Brewed my first Mr. Beer beer.

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Looneybomber
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For those that don't know, Mr. Beer kits are for those just starting out. It comes with everything you need to make beer; hopped malt, unhopped malt, sugar yeast, cleanser, fermented, bottles, etc... Everything comes pre measured, you open a can or bag and pour it in. Simple.

Well this first batch was simple; hopped malt and a bag of sugar. I followed the recipe for the fermentation stage, but when it came to bottling and carbonation, it said to use white table sugar. I did this for half the bottles and used brown sugar for the other half. Because these were 1L bottles, I had my wife and friend help me taste test them to see which they liked better. We all decided that carbonating with brown sugar made them taste better.

I now have a few more beers I want to brew before venturing into the 5 gallon fermentors. I want to do an imperial pilsner, cranberry maibock, trippel ale, imperial stout, and a couple others. Surprisingly, I will not be brewing an octoberfest this year.


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Looneybomber
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Well, I am stuck at school today and my shipment of malt extract and other ingredients arrives today too. Hopefully I don't miss the UPS man.
I have arriving:
Cranberry maibock
Imperial pilsner that I will add a little corn sugar to to bring up the AbV a tad.
King's nectar
Fruity, rich, and spicy, King's Nectar is a formidable beer that's almost like wine. This is our tribute to the recipe that was lost for centuries in King Midas' tomb.
Triple ale
Big Ed's Red

Those are all 2gal kits by Mr.Beer. You order up their malt extract, add in some hops, and also some other ingredients like fruit, honey, ect... all depending on the beer.

I'm now looking for 8gal fermenter buckets and carboys/better bottles in order to do some high gravity brewing with grain and extract. I want the large size so that my wife and I can also do wine. I'm already planning out a pretty heavy imperial stout with an OG of 1.104. Maybe one of these days I'll get into the OG 1.120+ range :mike My goal is to brew the beer in my avatar. I found out the kind of yeast they use, but it's only tolerant to about 12% AbV and Mephistopheles is around 15%.

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breadbox
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Also going to throw out agave sweetener as well. I will say beer with agave tends to foam more, but tastes interesting.

Imperials are kinda cool, but I don't drink them very often, I prefer drinks that are sessionable.

I don't home brew yet, but I plan to start in the next year... I'd like to try making hard ciders also.

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Looneybomber
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For normal rotation beers, I want to keep a triple ale and imperial stout on hand all year. For winter, I can just spice my triple and add a little honey to make a Christmas/grand cru ale. Lastly, I gotta figure out an Oktoberfest.

I read one of the guys, signatures on homebrewtalk and it said "give a man a beer and he'll waste time for an hour. Teach a man to brew beer and he'll waste a lifetime."

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Looneybomber
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Well, this beer brewing thing is really a lot of fun. I outgrew the 2 gal Mr.Beer fermenter/batches. I now have 2, 5gal carboys, a 6.5gal and 8gal fermenter. I also have 5 and 6.5gal bottling buckets I can use too. It's great that you can think of a style of beer - dopple bock, english barleywine, IPA - and add in extra things to modify the flavor like peanut butter, chocolate, chili peppers, cilantro, etc... Unlike wine, you can get creative with beer.

I currently have bottled: spiced tripel, brown ale, cranberry maibock, and imperial pilsner.
Fermenting: Rye wheat ale, chocolate imperial stout (Swamp Water Stout).
secondary fermenter: Tripel ale on orange zest.

I'm super excited about my chocolate imperial stout. My original gravity was 1.106-1.107 and it finished at 1.027 which puts my AbV at 10.4%. I added 4oz of bakers chocolate after flame out, and it's provided excellent flavor. On Monday I will bottle half of it (nearly 3gal) and age the other half on toasted oak cubes and bourbon for 3-4wks.

Up next I have a baltic porter and oktoberfest lined up. I'll do the Oktoberfest first since it'll take 3mo to be drinkable, which puts it in the middle of Sept. Just in time for Oktoberfest. After my baltic porter, I will probably brew another imperial stout, then another tripel. Come fall, I'll have to start thinking about what lagers to brew for spring and summer. I also need to pick up another fridge to put my beer and fermenters in. Soon I'm gonna have 20+ gallons bottled up.

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Looneybomber
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I wanted to keep track of this info.

Cranberry lemon aid:

3 bottles lemon juice. 5.67
8lbs sugar. 4.64
3 cans whole cranberry sauce. 3.90
Yeast. 1.00
Yeast nutrient, energizer, Kmeta, Ksorbate. ~1
Total: <$17

Yield: ~5gallons
Anticipated AbV: 10.25

OG: 1.075
Will dump in yeast (EC1118) Sept 2nd.

*Side note*
I have no idea how much beer I have bottled, let me do a quick inventory. I have about 12gal total of two different imperial stouts, two cases of a triple, two cases of an Oktoberfest, just under two cases of a gross rye wheat that's closer to a malty american pale ale, two cases of a Baltic porter, and 2-3 gallons of a few random beers. So that's around 35gallons.

Soon I'm gonna have 5 gal of hard lemon aid, then I'll brew another five of an imperial stout to split with my friend, 5 gal quad ale, and 5 gal blue moon clone.

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If you are really into fermintation, you can put your wine through a secondary fermintation step and create malt vinegar. Im unsure of the time frame it takes, I know balsamic is supposed to baged like 75 years or something, but regular malt vinegar may go quicker

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Looneybomber
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Not a big vinegar fan, but we are looking into fermenting tea (kombucha). My neighbor makes his own hot sauce and ferments some of the peppers and tomatoes I guess. Not sure how he makes it but he gave some to me (along with some smoked habaneros) and it's good!

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Hmm, I've been wanting to brew my own beer for quite some time, but it seemed more expensive to do it with the kits than it was to just buy it at my local Wally World. The last time I priced the brew kits was about 10 years ago. So, just how much is it now to brew about a case of light beer and how many days does it take from start to finish?

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Looneybomber
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Z Car Barbie wrote:Hmm, I've been wanting to brew my own beer for quite some time, but it seemed more expensive to do it with the kits than it was to just buy it at my local Wally World. The last time I priced the brew kits was about 10 years ago. So, just how much is it now to brew about a case of light beer and how many days does it take from start to finish?
If you want to brew a light American lager (bud, coors, miller, etc), don't brew it. It will cost you more in just ingredients than it will to just buy a drinkable product. However, if you start brewing more expensive and exotic style beers (Imperial stouts, double bocks, barleywines, Belgian triples, etc..) instead of paying $3-8/bottle at the store (nearly $70-200/case!), you can brew two cases for $50-60. However, these are with buying the grains, hops, and even some malt extract. You can find numerous 5 gal kits by various home brew suppliers.

I just pitched my yeast into a low alcohol Belgian Stout. I call it a Belgian lunch stout. Later this month I'll do a Belgian imperial stout, russian imperial stout, and an english breakfast stout.


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