So the Mr. Beer kit was quite easy. It was a little too easy for my tastes. I can’t wait to try real homebrewing. With the Mr. Beer kit, you sanitize everything (duh), then dissolve the “Booster”, which is basically high quality sugars, fermentable stuff, in cold water. Once that’s entirely dissolved (the hardest part is standing there stirring it until it’s dissolved), you bring it to a boil and then remove it from the heat. Then you pop open the can of the pre-made mix (meaning they take all the fun out of it) and dump that into the pot (it’s a thick syrup, it was tough getting it all out). You stir it up to create the wort. Then you dump that into the fermenter which had a gallon of cold water in it waiting for the hot stuff. Add more water and stir it some more. Finally, you add the yeast, let it sit for 5 minutes and then stir it again.
Now it’s just sitting in the back of my pantry fermenting for about a week (though I have a feeling because the kit is older, it’ll take longer, and I won’t be here exactly a week from now because of the long weekend and my skiing plans). Once it’s done fermenting, I bottle it. I have a bunch of 20 oz. soda bottles (which I may only fill up to 16 oz.) and a bunch of empty 12 oz. beer bottles that I’ll be using. I am still waiting for the homebrew equipment from my boss. The only thing I really need from that is the capping stuff. I’m going to bottle partially in plastic and partially in glass this first time. Next time will be with a real homebrew kit and I’ll go all glass then. I am anxious to see how this beer comes out. It’s called “West Coast Pale Ale”. It’s just a pale ale. I imagine it’ll be better than some macro lager, but I doubt it’d be anywhere near as good as even a halfway decent pale ale. We shall see. The beer should be drinkable in about a month or so. Basically, it says 1-2 weeks in the fermenter, then a week or so in the bottles, and you can either condition it longer or drink it. I plan on conditioning it longer to hopefully give it a bit more flavor, so it’ll be at least 2 weeks in the bottles and probably close to 2 weeks in the fermenter. Then I’ll try one and see if it needs more time.
If you’re someone I actually know and wish to try one, I’ll see what I can do. Leave a note in the comments or email me.
When you bottle with the 20 oz. bottle, you’ll want to fill them up higher than 16 oz. If you leave too much air in the bottle pressure will build up and you’ll likely create “bottle bombs”. Fill them up so that there’s only about an inch to an inch and a quarter left on top. That way the carbon has no where to go and remains suspended in the liquid.
Things you don’t know having never done it. Thanks for the tip! Part of the reason I’m afraid of doing all glass is to lessen the chance of having them explode and having glass. Is it OK to keep them all in a cardboard box with bottle separators while they condition and cabonate?
That’s pretty much how I do mine, except most of my boxes don’t have bottle separators. For the 12 oz. bottles, I just put them in old 12-pack boxes. For the larger, 22 oz. bottles. I use the boxes that they came in, or wine boxes (which you can usually get from your liquor store).