Quick history - brewed by first batch in Feb. using a Mr. Beer homebrew kit. It was an Irish Stout and as basic as it gets - Hopped Malt Extract/Mr. Beer Booster pack. Half of the batch came out surprisingly good, the other half not so much (I used more priming sugar, too much apparently). I was very patient - a month in the keg, a month in bottles at room temp., then to the fridge for a bit. Brewing my second batch tomorrow - same deal (Irish Stout) except I'm adding some unhopped malt extract to the mix to beef up the flavor a bit. I plan on doing another batch in Sep/Oct. What's the next progression from here as far as making things more challenging without overwhelming myself?
If you think you will be making brewing into a real hobby (obsession) then I would say it might be the time that you take the plunge and look into buying equipment and ingredients not related to Mr. Beer. Start really reading up on how to design recipes and how to use different ingredients. It seems like you have the basics down (and most importantly the patience necessary).
I like Jack's advice. The Basic Brewing guys have done more than one show (some radio, some TV) involving Mr. Beer. There was a recent 3-21-13 audio podcast show they did titled "The New Mr. Beer" which could be worth a listen (I forget exactly what was covered). You can search the show archives at http://www.basicbrewing.com/ or in the itunes store. The next step, in general might be to start tinkering with recipes, but being mindful not to bite off more than you can chew. If you haven't done extract beer with steeped grains yet, that would be a fairly routine next step. Also, if your kits so far have used only hopped extract, you might try buying unhopped extract and adding hops yourself. Depending on what you already know about the brewing process, you might want to educate yourself more by reading http://howtobrew.com/ - this will give you some ideas about how far into the hobby you could go and you can decided whether to go only so far, whether to take big steps or small steps, etc. If you do find yourself tinkering with Mr. Beer recipes, you can always run your ideas past the forum to get feedback in advance.
I am about to do my fourth batch this weekend, and i skipped the mr beer kit (my dad got one as a birthday or christmas gift one year and never used it, but by the time i got around to it, the ingredients were several years old). I agree with the poster above that said if you are interested in making this a real hobby, you might want to start looking into a basic brewing equipment kit, but it looks like a lot of people exclusively use the mr. beer kits with a lot of success too. Anyway, still being new to brewing, the progression i did was: I bought a basic equipment kit, I actually found a groupon or living social deal for it, came with everything needed really except for a brew kettle. Kit also came with an ingredient kit and a $25 gift card to the website, turned out to be an awesomely cheap deal if you happen to see one of these. I brewed the first kit exactly to instructions without changing anything. It turned out ok, but the generic dry yeast included wasnt the best. Second batch was also a kit, but I tweaked the recipe slightly by getting the premium yeast, adding another hop addition, and fresh citrus zest. This batch came out really well. I decided that I wanted to pursue this as a hobby rather that do it once a year or so, so I picked up some more pieces of equipment to make things easier, seecondary fermenter, turkey fryer propane burner. Third batch I started designing my own recipes, which was way more fun than buying a kit for me. I used both the book Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels to help me learn what types of ingredients are traditionally used for that style I was brewing and I downloaded the free trial of BeerSmith (I have since purchsed a full copy, great software) to do the calculations and make sure I was within the guidlines for that style as far as gravity, IBUs, etc. From here on out, every batch I plan on doing is going to be a different style, and will require me to do different things. My third batch is aging on whiskey soaked oak chips for example, and I plan on doing batches that include dry hopping or using fruit too. This has seemed like the best progression for me personally, taking one step at a time, and always trying something different so that I keep learning new things. But I think the most important part is to do it in a manner you are comfortable with, and in a way that makes it enjoyable for you. You can learn as little or as much about brewing as you care to, and there is a LOT you can learn, but if you just enjoy making making Irish stouts (since it was your first two batches), then make some damn good Irish stouts, and then sit back and enjoy drinking them. That's always the best part anyway!
As your batches get better, you're going to want to make more each time so I'd look into a basic starter kit like the one from Northern Brewer. The feeling of having 5 gal (~2 cases) of good homemade beer in the fridge is pretty awesome, and it won't take much more time or effort than the Mr Beer kit. Good luck!
Thanks everyone. I'll have to look for more of those basic brewing videos. I plan on continuing to do stouts for a while, as I like the idea of perfecting (or trying to..) a style, or putting a different spin on it.
Given your goal, I would definitely recommend getting away from Mr. Beer, at least the ingredients. Starting with a dark malt extract (What's in it? Nobody knows!) isn't the way to dial in any recipe. Even if the Mr. Beer ingredients were awesome, they don't give you control or flexibility.
^^^ Something like this. ^^^ Mr Beer kegs can be used to brew smaller batches of beer, but it sounds like you should start making your own recipes using DME and hops and steeping grains/mini-mash instead of using pre-packaged kits. Here's a sample recipe for a Mr Beer keg (I do brew full batches too, but still mess around with my Mr Beer keg doing extract batches too). Note I just whipped this up, knowing it would NOT be perfected and ready to go, but to make the point (below)... Mr Beer keg 2.4 gallon batch: 2.5 lbs light DME 1 lb maris otter (mini-mash) 4 oz C20 (mini-mash) 2 oz C60 (mini-mash) 0.25 oz magnum at 60 0.5 oz belma at 10 0.75 oz cascade at 3 1 oz cascade at 0 1.050 OG 42 IBU 8 SRM 4.7 ABV Note that this recipe isn't perfect, and could probably use some tweaking to improve it. So if I was thinking of making something along these lines, but wasn't sure of myself, I'd post the recipe here, and see what people said. Then I could adjust things as needed. Perhaps a bit more DME for an OG of about 1.060 would be in order, or maybe the mini-mash should have something else, or one of those ingredients removed or changed, and perhaps my hops schedule could be improved by doing this and this and this, or maybe this recipe just totally sucks and Ima Moron!! Don't worry, people won't be shy about offering help. Once you've brewed a few, you'll start to get the hang of it. Or you could upgrade to a five gallon kit and brew five gallons at a time. Good luck!
