Newbie Home "Brewer"

[Stogmeister]

O.k., so I wasted my money on a Mr. Beer kit (because price was what wife would allow) and my 1st batch is almost done fermenting.

I was also worried about being able to keep the fermenting temp. low enough. Unfortunately the coolest place in my house was my laundry room closet which seemed to maintain ~ 74 deg. F. It appears it worked o.k. for this small, simple fermenter (I plan to build a fermenting chiller if I step up to the 5 gal size).

My question:
Since I probably won't buy the equipment for a real set-up for some time I was wondering if anyone had recommendations to improve the Mr. Beer system for minimal cost?

Here's what I am thinking already:
- Replace the spout/valve because it poured very slow while sterilizing it.
- Fit spout with a piece of beverage tubing so I can bottle it easier and limit the new air introduced.
- Use real priming sugar instead of table sugar.

What else? Double ferment, make my own wort, add a simple cooling coil???Anyone in the Houston area have some old brewing equipment they want to unload?
(Disclaimer: No making fun of Mr. Beer kit here allowed )

[caskwith]

Never heard of a Mr Beer kit so i wont make fun of it! Over here we have always used a Burco 10 gal nappy boiler for making the wort (by the time to have strained the wort from the mash and sparged it it always makes up to 10gal) then 5 gallon fermenting bins for fermentation and then rack it off into 5gal beer barrels with taps and a C02 widget to add gas. never put beer in bottles so i dont know about that area, i have always prefered to just pour from the barrel as i wish.

if i can offer any advice then give me a shout, brewed beer with my father in our garage for years, havnt made any in a while due to ill health tho.

[Stogmeister]

Mr. Beer kit is a cheap ($30) kit that comes with pre-made ingredients and a little 256 oz fermenter. Simple enough to not screw it up.

http://www.mrbeer.com/

[caskwith]

Compared to kits you can get over i think thats quite expensive. here you can buy different kits for making all different kinds of beer, all you do is add sugar, hot water then put them into a fermenting bin and you get either 5 gallons of beer a few weeks later. i think you could probably start from scratch for about the equivalent of $50, maybe less if you bought second had equipment.

[ResIpsa]

Originally Posted by Stogmeister

- Use real priming sugar instead of table sugar.

What else? Double ferment, make my own wort, add a simple cooling coil??? )

I've been homebrewing for several years now, and have seen the mister beer but don't know anything else about it. I would certainly use either primiing sugar or DME (dried malt extract) to prime my bottles for carbonation rather than table sugar. Some of your other questions I'm a little unsure of. You ask if you should "double ferment". Are you asking if there should be a primary and then secondary fermentation? Aren't you already doing this with the Mr. Beer? I apologize because i don't know much about the product. As to making your own wort, I assume you are already doing this with the Mr. Beer, just using prepackaged ingredients. do you boil your wort on the stove? What is the exact process used with the Mr. Beer? Some of your questions would be easier to address knowing these answers.

Personally I would invest the $60-75 dollars in one of the packaged homebrewer starter kits that pretty much include everything you need except a brewpot and bottles and go that route. I think you will end up with a much better product, plus will be brewing in 5 gallon batches which should last you significantly longer. The brew forums at morebeer
http://morebeer.com/phpBB2/?PHPSESSI...db5ae32949fc5d have a lot of info for new brewers. You can also check out http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/beginning.html for indepth info.

[Mindflux]

Originally Posted by Stogmeister

I was also worried about being able to keep the fermenting temp. low enough. Unfortunately the coolest place in my house was my laundry room closet which seemed to maintain ~ 74 deg. F. It appears it worked o.k. for this small, simple fermenter (I plan to build a fermenting chiller if I step up to the 5 gal size).

Your wort can ferment as hot as 10 degrees HIGHER than your ambient temperature with a strong fermentation. What a lot of us folks do is partially immurse our fermenters in a bucket with water and some frozen 2 liter bottles of water, and rotate the frozen bottles out throughout the day. This helps keep the fermentation temps somewhat normal (although I have no way to measure this I can say my beers have come out better since I started this).

Good luck either way. One other thing I will mention is that the ingredients in the Mr. Beer kit are likely old. So dont expect this beer to be very good (although it could be).

Buy ingredients from a local brew store if you have one, or a reputable online vendor with high turnover on DME or LME (Malt Extracts).

[Stogmeister]

Mr. Beer steps go something like this...
1. Dissolve "booster" in cold water
2. Bring water and booster to boil and add beer mix
3. Pour heated mix into plastic fermenter (already half full of cold water)
4. Mix, add yeast, mix, ....ferment, ...bottle, ....condition

Like I said this is small, cheap, and hard to screw up - I just want to see if there is anything I can do to improve on their little out of the box system at this point. I'm well aware of other alternatives that may end up being cheaper and deliver a better product, but I've already spent the money on this. I don't really care about spending more $ for the real equipment, just don't want to have more stuff laying around if I determine I'm not really into it.

[Stogmeister]

Originally Posted by Mindflux

Your wort can ferment as hot as 10 degrees HIGHER than your ambient temperature with a strong fermentation. What a lot of us folks do is partially immurse our fermenters in a bucket with water and some frozen 2 liter bottles of water, and rotate the frozen bottles out throughout the day. This helps keep the fermentation temps somewhat normal (although I have no way to measure this I can say my beers have come out better since I started this).

Good luck either way. One other thing I will mention is that the ingredients in the Mr. Beer kit are likely old. So dont expect this beer to be very good (although it could be).

Buy ingredients from a local brew store if you have one, or a reputable online vendor with high turnover on DME or LME (Malt Extracts).

Thanks for the advice...I plan to visit my local homebrew shop this weekend...I'll probably come back with the full 5 gal set-up! I liked this guy's idea for a fermenting chiller. If it works I could move my operation to the garage and step-up in size.
http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF

[Mindflux]

Yeah the son of a fermentation chiller is a neat idea. Then again so is a fridge with a temperature controller (get the old out of hand cog wheel spinning).

This hobby is EASY to spend VAST quantities of dollars on. just to make beer.

[ky toker]

I use the Mr. Beer kit as well. My father and I just did our first batch not long ago and are planning for the next. It is a small kit, but I think I will stick with it until I start getting more comfortable with the process.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

My 1st batch

[Stogmeister]

Originally Posted by ky toker

I use the Mr. Beer kit as well. My father and I just did our first batch not long ago and are planning for the next. It is a small kit, but I think I will stick with it until I start getting more comfortable with the process.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

My 1st batch

Yeah I read your thread on your batch and that's what made me decide to try to use priming sugar instead of cane. I think mine is going to be plenty done fermenting, it was held at 74 deg F pretty much the whole time. Bottling tomorrow after I run to homebrew store. Only other mod. I'm doing on this batch is to use tubing to fill the bottles to hopefully minimize new air introduction. I shouldn't have to move my fermenter at all to bottle, so hopefuly it will be pretty clean. Condition at room temp for 1 week, then in to the frig until I get brave enough to sample...