Hey everybody, welcome back to the Brew Review.
In today’s episode I review my first ever home brew. Well if you can call it that, it is more of a quasi homebrew as it was made using the Mr. Beer home brewing kit and there is no real brewing involved.
A little over a month ago I sat down on a Friday and started going step by step through the instructions on how to use the Mr. Beer Kit, and I was able to complete them unlike those shitty instructions that come with Ikea furniture. Point Mr. Beer. Now here I am 4 weeks later after the brew has been fermenting and my little yeasty friends have been working to turn sugars into CO2 and Alcohol. And I think it is time I open my first bottle.
Watch the video and find out how it came out.
Wow, that is pretty much identical to what happened with me. Give it a couple more weeks and those bottles will be exploding in your hands when you go to open them.
I noticed that you didn’t however rate your beer?
Robbie, is gets a 2 out of 5. It looks like beer, it tastes like beer, and it smells like beer. It is just bad.
Home brew one, not the greatest venture. i’m willing to bet the future attempts work more in the the favor of quality beverages.
Yes sir they will. But I am sure it will take more than a few times to produce anything worth while.
If you could get MR. Beer to send you refills to try again, which process would you change to make the beer more fit your taste, ie.a real pale ale?
Robbie,
I would change 1 thing next time. I would buy bottled water instead of using tap. Being the the main ingredient in beer water is often what defines the flavor and I should have thought to do it right the first time.
Adam
very intresting adam. I have wanted to get into this home brew stuff for awhile now. Is it whorth it or not is the true question.
With a free it definitely. But I wouldn’t buy a Mr. Beer, not right now at least when the results are still poor.
Adam,
I got a couple of friends down here that brew their own. Would you like me to see if they would share their process?
I am sure they are not using a Mr. Beer kit which will be a major reason why their beer doesn’t suck.
I have a book all about brewing and once I move I will buy a real kit and see what happens.
However knowledge is power and I will never turn down free advice.
Okay I will ask one of them tonight as I am going to HH with him.
Adam,
Talked with my friend last night. He said to pick up a copy of THE COMPLETE JOY OF HOMEBREWING written by Charlie Papazian. He said he has the 2003 edition which may be the most current version out there. It cost him about 9.49 then so it’s probably about 12 bucks now. Supposedly it is the homebrew bible. He said it would be easier to read this book then have him try to give you tips. Although he did say to always dry hop your brew. He didn’t think the type of water you use would be a problem unless valpo has really bad water. Then again, if you boil the water it shouldn’t be a problem.
UJ
UJ,
Thanks for asking. I actually have it already. I have read as much as I can until I purchase my kit.
Adam
You should be okay then. Good luck
Adam,
I use to use the Mr. Beer kit several years ago though I have since moved on to a more sophisticated setup. I did manage to make several good batches (along with several bad ones) with the Mr Beer. I found that in order to make a decent beer; you need to use one or more of unhopped extracts w/ the hopped extracts, buy more hops! (the hopped extracts do not have enough), upgrade your yeast ( the standard brewers yeast makes the beer tastes like a yeast roll) and of course water is key. This makes brewing with Mr Beer more tolerable and MORE expensive, which is why I just decided to upgrade. But the last beer I made with it was a pretty good pale ale w/ a ton of hops and 3 cans of extract. Bottom line, decent beer can be produced, but at what cost. Neat toy and nice way to get into brewing.