30 Recipes And Going Strong

 I've brewed 30 different Mr. Beer recipes in 2010 ranging from simple to complicated and at this point I doubt I'll ever 'advance' to another type of brewing. Every recipe has produced great tasting beer and I've never had an issue with infection, oxidation or dead yeast just following the standard Mr. Beer directions. I've never moved the batches to a secondary fermenter or cold crashed them before bottling since the beers always come out clear and have great foam.

Mr. Beer brewing is perfect for my lifestyle and wallet, I can brew really good tasting beer with a minimum of fuss and bother. On brew day I typically brew 6 batches (12 gallons) of beer in my fermenters in about 7 hours start to finish including cleanup.

 Six 2 Gallon Fermenters With Six Different Recipes

The 2 .13 gallon batch sizes are perfect for experimenting with new recipe additions and the kegs do not take up a lot of room. Instead of 'moving on' to the other types of brewing I just keep tuning and tweaking my Mr. Beer and recipes, and recipes created by other brewers, using the smaller fermenters.

  I'm anxious to try adding some Crystal steeping grains to my next recipes, still using the Mr. Beer fermenters, and using some new dry or liquid yeast strains to add a bit more fullness to my next  beer recipes. While extracts set the stage for the style of beer you want to brew the addition of steeping grains, hop varieties and types of yeast all work together to give each recipe a unique character.

Novacaine Recipe brewed June 10, 2010:

1 Can West Coast Pale Ale HME
1 Can St. Patrick's Irish Stout HME
1 Can Golden Wheat UME
2 Cans Pale Export UME
2 Packets Dry Brewing Yeast
2 Packets Sterling Pellet Hops
2 Packets Northern Brewer Pellet Hops
1 Pouch Ale Liquid Yeast
2 Muslin Hop Sacks

IBU Bitterness Calculator

 IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit where one IBU equals one milligram of isomerized alpha acid in one liter of finished beer. The higher the IBU number, the more bitterness in a given style of beer. Keep in mind however that this can be slightly deceiving because a malty beer rated at 50 IBU's will taste less bitter than a 'balanced' beer rated at 50 IBU's. 

 A beer with a heavy malt character like Sticky Wicket Oatmeal Stout, will balance out the bitterness so it will seem less bitter than a more balanced beer like Classic American Blonde Ale,even though they both have about the same bitterness levels.

  Another factor to be considered is that recipes resulting in a higher OG or Original Gravity will require a higher IBU measurement to maintain 'balance', not too sweet and not too bitter.

  Hops play 3 important roles in the making of your beer. They are used for adding 'aroma', 'flavor' and 'bitterness'  to your beer recipes depending on when and for how long they are added during the boil. A good rule of thumb can be summed up as 'the more hops that go in early in the boil, the more bitter your beer will be. The more hops that go in towards the end of the boil the hoppier your beer will seem in aroma and flavor though not necessarily in bitterness'

Aroma: For peak aroma add your hops to the boiling water no more than 7 minutes prior to  turning off the heat source. 

Flavor: For peak flavor add your hops to the boiling water no more than 20 minutes prior to turning off the heat source.

Bitterness: For peak bitterness add your hops to the boiling water no more than 60 minutes prior to turning off the heat source

 Mr. Beer Hopped Malt Extracts (HME) contain hop additions that can be calculated to determine their IBU number, using a boil time of 5 minutes, an original gravity of 1.036 per can. Each of the 16 different HMEs have their own alpha acid percentages which are used to determine each extract's bitterness values.

The IBU Bitterness Calculator can be accessed by Clicking Here.

 Once you have entered the information for your Mr. Beer extracts using the guide above, you can continue adding hop additions to the be calculated.

Example: Amarillo Hops have an alpha acid of 8.6% and are used primarily for aroma and/or flavoring. To add some Amarillo for flavoring input 8.6 alpha acid, 1.0 ounce and 18 minutes boil time to the second row of the calculator. Click calculate to process the total IBU number of the combined Amarillo hops and the HME hops.

Funky Looking Krausen - Great Tasting Beer

 Last weekend I bottled up 6 different Mr. Beer recipes that had been fermenting undisturbed in my office for the past 21 days. A few of the kegs had some really funky looking krausen floating at the top of the fermenter and it was kind of scary looking.

Scary Looking Krausen

 At the bottom of the 2 gallon fermenter the trub had compacted solidly inside the trub tray. The beer in between the top funky krausen and the bottom trub was really clear, free of sediment and slightly carbonated.

Compacted Trub At Bottom Of Keg

 I poured a small 'tasting' sample of each beer recipe before I bottle them to see what they taste like. After 21 days of fermentation at 70F every recipe tasted like flat beer with a very slight amount of carbonation.

Bottling Sample

The best part of bottling day is getting to sample each of the recipes that have been fermenting away for the past 3 weeks, and having all those cases of home brewed beer on hand to drink.

Bottle Day - 6 Batches In Under 7 Hours

  This weekend I was able to bottle up 6 separate Mr. Beer recipes in just under 7 hours, including kitchen cleanup! This makes 27 two gallon batches bottled to date, starting in February 2010. I picked all lighter colored pale ales and a wheat beer recipe to brew last month since it's been so hot here on the east coast. This time I also used my new carbonation calculator to determine the correct amounts of priming sugar to use in each different style of beer. I no longer followed the default priming sugar amount recommended by Mr. Beer's instructions.

 I bottled up 2 gallons each of the following recipes:

Father's Day Cream Ale, Classic American Blonde Ale w/Pale Export, West Coast Pale Ale w/Pale Export, High Country Canadian Draft w/Pale Export, Cowboy Golden Lager w/Pale Export and last but not least one of my favorites Whispering Wheat Weizenbier w/Golden Wheat.

Office desktop space doubles as a 6 keg fermenting station

 I bottle my beer in 1 litre PET bottles that I first sanitized using One-Step™ sanitizing cleanser that came with my Mr. Beer premium home brewing kit and stirred in a packet of sanitizer into a pot holding 2 gallons of warm water. Then using a small funnel and a plastic cup I filled each of the 54 PET bottles about halfway with the sanitizing solution, give them all a few really good shakes and lat them soak lying down for at least 10 minutes.

 While the bottles were soaking I poured a small sample of beer for tasting and visual inspection. Ideally after fermenting for 21 days at a constant 70F the beer at this point will taste like flat beer and not too sweet. This is a sign that most of the sugars in the green beer have been turned into alcohol and CO2 already and the beer is ready to bottle.

High Country Canadian Draft with Pale Export sample taken just prior to bottling.

 The sample above shows the clarity of the beer and proof of the residual CO2 present in the beer as indicated by the small bubbles on the sides of the sample glass. I targeted the finished beer's CO2 volume to be 2.5 volumes modeled after the CO2 volumes of an 'American Style Pale Ale' which is between 2.26 to 2.78 volumes.

 At 70 F the residual CO2 volume of the fermented beer calculated out to .83 volumes.To increase the volume to target of 2.5 volumes of CO2 I added 1.5 additional teaspoons of pure cane sugar to each 1 litre PET bottle as shown by the calculator below.

Bottle Priming Calculator

 After pouring 1.5 teaspoons of cane sugar into each bottle and filling them with fermented beer, I turn each bottle 'end over end' several times to mix the sugar and beer together. This is done to make sure the sugar is evenly distributed throughout the beer before screwing on the bottle caps and beginning the carbonation process.

 Pet bottle after mixing the priming sugar into the fermented beer.

Over the next 21 days the yeast will convert the priming sugar to CO2 and alcohol to produce just the right amount of carbonation for the style of beer bottled. I carbonate my beer at a constant 70F and usually give them a squeeze once a day to see how the carbonation is progressing. Not much happens carbonation wise for the first 1 to 3 days but the bottles will become slightly harder to squeeze each day.