I saw this posted on another forum,seems like some good tips. I figure we can add to them if we learn something helpful....
Original Post

Since it is now after Christmas, there are probably going to be a lot of questions from guys regarding the Mr. Beer kits they got for Christmas.

I started off with a Mr. Beer kit as a Christmas present back in 2002, so this list is brought to you from my hands-on experience.
Even though the directions provided will often say otherwise, please believe me, these directions will give you better tasting beer.

Find a Local Home Brew Store (LHBS). They will be able to help you and get you additional supplies and ingredients as you progress.

1) Don't use Booster. Use another can of plain light unhopped malt extract instead. This can either be dry malt extract or liquid malt extract. In either case, it will be better than using Booster or Sugar. Either your LHBS or the Mr. Beer web site can supply it for you.

2) If you can get some better yeast, your beer will turn out much better. I highly suggest using name brand yeast, such as Fermentis Saf-Ale, Danstar Nottingham/Windsor, Munton's, etc. The no-name crap taped to the can is usually dead or weak at best.

3) Rehydrate your dry yeast in a cup of 90 degree (F) water before you pitch it. This will allow the cell walls to become permeable, and more of the cells will be viable. They will grow more and do a better job of fermenting your beer.

4) Cool the wort down to 70F before pitching the yeast, and aerate it very well. Lack of oxygen will inhibit yeast growth, and you will get a bland beer with off flavors as a result.

5) The Mr. Beer directions say to dump the boiling wort into the keg which contains about a gallon of cold tap water. If you are on well water, this may be asking for an infection. If you are on city water, the chlorine in the water will form chloro-phenols, which may be low-moderate in level but will be noticeable as a band-aid or plasticy flavor/aroma in the finished beer. You would be better off if you use pre-boiled well or tap water. Boiling will sterilize the water and drive off any chlorine. If your city uses chloramine, even boiling will not remove it. You would need to use a 1/4 of a campden tablet (1 tablet can treat 10 gallons of water) to remove the chloramine, or go with bottled water.
It is better to put the boil pot in an ice bath to cool it down, though.

6) Do your best to control the fermentation temperature. The good yeasts named above thrive in temperatures of about 65-70F. Going hotter than that will cause harsh fusel alcohols to form and they will make your beer taste alcoholica and "hot".

7) Give the beer a full 2 weeks in the fermenter. Even though the directions say 1 week is enough, that is really not true. The foam (called krausen) will fall, but the yeast will continue to consume their by-products in the following days. This is the time that the yeast essentially cleans up after itself. Without this time, you will end up with "green" beer that has several off flavors. Patience here is key. To help fight the urge, plan or even brew another batch.

8. Give the beer at least 2 weeks in the bottles. Keep them at or slightly above 70F so that the yeast will reactivate and produce the carbonation.

9) Always, always, always pay close attention to your sanitation practices. One-Step is a good no-rinse sanitizer. Star-San is better. Bleach works, but then you need to rinse. What is the point of sanitizing only to put non-sanitized water back on the equipment?

In later batches, you can try steeping 1/4 lb of crystal malt and adding addtional hops into the beers. This is an easy way to add more complexity and flavor into the finished product.

10. They say to use table sugar to prime the bottles - you CAN, but if you're going to the LHBS for yeast anyway, get yourself a packet of priming sugar as well. You won't use the whole thing - but you're paying .75ish for it, so if you don't use the whole thing, oh well. :-) Table sugar, if memory serves, might lend a somewhat cider-y taste to it - someone correct me if I'm wrong on that, please. It may not be noticeable, I know I didn't taste it in any of my early batches, but like I said, for .75... :-) (Also, can anyone offer suggestions about mixing the corn sugar into the beer instead of putting it into the bottles? How much, etc?)

11. If you're going to use soda bottles when you bottle, KEEP THEM IN THE DARK. There's a reason why a lot of beer bottles are brown. :-) Brown bottles are the best for beer, because they block out a lot of the light that will otherwise skunk your beer. Green bottles are good, but not as good as brown, and they put something in Corona so it won't skunk... so you can use soda bottles - I'm sure people here have - but keep the light away from them until you're ready to drink them.

Good list of tips for us NewB’s. Number 3 (Rehydrate your dry yeast) caught my attention. Has anyone on these forums tried this? I can’t imagine it would hurt, but would it really help? It may be worth a shot if it will make the yeast more active. Any thoughts on this???

That's essentially what you're doing when you follow Mr. Beer's directions by letting the yeast float for 5 or so minutes before stirring, no? I've only done 3 batches so far, but I've had NO problems with yeast activating. My most recent Oatmeal Stout was like a kids science fair volcano within 60 seconds of pitching at 80 deg. Two days later and the little buggers are still foaming up a storm in there...

After my first batch . . . I can add a few things.

** Make sure you have your ingredients measured out prior to starting. I was so concerned in keeping things sterile I did not open anything. I ended up making more of a mess and having things exposed for longer trying to stay organized.

** Keep a bowl of the sanitizer handy. The biggest issue I had was keeing eveything clean as I moved through the various steps. of course part of that may be that I was trying to measure things and stir at the same time.

Have fun . . . . the wort smells so good!

Now that's the truth! Drives my cats WILD for some reason. Then the battle becomes keeping the fur-covered turd makers out of my sanitized keg!

RAOFLMAO!!! Fur covered turd makers. Oh thats great. 3 dogs here and they were a PITA when it came to bottling. Finally had the kids get off of the video games and occupy the dogs. Next I had the kids under foot curious. My son loves the taste of any beer except highly hopped. Daughters don't care for the taste of beer (must have come from my wife's genes).

Space Ace here,.. you can put the yeast packet contents(sterilize scissor and outside of foil packet with isopropyl alcohol))it will evaporate quickly)(or keep a coctail size bottle of vodka handy for this purpose) into a pint sized zip lock bag, add 1/8 teaspoon corn sugar(priming sugar) then add 4 to 6 ounces of LUKEWARM WATER (preferably around 85 degrees) open the yeast packet,shake into bag, SEAL bag, SHAKE WELL, OPEN CORNER , SQUEEZE OUT MOST OF AIR. SEAL SECURELY . then place the bag aside onto a safe place that is ROOM TEMPERATURE, NOTHING COLD, NOT A MARBLE SLAB, OR ANYTHING METAL OR STAINLESS AS IT WILL DRAW TOO MUCH HEAT FROM YOUR YEAST SOLUTION. The bag should begin to expand after about 5-10 min as the yeast begin to feed. YOU have just made a home made "SMACK-PAK". Add this solution to the fermenter when you are ready to pitch the yeast. ...ACE.

Space Ace here, measure the total amount for ALL of the bottles ,Place into a saucepan , add 16 oz of water bring to a simmer, not a boil, simmer about 15 min to sterilize . pour this solution into a sterilizer quart sized glass measuring cup. divide the total volume by the number of bottles you will be using. when it has cooled to room temp ,pour the measured predetermined ammount into each bottle, just before you fill the rest with your beer.(this will allow you to leave the required inch to inch1/2 of airspace required for propper carbonation. You might want to use a sterilized glass 1 1/2 oz shot glass to add sugar solution to the bottles, just use the pre-determined consistent ammount. ACE...

Thanks ACE... Good tip. I may try on next batch.

Skierbri10, I recommend reading John Palmer's book "How to Brew"
The link I am providing will take you there. But the link specifically takes you to the Priming Solutions page. Use the nomograph at the bottom of the page...Match the temperature of the brew and the desired Volumes of CO2 you want and divide by 2 (Its designed for a 5 gallon batch!) With the beer's that I have brewed I generally want about 2.7 volumes of CO2 and I get that with 2.2 ounces of corn sugar. (Get a scale from Mr Beer!)

Read paragraph 2b
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

I would recommend buying the book...unless you have a ton of printer paper and two-sided capability and the patience. This might be a good project to accomplish while waiting for the wort to cool.

In regards to the weak Mr Beer yeasts...If you have a LHBS get some Nottingham or SafeAle yeast, that or ask for assistance...Thems that asks, receives.

Once you accomplish this take that Mr Beer yeast and dump it into the boil for 5 minutes to purposely KILL it ... Voila ! Instant Yeast Nutrient!

Hey fellow Beer drinkers,


I've got a question...since the fermenting process begins with malt and yeast, why can't you use malt in the carbination instead of sugar?

Thanks
maddad

DME can be substituted for the sugars. I'll see if I can find the correct volumes and post them here.

Per Charlie Papazian:

for a 5 gallon batch use 3/4 cup of corn sugar or 1 1/4 cups of DME.

Since our batch size is 2 gallons vs 5 we would only need 40% of the 5 gallon amount of DME. This would be 1/2 cup for the 2 gallons. I would recommend batch priming vs trying to prime with some small amount in each bottle.

thanks

maddad

In other words...add the malt into the keg and then bottle?
Remember I'm working with the Mr Beer Keg Setup.


maddad

1/2 cups of sugar? Another topic somebody said 2/3 cups and 1 1/2 cups water, boil, then batch prime? Which is it?

I think that most people actually use 1/3 cup of sugar. If you look at the Mr Beer table for priming and calculate it out to the full two gallons, it comes to 1/3 cup. If you used a 1/2 cup it would probably be fine, but very highly carbonated. I'd be worried about using 2/3 cup.

Some people also use 6 tablespoons which is a little more than 1/3 cup (5.3 tablespoons). When I bottle my Witty Monk, I'm probably going to use 6 tablespoons, because I'd like it to have a little more carbonation.

I also don't think that you need to use 1 1/2 cups of water. 1/3 cup of sugar should easily dissolve in 1 cup, or even 1/2 cup of water. I put about 1/2 cup of water and 1/3 cup of corn sugar in a Pyrex measuring cup and microwave it for 5 minutes. To me, this is easier than boiling on the stove top.

- Mark

I found the topic in General, it was 1/3 cup. But it still was 1 1/2 cup water. I will try 1/2 cup. less water to add.

Sorry for the confusion :oops: The 1/2 cup reference was for DME as a priming agent not sugar. I would mix the DME in about 3/4 cup of water and boil for a bit to ensure sanitation prior to adding to the keg. Stir carefully once added to the keg to avoid mixing up the trub too much. Allow it to settle for 30-60 minutes (or until the trub has settled again) and then bottle sequentially for half the bottle and then top off in the reverse order. (Did that make sense :? ) Anyway, the reference was to DME not sugar. The idea is to add enough fermentables for the yeast to produce the CO2 after bottling. As the DME has "extra" unfermentable things it takes a bit more to produce the same carbonation. Clear as mud :?:

Greeting fellow beer heads.
I read the list and found it very knowledgeable. One tool that I always use is a small silicone spatula (Sterilized of course) this is extremely helpful when you are trying to get all of the extract out of the can. As to water, I use distilled water it cost about 72 cents a gallon at Wal-Mart and I haven’t had a bad tasting batch yet. Does any one else use distilled water?

“May your beer never go flat and may your stein never go empty”
TXB

Fermenter 1: Trying to decide
Carbonating: nuttin
Lagering: American Classic
Drinking: nuttin

I use spring water from wal mart. Never a problem!!

mike

Distilled water is not recommended to brew with as it lacks the minerals and nutrients for proper yeast fermentation to take place.

It may be a good exercise to brew a batch with spring water and see if you notice a difference in the quality of your final product.

The other think about distilled water is this: alcohol is a diuretic. It will dehydrate you rather quickly in high amounts. Beer usually doesn't cause this (too bad) because of the water content. However, if you brew with distilled water (its not pure, but lacks lots of stuff as IPA said) osmosis will actually pull nutrients out of your body. It can be very serious. That's why we can't drink the ultra-pure water from the lab..it can actually kill you. This is no where near as pure as that water, but it can cause some problems.

thanks for the advice. i use spring water and have had wonderful results. i tried filtered water from my frig and i didn't get the yeast reaction like i would with spring water. it tastes fine, but it was missing the initial foaming action. it eventually fermented, but it took a while. so, spring water is the way to go imho.

In the directions I got, it states that distilled H2O doesn't contain amu yeast nutrients so you shouldn't use it. It recommends Spring H2O.

Well, I started my first batch of Pale Ale today (guess what),
I didn't read the part about NOT using distilled H2O until after I'd already used it. Well, I had some Yeast Nutrient on hand (for my wine making efforts). I put in about a tsp of it to compensate for the lack of nutrients in the distilled (by reverse osmosis) H2O that I used. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

PS. I just harvested 5 gallons of honey from my bee hive and can't wait to try some honey in my next batch.

Good Luck

Wow.

I am planning to harvest 5 lbs of honey from Sam's Club, for 7 bucks.

I checked at Smart & Final yesterday. They had a shelf tag for 5 lbs of honey for $9.99, but no honey on the shelf.

I bought 5 lbs of honey last night at Sam's. It is now $9.

Best line I've ever read here. I've been laughing for 5 minutes straight. I have cramps.

MikeC

I do pretty much the same preparing the priming solution. But I put my beer in a bottling bucket and then add the priming solution to the bucket instead of the individual bottles. That way no matter what size bottle I use, it will have the correct amount of sugar in it.

Ha! That was my biggest worry too. I had to banish my dog from the kitchen!

Not only that, but my two kittens are some kind of freaks that LOVE to play and splash in water, and they're always trying to get into the bowl of one step I keep out!

One of my cats loves to leap onto the kitchen counter for a spontaneous look-see.

So step 1 is putting them outside or in another room. Then about time to begin wort cooling, the dog wants out. This usually lets the cats back in.

Swear--let dog in--put cats out--pitch yeast--RDWHAHB...

ohhh. wish I had known about this BEFORE I brewed. oh well, fun to learn from experience. GREAT tips.

I didnt notice any posts on removing the protien foam form the boil ...these protiens are undesirable..i always scoop them out with spoon and they apear right before boil ..the hot break..you only loose small amount if scooped from top and foam only...