Advice on "Brewing" a Mr. Beer Am Porter

For extract batches, I'd recommend distilled/RO water, or any water with few minerals in it. The reason is that there were minerals in the water used to make the extract, and they are still in there. And you won't have to worry about getting rid of chlorine/chloramines.

Mr. Beer fans claim that the ingredients in the kits are better than they used to be, but I have no direct experience with that.

That's a bit warm. Can you find a place in the low/mid 60's?

 

Yes, I was just about to suggest some sort of swamp cooler setup.

I don't recommend pitching warmer than the ultimate fermentation temp. If anything, pitch a little cooler. Also, I'm not suggesting fermenting at 60-65. My comments about low/mid 60's was for ambient temp, which doesn't apply if you are going to build something for positive temperature control. I'd say something like 66-68 wort temp, but I haven't used Safale 04. Others can jump in with something better/more specific for that strain.

 

In my opinion, US-05 is a heat tolerant yeast strain. It has a recommended upper temperature of 75°F. I personally have never fermented quite this warm but I have had good luck fermenting in the 72-73 degree range. Note: all of these temperatures are wort temperatures.

The Basic Brewing Radio guys did a nice video a few years ago about brewing with Mr. Beer Kits:



Cheers!

 

I used my mr beer keg for years until it finally got cracked, at which point I recycled it. Now I have a three gallon better bottle for doing small batches, but much preferred the mr beer keg (much easier to clean, doesn't require a siphon etc).

Note that I brewed beer in the mr beer keg and didn't even need to put unnecessary quotes around "brewed." It's just a plastic fermentation vessel, that's all. You can succeed with it or you can fail with it. Much of the "bad" reputation of mr beer seems to be based on things that aren't necessarily true, or aren't currently applicable.

Apparently at one point sometime in the past the ingredients supplied with mr beer kits weren't that great. I really don't think that's true anymore (although I suppose it's possible to get ingredients that are extremely old that might not be very fresh. But I suspect this is more of a non-issue than an issue, as how fast does canned extract really go so far bad as to be noticeably worse than it was fresh?). I have had various batches of mr beer from their kits that came out just fine.

The more relevant criticism of mr beer is in the directions and information supplied with their products. I can tell you from my experience that this information was severely lacking. This is most likely the primary reason for mr beer failures, and for it's "bad" reputation.

Also, I think skipping the ABV booster and using pellet hops would improve mr beer's kits.

But the main point is that you can brew with mr beer without using any unnecessary quotes whatsoever. You just need to pay attention to fundamentals (the same fundamentals that success depends on regardless of the brand of your fermentation vessel or supplier of your ingredients).

 

A couple years back ... MrB's switched to Coopers extract. As with any LME ... the fresher the better.

 

Better water = better beer, period. I have brewed using Mr Beer for a few years now and have never been disappointed in my efforts. Your temp range is within what most of their recipes call for, switching to another yeast will change that potentially. Try their Ole' Mole' recipe, it's one of my favorites they sell.

Kudos to AlCapone for your input!

 

IMO ... the MrB fermentor's aspect ratio (wider than it is tall ) is its strong suit ... followed closely by its wide-mouth which allows for easy cleaning.

The fermentor's high aspect ratio means it fits easily inside a 48-QT ice chest and the desired fermentation temperature can be controlled by occasionally swapping out bottles of frozen water.

 

Yes if anyone is just unable to wrap their heads around using their mr beer keg any longer, please do send it to me. I'm just a po student, after all. And since I'm in the field of SCIENCE I can expect to remain broke for a very long time. You know, given the current demand for actual science, and the pay rates for (non-quacktard) scientists.

But I may just totally sell out and start selling snake-oil, because the market's SO huge, even a scientist could make a good entrepreneur, if he just had a little snake oil to sell....

Maybe I'll do like Ben Goldacre did. He obtained a PhD... for his dead cat. Only had to pay $60 and it came right in the mail in a few weeks. Sure would beat all this pesky studying. But then his dead cat now has a PhD in some form of quacktardery (he's probably a "nutritionist" now).

And how irrelevant is all this? (pretty darn!). Especially for someone who's hoping to play bass in a heavy metal band when he grows up! (oh wait, I already play bass in a heavy metal band, lol).

 

Thumbs up to a fellow brewer-bassist. I'm more of a roots rock/garage punk guy myself, but it all sounds good after a homebrew or two.

 

Since there are two bassists in one thread...
Q: How do you get a bass player to turn down?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.

Nothing personal, guys!

 

Rockers don't need sheet music. We're not even aware if it's made for bass or not, as there was no need to ever check. That doesn't mean we don't know about music tho. I actually play sometimes with a dude who's excellent at jazz guitar. I've learned all kinds of stuff from him (especially modes like dorian, lydian etc, and how to incorporate those scales into songs based on the chords*). But the main thing you need to know about playing bass is this:

If you crank it up, you can break chandeliers**. That's when you know it's loud enough. Make sure to get a double-stack / 1000 watt amp, with pre-amp EQ for extra punchiness. Anything less is under-kill, and bass players need to go big or go home.

Also fretless is the way to go. I'm not aware of too many rockers who have figured this out tho. It's easier than you think, and you can feel super-smug when people assume all kinds of grandiose things about you when they see your badass Fender fretless bass. Just like the unlimited nature of music, there's no limit to what people will believe about how stupendous you are if you just give them a little free reign.

*I play by ear, so I hear what's going on without needing to see it. Just like making beer, if I have to spend too much time over-analyzing and documenting everything, it will become work, which defeats the purpose of something you do for fun. And I've met people who can't play by ear and require sheet music... I feel sorry for them. It's like they can't feel it, and I suppose I can't see the point of jamming if you can't feel it. But all this doesn't mean there isn't value in knowing some stuff about music. Just like beer lingo/jargon, you can feel extra-smug by confusing others with your impressive knowledge of obscure topics that most people are unaware of.

**I've done it. But I denied it, still to this day enjoying the "mystery" of how the chandelier got broken.

 

So if it is anything like your brewing, you do a lot of single string, single finger bass solos, right? (best my musically uninformed mind could do for a smash analogy).

 

SSaBC (Single String and Broken Chandelier)

 

Or perhaps he just SMASHes his bass at the end of the performance.

 

I guess it could depend on what you study and what kind of job you want. A longtime with little pay sums up my first 25 or so years after college (grad school, low paying academia jobs). The last year got better, and I only had to sell a small part of my soul.

 

Maybe this is Al!?!

 

Great. Now there's another instrument that I must have. Not that I'm running low on guitars or anything. Just that overkill is the way to go when you're a rocker.