Mr Beer Review – Good Starter Brewing Kit

So you want to brew your own beer? It’s easier than you think with a Mr. Beer brewing kit. The main requirements are clean working conditions (very important), following instructions and patience, Patience, PATIENCE!!

The first two requirements are critical, but if you want a good, clean, flavorful beer after spending time brewing it, you have to be patient. Yes, you can have home brew in two weeks, but I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you wait four weeks. Well, at least three and a half, that’s how long I waited to try mine. 🙂

First, let’s go over the brewing process and look at the ingredients, instructions, and equipment provided by Mr. Beer.

My first batch of Mr. Beer was the West Coast Pale Ale, one of their Standard Brew Packs. It included a can of liquid hopped malt extract, a sachet of Booster(TM) (can you mark Booster?), and a packet of dry brewer’s yeast. Don’t panic like I did when you discover that the yeast packets are missing from the shipping box, they are conveniently stored under the plastic lid on each can of malt extract.

The Boil…

The Mr. Beer brewing process will take approximately 15 minutes once the water reaches temperature. Start heating the water and as it heats add and dissolve the Booster(TM), once it boils you can turn off the heat and start adding the malt extract (what they call the “beer mix” ) until completely dissolved.

Why such a short boil? In extract brewing where raw hops are added, a full 60-minute boil is required so that the brewer can introduce specific amounts of hops along the way to achieve the desired result. In the case of the hoppy malt extracts included with the Mr. Beer ingredient kit, this step is already done for us, there is no need to do anything more than completely dissolve the fermentables so the yeast has something to chew on to produce the alcohol.

Once all the sugars dissolve, what you have is called must, pronounced “wert.” Next, you’ll add your wort to the 4 quarts of cold water already in the barrel fermenter (follow Mr. Beer’s instructions). Add more cold water to bring it up to the 8.5 quart mark. I suggest filtered tap water that has been chilled in the fridge, give it a good stir. I put the lid on and also moved it back and forth a bit, but be careful, the lid is not airtight. Which brings us to…

Fermenting Mr. Beer… No airlock?

Why is there no air chamber in the Mr. Beer fermenter? I’d like to address this because it may raise concerns among homebrewers as an open door to contamination. Two small indentations in the rim of the fermenter allow carbon dioxide gas to escape, creating a positive flow of gas out from under the lid, during most of the fermentation process. The large lid that screws onto the rim of the fermenter provides adequate protection against foreign material and any microorganisms that may reside in the fermenting brew.

Microorganisms don’t fly around looking for things, and they’re not going to slither down the side of your fermenter looking for a way in. If your work area is clean, the fermenter is clean, you don’t have anything unsightly on the rim of the fermenter, AND you leave it covered during fermentation, you’ll be fine. NO SPYING!

If you want to see what happens in the fermenter, zoom in and buy a glass carboy. The Mr. Brew fermentation barrel is dark brown for a reason, yeast works best in the dark. To make your yeast even happier, keep the fermenter in a dark place and at a relatively constant temperature, between 68 and 76 degrees F, according to Mr. Beer’s instructions. Although I have successfully fermented beers at 65°, around 70° is the standard. A slight deviation up or down, by a couple of degrees, won’t mess things up.

Bottling…

Leaving the beer alone for at least two weeks in the fermenter is essential to allow as much sedimentation as possible. It will bottle a light beer, but there will still be enough yeast left to produce enough carbonation.

As a result, after two weeks in the bottle you will see a very light layer of sediment. The sediment was so little in my final beers, literally just a layer of dust, that I was able to enjoy a beer straight from the bottle! Of course, to fully appreciate your homebrew, you need to pour it into the right glass.

Brewing with liquid extracts generally results in a very clear beer, with a thin layer of sediment at the bottom. If you see a thick bed of white schmutz at the bottom of your bottle, wait longer before bottling next time.

I used standard 12 oz. pop-top bottles I keep when I buy my favorite craft beers, but you can buy a Mr. Beer Deluxe bottling system for about $15. That system includes 8.20 oz. plastic bottles, so you’ll need to buy two sets to bottle your entire batch. You’ll probably get about 10-12 of that 20 oz. full bottles and a few extras for good measure (no pun intended). I’m about 18 12 oz. bottles from my lot.

The result…

My final beer weighed in at around 3.3% just before bottling. At first I thought something had gone wrong, but Mr. Beer says the final ABV should be around 3.7% under optimal conditions. So it was close enough.

The beer displays a pleasant pale gold colour, has a pleasant malty nose and smooth mouthfeel before giving way to a pleasant hop bitterness at the end. As it sat in the glass, it became a little fuller in flavor, giving it some time to “breathe.”

I had that slight home brew, but I find that the max time in the fermenter keeps that to a minimum by reducing the amount of trub the beer will sit in the bottle.

One disappointment was the rather short-lived head. I had to do it pretty aggressively to get one in the first place, and it only lasted about 15 seconds. Carbonation is a bit inconsistent due to the addition of priming sugar to each bottle, in dry form, prior to bottling.

A typical priming situation involves dissolving dry malt extract or corn sugar in a small amount of water and thoroughly mixing that solution into the fermented beer prior to bottling, resulting in more consistent carbonation.

A suggestion for priming with a Mr. Beer setup would be to dissolve no more than 3/8 cup of priming sugar (you can use icing corn sugar) in 1 pint of hot water. Let it cool and then divide it evenly among the bottles before bottling the beer, only 1/2 ounce per bottle should suffice. This will help you get an even amount of priming sugar in each one, which will result in even carbonation. Better this than adding the dry sugar to each bottle and waiting for it all to dissolve into the cold wort.

You can estimate how much to add by measuring out 1/2 ounce of water and seeing how much goes up in the bottle, then simply add this amount of the sugar mix to each bottle before adding the wort. It will mix as the wort flows, but feel free to stir it up a bit as it fills. By the way, you can trust my measurements, I did the math. 🙂

In conclusion…

I titled this post “Mr. Beer – Good Beginner Brewing Kit” but it is indeed a great kit to keep and reuse, even for the most advanced brewers. The Mr. Beer Kit offers a fast, convenient, and virtually hassle-free way to make great-tasting beer over and over again. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to try home brewing but doesn’t know where to start. This is a great way to get your feet wet and learn the basics of the home brewing process.

Happy crafting!