Brewing Master

Question:

Yeah – once my Mr. Beer extract kits run out, I probably won’t use their ingredients again.   My last batch of Mr. Beer style beer will be: 1 can Mr. Beer High Country Canadian Draft 1 lb Extra Light DME 3/4 lb Northwestern Gold LME 1/2 ounce Cascade for bittering 1/4 ounce Saaz aroma 1/4 ounce Saaz flavor Nottingham dry yeast I call it my get rid of everything that you have Ale…..we’ll see how it turns out. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Yep…I purchased one 5 gal. carboy for the primary and will use the Mr. Beer Fermentor for a secondary until I get a 6.5 gal. carboy. The Mr. Beer kit is just too expensive for me 20.50 for 4 gal. vs. 21.00 dollars for 5 gal. extract / partial kit. Still learning how to do this.  I gently squeezed out the excess runnings on the advice of a local long time brewer who got me into this. mdh My first batch of Mr. Beer was staright Cowboy Lager + Booster – and it wasn’t that good at all.  However, I did manage to use the Mr. Beer kits + DME and maybe some extra hops to make some VERY good beer (of course added yeast also). Are you still using your Mr. Beer as a fermenter?  Or did you purchase (as you mentioned) a couple of carboys? You aslo said "squeezed excess runnings into wort".  Is this a good thing?  I heard it releases excess tannins and may give a "seeped too long tea" taste to the beer. Finally, got through all the MR. BEER SWILL.  Lesson learned. I really should have paid attention to you guys.  Every one i tried had a definate cider taste. Live and learn. I am definately ready to move on. So, went down to the LHBS and had a batch made up for 2.5 gallons.  Hey, one step at a time. (those 6.5 gal. carboys and 30 qt. brew pots are expensive.  SWMBO says I have to build my beer junk one month at a time.) Let the adventure begin. I asked the lhbs for a wheat kit.  The Galena Hops were my addition and left over from an attempt to make Mr. Beer palatable. Grain Bill: .25 lbs. Munich Light Malt 2.5 lbs. Munton Spraymalt Wheat Dry Extract Hops: .12 oz Galena (bitterring) boil 30 min. .5 oz Chinook (flavor) Boil 10 min. .5 oz. Spalt (aroma) Boil 1 min. Yeast:  White Labs California Ale Yeast Water:  3.25 Gal. Drinking Water from Wal-Mart (God Bless America)  Local water is high in sulfur. Steeped .25 lbs of grain in 10 cups of 150* +/- 3* water for 30 minutes removed grain bag and squeezed excess runnings into wort. Brought wort to a boil and remove from heat. Added 2.5 lbs of muntons spraymalt plain wheat dry extract dissolved then returned to boil. Total planned boil time 60 min. Brought wort to a boil and boiled through the break for a total of 30 min. Added bittering hops, .12 oz. of galena for 30 min. After 50 min. of boil added .5 oz of chinook for flavor. Added .5 oz of spalt for aroma with one minute left in the boil. Placed boil pot in sink of cold ice water and chilled to 80* F in less than 11 min. Brought volume up to 1.5 gallons. Added 1 gallon of water to fermentor. Filtered the wort through a stainless steel sifter and racked into the 5 gal. carboy. Sealed and shook carboy for 5 minutes / pitched yeast. SG is 1.046 and sitting at 66*F. Bubbles started  9 3/4 hours later. YAHOO!!! Planning on racking to secondary in 5 / 6 days. Bottle planned for two weeks using 3.9 oz. Muntons SprayMalt Wheat DME. Carbonation in bottle for two weeks.

Response:

Finally, got through all the MR. BEER SWILL.  Lesson learned. I really should have paid attention to you guys.  Every one i tried had a definate cider taste. Live and learn. I am definately ready to move on. So, went down to the LHBS and had a batch made up for 2.5 gallons.  Hey, one step at a time. (those 6.5 gal. carboys and 30 qt. brew pots are expensive.  SWMBO says I have to build my beer junk one month at a time.) Let the adventure begin. I asked the lhbs for a wheat kit.  The Galena Hops were my addition and left over from an attempt to make Mr. Beer palatable. Grain Bill: .25 lbs. Munich Light Malt 2.5 lbs. Munton Spraymalt Wheat Dry Extract Hops: .12 oz Galena (bitterring) boil 30 min. .5 oz Chinook (flavor) Boil 10 min. .5 oz. Spalt (aroma) Boil 1 min. Yeast:  White Labs California Ale Yeast Water:  3.25 Gal. Drinking Water from Wal-Mart (God Bless America)  Local water is high in sulfur. Steeped .25 lbs of grain in 10 cups of 150* +/- 3* water for 30 minutes removed grain bag and squeezed excess runnings into wort. Brought wort to a boil and remove from heat. Added 2.5 lbs of muntons spraymalt plain wheat dry extract dissolved then returned to boil. Total planned boil time 60 min. Brought wort to a boil and boiled through the break for a total of 30 min.  Added bittering hops, .12 oz. of galena for 30 min. After 50 min. of boil added .5 oz of chinook for flavor. Added .5 oz of spalt for aroma with one minute left in the boil. Placed boil pot in sink of cold ice water and chilled to 80* F in less than 11 min. Brought volume up to 1.5 gallons. Added 1 gallon of water to fermentor. Filtered the wort through a stainless steel sifter and racked into the 5 gal. carboy. Sealed and shook carboy for 5 minutes / pitched yeast. SG is 1.046 and sitting at 66*F. Bubbles started  9 3/4 hours later. YAHOO!!! Planning on racking to secondary in 5 / 6 days. Bottle planned for two weeks using 3.9 oz. Muntons SprayMalt Wheat DME. Carbonation in bottle for two weeks.

Response:

Yep…I purchased one 5 gal. carboy for the primary and will use the Mr. Beer Fermentor for a secondary until I get a 6.5 gal. carboy. The Mr. Beer kit is just too expensive for me 20.50 for 4 gal. vs. 21.00 dollars for 5 gal. extract / partial kit. Still learning how to do this.  I gently squeezed out the excess runnings on the advice of a local long time brewer who got me into this. mdh

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My first batch of Mr. Beer was staright Cowboy Lager + Booster – and it wasn’t that good at all.  However, I did manage to use the Mr. Beer kits + DME and maybe some extra hops to make some VERY good beer (of course added yeast also). Are you still using your Mr. Beer as a fermenter?  Or did you purchase (as you mentioned) a couple of carboys? You aslo said "squeezed excess runnings into wort".  Is this a good thing?  I heard it releases excess tannins and may give a "seeped too long tea" taste to the beer. Finally, got through all the MR. BEER SWILL.  Lesson learned. I really should have paid attention to you guys.  Every one i tried had a definate cider taste. Live and learn. I am definately ready to move on. So, went down to the LHBS and had a batch made up for 2.5 gallons.  Hey, one step at a time. (those 6.5 gal. carboys and 30 qt. brew pots are expensive.  SWMBO says I have to build my beer junk one month at a time.) Let the adventure begin. I asked the lhbs for a wheat kit.  The Galena Hops were my addition and left over from an attempt to make Mr. Beer palatable. Grain Bill: .25 lbs. Munich Light Malt 2.5 lbs. Munton Spraymalt Wheat Dry Extract Hops: .12 oz Galena (bitterring) boil 30 min. .5 oz Chinook (flavor) Boil 10 min. .5 oz. Spalt (aroma) Boil 1 min. Yeast:  White Labs California Ale Yeast Water:  3.25 Gal. Drinking Water from Wal-Mart (God Bless America)  Local water is high in sulfur. Steeped .25 lbs of grain in 10 cups of 150* +/- 3* water for 30 minutes removed grain bag and squeezed excess runnings into wort. Brought wort to a boil and remove from heat. Added 2.5 lbs of muntons spraymalt plain wheat dry extract dissolved then returned to boil. Total planned boil time 60 min. Brought wort to a boil and boiled through the break for a total of 30 min. Added bittering hops, .12 oz. of galena for 30 min. After 50 min. of boil added .5 oz of chinook for flavor. Added .5 oz of spalt for aroma with one minute left in the boil. Placed boil pot in sink of cold ice water and chilled to 80* F in less than 11 min. Brought volume up to 1.5 gallons. Added 1 gallon of water to fermentor. Filtered the wort through a stainless steel sifter and racked into the 5 gal. carboy. Sealed and shook carboy for 5 minutes / pitched yeast. SG is 1.046 and sitting at 66*F. Bubbles started  9 3/4 hours later. YAHOO!!! Planning on racking to secondary in 5 / 6 days. Bottle planned for two weeks using 3.9 oz. Muntons SprayMalt Wheat DME. Carbonation in bottle for two weeks.

Response:

My first batch of Mr. Beer was staright Cowboy Lager + Booster – and it wasn’t that good at all.  However, I did manage to use the Mr. Beer kits + DME and maybe some extra hops to make some VERY good beer (of course added yeast also). Are you still using your Mr. Beer as a fermenter?  Or did you purchase (as you mentioned) a couple of carboys? You aslo said "squeezed excess runnings into wort".  Is this a good thing?  I heard it releases excess tannins and may give a "seeped too long tea" taste to the beer. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Finally, got through all the MR. BEER SWILL.  Lesson learned. I really should have paid attention to you guys.  Every one i tried had a definate cider taste. Live and learn. I am definately ready to move on. So, went down to the LHBS and had a batch made up for 2.5 gallons.  Hey, one step at a time. (those 6.5 gal. carboys and 30 qt. brew pots are expensive.  SWMBO says I have to build my beer junk one month at a time.) Let the adventure begin. I asked the lhbs for a wheat kit.  The Galena Hops were my addition and left over from an attempt to make Mr. Beer palatable. Grain Bill: .25 lbs. Munich Light Malt 2.5 lbs. Munton Spraymalt Wheat Dry Extract Hops: .12 oz Galena (bitterring) boil 30 min. .5 oz Chinook (flavor) Boil 10 min. .5 oz. Spalt (aroma) Boil 1 min. Yeast:  White Labs California Ale Yeast Water:  3.25 Gal. Drinking Water from Wal-Mart (God Bless America)  Local water is high in sulfur. Steeped .25 lbs of grain in 10 cups of 150* +/- 3* water for 30 minutes removed grain bag and squeezed excess runnings into wort. Brought wort to a boil and remove from heat. Added 2.5 lbs of muntons spraymalt plain wheat dry extract dissolved then returned to boil. Total planned boil time 60 min. Brought wort to a boil and boiled through the break for a total of 30 min. Added bittering hops, .12 oz. of galena for 30 min. After 50 min. of boil added .5 oz of chinook for flavor. Added .5 oz of spalt for aroma with one minute left in the boil. Placed boil pot in sink of cold ice water and chilled to 80* F in less than 11 min. Brought volume up to 1.5 gallons. Added 1 gallon of water to fermentor. Filtered the wort through a stainless steel sifter and racked into the 5 gal. carboy. Sealed and shook carboy for 5 minutes / pitched yeast. SG is 1.046 and sitting at 66*F. Bubbles started  9 3/4 hours later. YAHOO!!! Planning on racking to secondary in 5 / 6 days. Bottle planned for two weeks using 3.9 oz. Muntons SprayMalt Wheat DME. Carbonation in bottle for two weeks.

Response: