a 1 gallon batch is not forgiving with mistakes, especially w/ AG). I don't have the space in my apartment for a tall 6.5 gallon bucket, but I do have 2 Mr Beer barrels. My question is this - Can I order a 5 gallon extract kit from NB and separate into the 2 MB barrels and then pitch the yeast (1/2 in each)? Any thoughts on this are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[HexKrak]

Cool, pitch, stir, then split.

The only other problem is that mr beer containers are 2.5 gallons usually, and you will need some head space, so you probably won't want more than 4 gallons of wort.

 

[steinsato]

I suppose your idea is workable but I always felt that the major flaw in Mr. Beer was the fermenters. They are hard to sanitize thouroughly and they allow air/bacteria into them. I think you'd get a better beer if you had a fermenter with an actual airlock.

 

[barkscruff]

Thanks - Yeah, I agree with the fermenters being a major issue - And the yeast that comes w/ the standard kits isnt great. I dont use the spigot on Mr Beer at all...I siphon to bottling bucket, but the cap area does stink. Maybe I will just stick w/ smaller batches until I get some more space.

 

[JamesM]

I say go for it. I love splitting beer in fermenters and treating them differently there. For example, make a pale ale, ferment them in your two vessels, add raspberries to one and dry hop the other. One brew, two very different beers.

HOWEVER: If you Mr beer smells funny give it a through washing. hot water, tons of soap, bleach bath. the whole 9 yards. Infection is no fun !!

 

[Berock]

Go for it. I seperate batches all the time to make two different beers. You could buy two 3 gallons buckets at HD or Lowes and then get airlocks. Same space requirement but without the risk of contamination from the spigot.

 

[brewdogskip]

I say do it, its exactly what I and many others do with 10 gallon batches. Again, its really fun to experiment with different yeasts, temperatures, dry hopping, etc. with two different batches.

 

[malkore]

Maybe a pair of 3 gallon better bottles is a better route for you to take for splitting batches. Or 3 gallon glass carboys if you don't mind the weight and damagability (that's a word, right?) of glass.

 

[Revvy]

There's nothing wrong with using mr beer fermenters for small batches... people wouldn't be using them if there were sanitization issues with them. Gimme a break. Many of us use them even for small batch all grain test recipes, or even apflewein which may sit for 6 or more months in them....get real whoever said you can't use them.

I use them, 3 gallon waterbottles, and 3 gallon better bottles for test batches all the time.

Oh my god..what's this in my swamp cooler???

Oh my god it must have been a ruined batch...or was it an award winning one???

All you need to do is sanitize a sandwhich bag and a couple rubberbands if you want to keep nasties out of the sipot....If you have them they are perfect small batch fermenters....even for 2.5 gallon batches...

You can even use liquid yeast, AND aerate it...like a REAL beer.

And as to cleaning them, do what no chill brewers do with aquatainers, or we who use water jugs with handles, exactly what we do with our buckets or other carboys, flood them with oxyclean and let the bubbles loosen all the gunks, then sanitize with starsan like we sanitize kegs and anything else with nooks and crannies, that's why starsan foams after all, to sanitize all the little hard to reach places.

 

[Haputanlas]

There's nothing wrong with using mr beer fermenters for small batches...:rolleyes" people wouldn't be using them if there were sanitization issues with them. Gimme a break. Many of us use them even for small batch all grain test recipes, or even apflewein which may sit for 6 or more months in them....get real whoever said you can't use them.

I use them, 3 gallon waterbottles, and 3 gallon better bottles for test batches all the time.

Oh my god..what's this in my swamp cooler???

Oh my god it must have been a ruined batch...or was it an award winning one???

All you need to do is sanitize a sandwhich bag and a couple rubberbands if you want to keep nasties out of the sipot....If you have them they are perfect small batch fermenters....even for 2.5 gallon batches...

You can even use liquid yeast, AND aerate it...like a REAL beer.

LOL, I agree. I use Mr. Beer fermenters all the time for my experimental batches. I've probably brewed 15 different beers in my one Mr. Beer fermenter (No Infections or Off-Flavors).

 

[Haputanlas]

Here is a pic of the experimental beer that I racked to secondary tonight with a Mr. Beer fermenter (Dry Hopping).

Please excuse the mess around the fermenter. I only moved it here to take the pic.

 

[jkarp]

I suppose your idea is workable but I always felt that the major flaw in Mr. Beer was the fermenters. They are hard to sanitize thouroughly and they allow air/bacteria into them. I think you'd get a better beer if you had a fermenter with an actual airlock.

Huh? Have you ever used a carboy? Mr. Beer "footballs" are a million times easier to clean and sanitize. You can get your hand inside and there's no seams.

As for bacteria, Pasteur would beg to differ with you. As he proved in the 1800s, bacteria obey the law of gravity. In other words, the Mr. Beer lid works just fine.

 

[Revvy]

Huh? Have you ever used a carboy? Mr. Beer "footballs" are a million times easier to clean and sanitize. You can get your hand inside and there's no seams.

As for bacteria, Pasteur would beg to differ with you. As he proved in the 1800s, bacteria obey the law of gravity. In other words, the Mr. Beer lid works just fine.

+1,000

Or as I like to say, the bad stuff aren't Ninja Acrobats.

The funny thing is....for how many decades has the mr beer keg been used? I mean folks may bag on mr beers about their ingredients...but if they were so prone to infection they would have gone to another design. Heck they even evolved from an airlock lid to the current design of the notched lid, which really again goes to show how superflous the airlock is....one could argue that the notched threaded lid design is an improvement over a snap on lid with an airlock...I doubt you ever blow the lid on one of those puppies.

 

[msa8967]

You could probably go to a local bakery shop and ask if they have empty frosting buckets. These are usually 3.5 gallon in size and can do 2.5 gallon size batches. All you need is a small grommet and air lock. I am mentioning this in case you want to get a small pipe line of beer going where you don't have to wait for one brew to finish fermenting. I did this when i started brewing instead of buying extra Mr Beer fermentors.

 

[Haputanlas]

Heck they even evolved from an airlock lid to the current design of the notched lid, which really again goes to show how superflous the airlock is....one could argue that the notched threaded lid design is an improvement over a snap on lid with an airlock...I doubt you ever blow the lid on one of those puppies.

Holy Crap, I didn't know that. If you look at my pic above, I drilled a hole and made an airlock. I guess that was stupid.

Pretty awesome idea.

 

[Revvy]

Holy Crap, I didn't know that. If you look at my pic above, I drilled a hole and made an airlock. I guess that was stupid.

Pretty awesome idea.

I though maybe you had an old school one...some folks on here do....

Yeah you added an even more useless appendage to it. The co2 was already venting fine out of the lid notches....didn't you notice them? That's why there's no airlock on there....

 

[Haputanlas]

I though maybe you had an old school one...some folks on here do....

Yeah you added an even more useless appendage to it. The co2 was already venting fine out of the lid notches....didn't you notice them? That's why there's no airlock on there....

You know it's funny because I don't even remember what was going through my mind when I drilled the hole. I never took into consideration that there must have been some sort of ventilation going on.

For consideration, I never used any Mr. Beer kits when it was given to me. I bought a full (extract) kit from the LHBS shortly after receiving this. It was only when I wanted to make experimental batches that I started using this fermenter. I just must have wanted to have an airlock without thinking about the original design.

Good to know though :fro: