Mr. Beer (yes, again) for family Christmas gift
I would not use plastic bottles to many off flavors to be absorbed into the beer.
gurnie wrote:
Any good books I can buy these two fellas?
Papazian is the accepted authority... but an easy, entertaining read is "Home Brewing for Dummies" It lays out the process in a little less intimidating manner....
gurnie wrote:
I read you can use corn sugar, but where would i find this? Would it be sold at a health food store like whole foods? Can you use brown sugar with the first kit (put the brown sugar into the bottles when it carbonates.)
How do you clean the unit after using all of the cleaning solution?
Any particular yeast you'd recommend for the above beer types?
Any good books I can buy these two fellas?
I guess what i'm looking for is either ingredients I can buy locally (I'm in Northern VA) or a website that sells maybe a good ingredient kit that'll brew 2-5 gallons. My boyfriend likes wheat beers like heffawisen, my father likes fruity stuff like red stripe... me? If i get a chance i always get oxford red raspberry beer. Mead is also something we'd like to try to make.
Corn sugar is usually what is used. You can almost any sugar that ferments though. The taste will be different. I would not use brown sugar. Brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses that was not fully extracted. About 25%-40% will not ferment. Also, it does not ferment out evenly and you can get bottle bombs. I used it for the first time yesterday making a cheap rum. Both corn and regular sugar should be available in the grocery store.
Cleaning can be done cheaply using UNSCENTED electrasol. That's what I used to use. If the kit does not come with any cleaner, just use that. It is not the best, but it works.
As for books, if you want the bible of homebrewing, that would be The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing. I recently picked up How To Brew, and while Charlie Papazian is a very smart guy, I actually like the writing style of John Palmer better. I do own Homebrewing For Dummies, and I thought that was the biggest joke of a book I ever saw. I do not recommend it.
One thing I recommend all new brewers. Start off with something easy. A pale or amber works. Oh yes, and red stripe will be difficult to make because it is a lager, not an ale. Unless you use a lagering yeast and can keep the temperature in the mid 40's to low 50's, forget it.
Deafcone: you are not the first who boils their priming sugar. I never once did in 6 months of bottling and never had a problem. I just mixed it in directly. Both methods work fine I guess.
You can use regular white sugar or brown sugar for carbination also. I used brown suger for the cream stout I just bottled. Here's a web site you can use to determine how much of what you want ot use to carbonate a batch of beer. For brown sugar and table sugar use the cane sugar selection.
http://www.stuartarthurmorris.com/brewb … tion=sugar
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DC
thank you all for your replies. I've got my first batch in the mini keg, and sometime this weekend, we're going to brew another batch 
Thanks for no heckling on the mr beer choice. Both my dad and boyfriend are excited about seeing little bubblies in the fermenter
I also got starting brewing w/ Mr. Beer's gear. It was a Christmas gift a year ago. I used only their ingredients, one step, booster, bottles, etc. The 15 batches I've done haven't turned out too bad, even w/ cane sugar. (Then again, even the rough stuff gets drank in the softball parking lot.) They're costumer service is great. You can Email directly to Gene, the owner, & he's very prompt about replying.
I've since upgraded to glass bottles & glass carboys, but Mr. Beer is definitely a good product to spark interest & test the waters in home brewing. And I agree in not spending $100's on brewing gear for someone if it could be a once & done deal.
I see a lot of bashing on Mr. Beer, but it got me started........................................
Got me started too, making a drinkable batch of beer the first time is very inspiring to try the real stuff.
I just orderd my first partial mash kits, will be breiwng next week. Plus i've been thinking, I can keep the mr beer fermenters for trial batches.
well i got the boys about 3-4 batches worth of stuff (without UME). I think after doing that many they'll decide wither they want to continue or not. I went to the local shop and bought my boyfriend a 3-4 lbs can of mutons malt extract and then for "booster" i bought breiss Bavarians wheat malted extract (dried). We did get coopers drops for carbonation. we ended up doing a holiday wheat beer and using the breiss ME(Dried), but used Mr Beer's canned stuff. we'll see how it turns out (and i'll report back). oh and i bought died sweet orange peel and fresh grounded cinnamon. After 3 days the bubbling has slowed.
my dad used the kits stuff and using doing a "test" batch using the west coast pale ale. He has not substituted booster for something else, but when i go to the brew shop i'll pick-up something else (dried malted extract to replace the booster).
not sure if they'll stick w/ mr beer ingredients (i guess it depends how the next 8 batches go) but if anything they like the idea of doing everything in a mini keg. They find that much more manageable, and i think we'll probably end up using the system for other mixes.
Someone where I work found out I make my own beer and said he wants to learn how. I told him to get Mr Beer as it is an economical way to start and if he likes it he can always upgrade instead of spending a lot of money only to find out he doesn't want to stick with it. Nothing wrong with starting with Mr Beer at all.
DC
Brewmaster's Bible is the way to go. You can buy it in about any bookstore. As for Mr. Beer I just bought a kit for my son and his girlfriend to try before they spend a lot of money getting into the hobby. I have a friend who uses it and loves the simplicity. He thinks the beer it makes is great.