Answers to common questions about homebrewing with Mr. Beer

By Eric Wise

Q. Can I really get good results from the cheap plastic kegs and kits offered by Mr. Beer? My local homebrew shop said its more like an instant just add water beverage than homebrewing!

A. Mr. Beer kits will yield high quality beer, especially when you embrace the suggested six-week brewing method. If you rush the simple refill kits, you wont get the best brews. But the proof is in the tasting, and many other have agreed (some reluctantly) that a properly brewed Mr. Beer recipe (even an extract beer) will rank with the results of more elaborate homebrewing kits.

Q. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Mr. Beer system?

A. Mr. Beer kits are relatively cheap and yield just over two gallons of beer per batch. If a batch turns out bad or just isnt to your liking, you are not left with a ton of beer.

Unlike some other kits that finish beer in the fermenter, Mr. Beer allows you to get a pipeline going. With one Mr. Beer keg, you can start one batch two weeks after the first batch. With a batch fermenting, carbonating and conditioning, you will have slightly less than one case of beer ready to drink every two weeks. You can try many recipes this way, with a different flavor ready every two weeks.

Mr. Beer kits are also fairly easy to clean. After bottling, you must take apart the tap and keg and clean them thoroughly. If you get a more complex system, you have more to clean.

For those brewing partial or full-grain recipes, it is a lot of work to brew a batch. To make it worth it, you may want two fill Mr. Beer kegs with a double batch.

Q. Can I use extracts from other brew kits in the Mr. Beer keg?

A. Muntons and Coopers both make extracts intended for homebrewing. Your local homebrew shop will likely tell you that neither is intended for use in the Mr. Beer kit, however, you can make it work.

Since these kits are intended for five-gallon batches, you can use your math skills to figure out how much to use for Mr. Beers batch size (2.18 gallons). To make this work, its ideal for you to have two Mr. Beer kits ready to go. Figure out how much extract is needed per gallon for 5.0 gallons and multiply this by Mr. Beers 2.13 gallons. Going strictly by the recommended batch, you will naturally have some excess that will go to waste.

You could also intentionally make stronger beer by dividing the kits fermentables between two Mr. Beer kegs. I have tried this and its worked, with a Coopers dark kit yielding an authentic tasting doppelbock. I did purchase an extra yeast packet for my second keg, and I left the beer in the fermenter for three weeks.

Q. Can I use ANY beer bottles for homebrewing?

A. A bottle capper is an inexpensive investment that allows you to use glass bottles, rather than plastic. While homebrew shops are eager to sell you bottles, you can reuse bottles from commercial beers.

Unfortunately, twist-off caps make for one-time use bottles. You will have to use bottles that came with caps intended to be removed with bottle openers. The exception to this is the wide-mouth green bottles used for Mickeys malt liquor, which are a totally different design that can be used for homebrew.

The only bottle thats a problem is Bass Ale bottles. The diameter of the tops of these bottles must be slightly smaller than standard bottles, because the caps do not perform well. After allowing time for carbing and conditioning in Bass Ale bottles, I opened my homebrew to find it was still flat. The cap had not sealed the bottle and carbonation never took place.

The best option for reusing bottles comes from swing-top bottles. Perhaps most famous for delivering imported Grolsch beer, these bottles are ideal for homebrewing. They absorb gas produced by carbonation, and they are durable and even easier to use than bottles capped by a capper. The drawback, of course, is that these bottles come with expensive beer, or must be purchased.

Q. Am I taking a risk of having a keg overflow or a bottle explode?

A. Yeast does go to town when you load your keg with fermentables. The Mr. Beer keg is designed to allow gas to escape while using positive gas pressure to eliminate infiltration of wild yeast or other contaminants. Sometimes this system doesnt work fast enough and lids are blown off. Other times, there are leaks from the top of the keg. This is more likely when you give the yeast a lot of work to do, like when you are brewing a fruit beer. Yet its never happened to me during the 27 batches I have brewed. Still, if you are brewing a fruity beer, it may be worth it to place your fermenter on a tray that will contain the possible mess if needed.

Bottle bombs are also a possibility with any homebrew. Again, I have never had one. Plastic bottles have some drawbacks (often theyre not brown and they detract from your homebrews presentation), but they are more forgiving when it comes to pressure. You can even squeeze a plastic bottle after a week of fermentation to make sure its getting solid.

Glass bottles can and sometimes do explode if too much pressure builds up. Most of the time, a bottle bomb means beer was bottled before fermentation was complete or it became overcarbed with too much priming sugar. Protect yourself by placing your bottles of beer in a cooler for carbonating.

Q. Can I save money by homebrewing?

A. A homebrewed batch of beer costs about the same as buying beer. Usually, the initial cost is a little more because you are buying the fermenter and kit that you will reuse. Mr. Beer refills are available from Amazon, some homebrew shops and the Mr. Beer web site, usually for less than $20 (depending on shipping costs). Mr. Beers recipes run about $15 to $25, plus shipping. Each batch yields a little less than a typical 24-bottle case, so with the cost of bottled water (optional) and a primer (sugar or sugar cubes), the per batch cost is a little lower than buying higher priced microbrews.

As I have said, the startup costs for Mr. Beer are minimal, especially compared with expensive setups.

Got a question about homebrewing with Mr. Beer? Add it in the comments section.

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