I makes me some good beer!

Cafe Society
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Well, it’s actually ale. I got a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas. It’s pretty cool and easy to use. The wort comes pre-mixed and all you do is add sugar water and yeast. The part I like the least is all the washing and sanitizing that has to take place. It’s not really hard though, just time consuming.

I’ve always wanted to make my own beer but was intimidated with the big fermenting vats. This kit makes 2 gallons of beer at a time.

For my first try, I made “Pale Ale,” which was the mix included in the kit. I think I had old yeast as it took about a month for the beer in the cask to ferment enough for bottling. The directions say it takes about a week. Then after bottling, It took several weeks again before it was carbonated enough. And the beer had a cidery taste. It’s only now, as I’m down to my last couple of bottles, that the cidery taste is disappearing. The Pale Ale is actually too light for my tase in a premium beer though. I might try it once more to see how much a difference it will be with fresh yeast.

For my second attempt, I made an “Englishman’s Nut Brown Ale.” Pretty good stuff! Comparable to a Newcastle ale. Much better than the first batch.

And I just sampled my third batch tonight. Instead of using the “Booster” sugar substitute that I used in the first two batches, I made an all malt ale, “Bewitched Red Ale” with “Pale Amber Malt.” This is good too. Your Bud/Coors crowd probably wouldn’t like the flavor, but I do. Don’t want to break my arm patting myself on the back, but this batch is comprable to a premium beer that you might pay $8 or more for a six pack.

You get a pretty good buzz from this stuff too. :smiley:

This will probably be the last batch I make until the fall as optimum fermentation temperature is around 72 degrees Farenheit (lager requires much colder temps). In the Arizona desert, there is nowhere in the house that has that kind of constant temperature in the summer. Beer will still ferment at higher temperatures, but then you take the risk of producing chemicals which cause headaches.

It’s interesting that this kit came with plastic, one liter bottles. You make enough beer per batch to fill eight bottles. Except for some reason, I only had enough in my last attempt to fill 7 and 3/4 bottles. The plastic bottles are useful to test the carbonation stage. You squeeze them and when they are rock hard, they have adequate carbonation. Of course, you can use glass bottles and even the “Grolsh” type bottles with the cap that’s held down with a wire bail. But then the only way to tell if the beer is ready is by opening a bottle.
I recommend the Evelyn Woodhead Sped Redin Course to all my friends out there and tell them you saw it here on roller derby.

(Sorry, like I said, you get a good buzz from that stuff.)

Anyway, I’d like others to share their beermaking experiences and especially any tips or recommendations with the Mr. Beer system.

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Ooohh, can I have some beer? Huh, can I? Please can I have some beer, can I can I huh can I pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeee?

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I make mead, myself. I just finished making a 5-gallon batch of cherry mead that I plan to label “Cherryoscura”. (I suggested that name to another brewer on the board once, then decided to make it myself, as he chose not to use it). It’s sitting in its bottles in the closet, quietly carbonating. I’m sampling a glass from my “gunk” bottle (the partial bottle from the bottom of the carboy, with the excess sediment) right now, though. It settled nicely, and even the gunk bottle is pretty tasty. It’s light, sweet, and slightly effervescent, with hints of cinnamon, clove, and cherry. The other bottles should be very tasty in a few months.

It’s normal to not get the full volume from a brew. You generally lose some to evaporation, and you generally don’t bottle everything that’s left, anyway, since you don’t want all of the sediments. I was about a half-liter shy on my last batch.

For cleaning, nothing beats a good spray nozzle on a big sink. I don’t have one in my apartment, so I’ve got a special attachment I picked up at the homebrew supply store that converts the regular faucet to a sprayer. That, and a good strong bleach (either chlorine or peroxide based) are all you really need.

General tip: Use the best water you can get for brewing. I refuse to use the tapwater here (I even avoid icing drinks with it, it’s so nasty). I use bottled spring water instead–Ozarka is a decent brand, and the 2-gallon jugs are cheap. If you’re in an area where they chlorinate the water heavily, it can even inhibit fermentation.

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I think you’ll find that the cider flavor comes from the sugar. If you use all malt, it’s gonna be much much much better tasting.

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InternationalPlayboy, hie thee to a brewing supply store and get yourself some real equipment! Mr. Beer and its analogs are crap. For $50 or thereabouts you can get a starter kit that will allow you to make beer that makes you weep, it’s so good. Trust me on this one.

The cidery taste comes from the sugar you added. Never, ever do this again! :smiley:

If you don’t have a cool place in the house, do what I did…well, if you have a spare bathtub, that is. One house I lived in was not air-conditioned, so I just filled the spare bathtub with water, and wrapped a bathtowel around my carboy as it sat in the tub. The evaporation kept the carboy cool, and my beer fermented quite nicely.

Balance, we need to swap recipes some time. I make a ginger mead that is heavenly, if I do say so myself!

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Balance: Water was my first concern. Our tap water is terrible so I’ve been using nothing but bottled spring water. A spray attachment for cleaning would be nice. I only have a double kitchen sink with no sprayer to work with right now. And Mr. Beer sells a cleanser that works well for sanitizing for my purposes. Haven’t tried bleach but the cleanser converts to hydrogen peroxide and you don’t have to worry about rinsing completely as you do with bleach.

I’ve never tasted mead, it sounds good.

China Guy: I thought it might have been ths sugar causing the off taste. I made my first batch in late January and because the yeast was old, didn’t bottle until about a month later. Only have two or three bottles of the first batch left, but each one has been a little better than the one before. I have used the “booster” that Mr. Beer sells instead of table sugar for the fermenting stage. It’s some sort of corn sugar and is suppose to work better than table sugar for that process. I still use table sugar for the bottling though. The booster is sure a bear to dissolve completely before heating and adding wort. That’s one reason I tried the all malt brew for my last batch.

Thea Logica I was embarassed that I shared my first bottle with others without ever trying it myself. Now the stuff’s so good, I want it all for myself. :smiley:

Hmmm, maybe that’s be a good geocache prize. I’d give you the coordinates, but I think that demand might overwhelm supply.

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Silentus: You posted while I was typing. For my purposes, Mr. Beer is working out quite well and I’m surprised over how good it tastes. Mind you, I drink things like Keystone on a regular basis as the taxes have driven the price of beer up too high for me. I refuse to pay $6 for a pack 6 pack of Budweiser or Coors or any other domestic swill but then can’t briong myself to drink something like Old Style or Schaffer, like some of my friends do. When I eat out or go on vacation, I’ll spring for the micro brews or imporded beers but for every day drinking, it’s the cheapest I can stomach.

I’m spaced challenged where I live right now too, so that’s another reason I like the Mr. Beer. Just don’t have room for anything bigger.

I do plan to expand eventually.

We had a microbrewery here in town close down recently. It took the guy forever (3 0r 4 years) to build and open after he announced his plans. He built it in the old (read “depressed”) part of town, completely opposite the end of town where business is thriving. Yeah, they’re trying to revive the area, but wouldn’t it have been more economical to use an existing building, of which there are many empty ones in the area, instead of building from the ground up? His restraunt was only opened for about two years, and in this time, he received help from the city to remain afloat once and applied for it again. He went bankrupt last summer and auctioned off all of his equipment.

I only ate there once as it was in an inconvienent location and I don’t like to drive even after having only one or two drinks. The laws are just too tough anymore. I did think his beer was good. Though I thought from day one that his location and building a new structure was stupid, I was sorry to hear of his failure. I had intended to hang out there more often, hopefully to befriend the owner and learn about brewing. I would have worked part time for free for the experience.

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Well…as long as you are planning on doing it right, I guess we’ll let you live! :smiley:

Seriously, don’t use table sugar…ever. Use corn sugar to prime. Table sugar is what gives your beer that cidery whang. Unless your water is so hard that is comes out of the faucet in chunks, I wouldn’t worry too much about using it to brew. My town has well-water that has so many minerals in it, I expect to see it on the Periodic Chart. I still make great beer with it.

As for mead…nothing could be simpler, and mead loves warm fermentation temperatures. If you want to give it a try, just ask.

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Ardred and I are enjoying our first batch a nut brown ale called “Primordial Ooze” we made about a month ago. The second batch is happily carbonating in it’s bottles waiting for that right moment. It’s tentative name is “Bee Fruitful and Multiply” as it has many pounds of blackberries and raspberries and a ton of honey. It tasted damn good just out of the fermenter, so I guess it’ll be great when it’s done.

Get your self all of Charlie Papazian’s brewing books. We learned everything we know from him.

As for Mr. Beer, forget that. We have two pails and a large boiling pot. Anyone has room for that. :smiley:

Welcome to the world of great beer!

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What does mead taste like?

:confused:

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Hey, it’s a start–and as long as you like the results, that’s all that matters. When you’re ready to move up to some more complex styles that you can’t do in a Mr. Beer, you’ll find there’s even more fun to be had out there…

Me, I just finished bottling two batches: a pale ale (relativley easy to brew) and an oatmeal stout (mini-mash, a bit more complicated). Early indications are that they both kick ass.

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Yum…mead. Honey wine. More proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy. :smiley:

Depending on the recipe, mead can taste like all sorts of things. Melomels are meads made with fruits. I make a killer sweet raspberry mead that tastes like alcoholic raspberry syrup. Metheglins are spiced meads. I prefer ginger. Think alcoholic ginger ale, sorta. You can make them dry or sweet, sparkling or still. One of the best I have ever tasted was a sweet lime mead I made, from a recipe stolen from Zymurgy magazine.

For a sample of what the commercial stuff tastes like, hie thee to a Renaissance Faire. The commercial stuff is ok, but it is to real mead what Bud is to homebrew.

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As silenus said, mead can have an enormous variety of flavors. The only consistent factors are a honey taste and various levels of alcohol. I use Papazian’s antipodal mead recipe as the base for most of my brews, adding flavor elements on an experimental basis. The resulting meads are generally light, fruity, golden wines with a strong honey flavor (not surprising, given that the main ingredients are 1.25 gallons of clover honey and just under 4 gallons of water)–very much a dessert wine. Last year, however, I made a Christmas mead that had almost no fruity element; instead it was strongly flavored by a decoction of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. I find that most meads are best served cool, but not chilled–chilling mead hides some of the more delicate flavor elements.

Oh, and commercial mead is to a proper homebrew as chalk is to cheese. Chaucer’s is drinkable, though.