MRBEER. American kit.

Hello all.
A friend called yesterday and brought me a complete starter set for beer/lager
He had it given to him but can't be bothered to try it.

It's made by a company called "MR.BEER"
And is called "premium Gold Edition beer kit. (Complete home brewing system)

Inside is a keg shaped fermenting vessel, a drain tap, a quantity of pet bottles, and lids, sterilising sachets and an instructional DVD.

Two different tins are included each one makes two gallons. No sugar required!

Further supplies can be obtained via the internet but postage from America makes these obviously too expensive.

I'm wondering if any forum members have any experience of these kits.
The fermenter looks brilliant to use. Just follow the instructions wait the prescribed amount of time, then prime bottles with sugar and open the tap to fill them.
Let them condition in the usual way, stand a week or two then chill and drink.
It all looks very easy. And the fermenter is so easy to clean and re-use.

The fermenter is so manageable it could stand on a shelf in my garage and not be moved again until it was empty and ready for cleaning.

So the question is:-

Once I've used the two cans included. Does anyone know if beer kits can be obtained in the uk that produce two gallons rather than the usual 5 gallon ones.

If not:-
can anyone suggest a recipe that I could make up from ingredients at the home brew shop that would ferment out ok to two gallons.

REGARDS TO ALL
Brian:hmm:

You could use just one can of a two can kit, if it was a 40 pinter you'd effectively be brewing 4 pints short. Some Woodfordes kits are only meant to do 32 or 36 pints anyway so you'd be closer without having to brew short.

matt666 said:

You could use just one can of a two can kit, if it was a 40 pinter you'd effectively be brewing 4 pints short. Some Woodfordes kits are only meant to do 32 or 36 pints anyway so you'd be closer without having to brew short.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply Matt.
I've got a Wherry kit ready to start which has the two cans.
I didn't realise that each can contains the same ingredients. The numbers on the cans in my kit vary slightly but I suppose that must be batch numbers.

I'm going to have a go with the supplied kits first then shall check out the home brew shop in Sheffield regarding what two can kits are available.
It's an obvious solution now you have pointed me in the right direction.

I don't tend to drink lots of beer now days but really enjoy the process of brewing my own so two gallons at a time will probably suit me better.

Thanks again for your suggestion.


Regards Brian

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbnwUaCx_Zo&noredirect=1[/ame]

Here is the link to a video from a home brewer who generally gives good advice. If you get anything from it, great.

Slid said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbnwUaCx_Zo&noredirect=1

Here is the link to a video from a home brewer who generally gives good advice. If you get anything from it, great.

Click to expand...

Thank you for posting that. The kit shown is like the one I've been given.

The kit includes a DVD I haven't looked at it yet but suspect it could be the same one you have posted.

I do unfortunately have a problem with DVDs because I recently and suddenly became deaf. So unless a DVD or even a TV programme has sub titles I'm pretty much scuppered.

Doctors don't have any answers for me regarding why so it looks like Im having to get used to it.

Anyway I've set one of the tins going in the kit today and am looking forwards to trying it in a month or so.

Best regards Brian

Have a look at the Belgian beer kits from Brewferm.

Brewpaks Beers of the world kits will be ok for this mrbeer method
http://www.brupaks.com/brubox/index.html

I second the Brewferm belgian beer kit. Grand-cru does 9 litres per can - I'm about to go for 3 at once.

They do need a lot longer to mature (2+6weeks) but the results are fantastic.

Posted in wrong place

I've used the older kits before Cooper's bought them. From what I understand Cooper's has greatly improved them.

Are you certain both cans are identical? It used to be one was an HME (Hopped Malt Extract) and the other was UME (?).

Looking at their site it appears as though they've given you 2 batches worth (1 can each), but that each can will only produce about 3.7% ABV beer.

I've noticed with their older kits that many weren't really to style really and are lightly hopped at best.

I don't care for really low ABV, and were it me I'd do what I did with the older kits, which was to boil some DME and add hops at 20 and 5 mins, turn off the heat and add the can of extract.

I don't think they are an American product anymore, but are Australian (?). I can't seem to figure it out.

But I could certainly help you with the building of extract recipes. The only concern would be opening the yeast (if you are using dry) and setting the other half aside. You'd need to steep grains for most everything unless you wanted a very plain beer using such things as amber or dark malt extract. And it would be great if you could buy just there amount of grains you needed as crushed grain has a short shelf life.

Known as the LBK (Little Brew Keg) around here, they'll actually hold up to 2.5 gals as long as it's not too strong. I've made a couple of batches that were about 5.4% ABV. I wouldn't go much higher than that as, unless it's been changed, there's only two small notches in the top that allow pressure release. If those get plugged you'll have a mess!

I'm guessing you have the Czech Pilsner. If so it claims to have 27 IBU's. I ran the figures into a brew calculator with LME until I got the ~3.7% ABV, and guessed with the hop schedule (60 and 15 min additions) until I got 27 IBU's. This is no doubt inaccurate, but under the circumstances I'm not sure of a better way to figure it. I used Cooper's yeast as Mr. Beer wasn't an option.

I converted this the metric for your ease and added .25 kilos of extra light (usually a pilsner type extract) and kept the volume the same. This increased the ABV to 4.7% and dropped the estimated IBU's to 24.7.

Adding 0.5 kilos of extra light DME increased the ABV to 5.8% and dropped the IBU's to about 23. You can always increase the volume a bit, but you'll want to add hops to that too.

Are you able to buy just the amount of grains you need from your supplier?

Can you get another fermentor that can handle up to 2.5 gal so as to easily split prepackaged kits?

rodwha said:

Are you able to buy just the amount of grains you need from your supplier?

Can you get another fermentor that can handle up to 2.5 gal so as to easily split prepackaged kits?

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Hello Rodwha. Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my post.
As I said in the beginning the kit was a gift from a friend who also had it given to him. I've never seen the items in any uk home brew store. Which was why I started the thread. I'm unsure how it actually came to be in the uk.

I do have the equipment fermenters etc to brew larger amounts of beer, the usual kit size I've done is 40 pints. I also make quite a bit of wine from various kits.

However I am so pleased with the simplicity of this little set of equipment that I am hoping to use it with the tins that are readily available locally. Hence my question about short brewing or in fact discarding a small amount from the twenty pint tins to match the 16 pint capacity of the Fermentor.

Why I like the kit is that it stands quite neatly on a small tray in our kitchen the bottles and spare steriliser instructions etc are still in the box in the garage until needed. After the fermentation is complete it is so easy to prime and fill the bottles. Then within minutes the fermenter is washed sanitised and ready to go again. No siphoning racking and lifting five gallon buckets etc. also I'm quite happy with the smaller quantities.
I did email the supplier of a 2 can 40 pint kit called Woodfords Wherry and they confirmed that both tins contain identical ingredients. They advised using all the supplied yeast. Then told me which yeast to buy for the second tin.

I have not yet tried making beer or lager using grains etc but all ingredient are readily available from a home brew shop I use in Sheffield. Perhaps one day I may give it a try.
I agree with your thoughts regarding Coopers Australian influence because the carbonation drops included have identical packaging to the ones I get here although without the wording, and the PET bottles are identical to the coopers ones I have bought. I suspect Coopers actually supply the kits to the MR. BEER Company. I wish they would market it in the uk. I'm sure it would be a success with people who live in small flats or Bedsits where space is limited.

Again thank you for you comments and advice.
Best regards Brian

You are most welcome, and it is my pleasure to help where I feel i can.

Don't hesitate if you have any questions.

:hat: