Anyone make beer?

[Cygnus X1]

I've been homebrewing for a year now, and have made some
truly fantastic beers from John Bull, and Cooper's mixes.

Problem is, I have gotten these Mr. Beer mixes (with the booster sugar packs), as a gift...
And frankly, they aren't all that great...anyone ever use these to make a good beer? Like, adding a bit of brown sugar, or molasses, or honey, to get them more stout? I also hate dealing with the booster packs. Every time I've used them I end up with ropey, cloudy, beer like stuff.

Any Mr. Beer recipes or hints? I don't want to throw more money at them, like buying their UME mixes.

Cheers!

[442w30]

I don't know much, but I thought about doing a mr. beer for fun. A buddy of mine has a SERIOUS setup that takes up half his garage and cost about $2500.

He suggested to buy and use a glass carboy and something else I can't remember instead of the Mr. Beer "keg" for the whole thing. I won't see him again until Jan 7 or so, but if I get more details I'll post back.

The net of what he said is - ensure you follow the temperatures exactly, and that you keep contamination down - glass and stainless steel is better for that. Also, regular sugar isn't as good as other types - can't remember if it was corn or beet sugar over refined cane sugar.

[Cygnus X1]

My friend has a 6 gallon setup...my beer is as good or better than his.
I'm having great results with the small Mr. Beer keg, just tweaking the recipes a bit. My advice is stay away from the Mr. Beer recipes. Fortunately,
there is a beermaking supply store close to me.

I just want to know a good way to tweak the ones I got as a gift,
and not have to throw them out...Canadian Lager, Colorado, and Vienna.

[toejam]

I make beer disappear.

[Cygnus X1]

I make beer disappear.

I knew that would be coming....

From whence, I knew not, though.

[StukaJU87]

I make beer disappear.

You and me both, brother.

[Spivonious]

mmm beer...

[atilla]

I've been brewing for a few years, but I've never even heard of Mr. Beer. Sounds like a rather funky setup.

[cookiemonster]

get some fineing gel to take the cloudyness out of your beer.

[Cygnus X1]

get some fineing gel to take the cloudyness out of your beer.

Thanks, beer monster...I mean Cookie Monster.
I'm going to add just a touch of molasses, to thicken it up a bit.
Worth a try, anyways.

[cookiemonster]

i used to make home brew with my dad as a teenyboper, we used to have a 18 gallon rotation constantly on going (as it was getting drunk as quick as we were making it) with the ratio of 3:1 of lager and bitter. with the talk of the price of a pint going up from £2.20 to around £4.00 (due to crop shortages..yeah right!!) i think i'll be getting my brewing gear from out of the back of the shed some time soon...

[Baum83]

Yes. I do all grain-brewing, though, so I can't really help you with that kit stuff. You should be able to get a decent setup for much less than 2500$, too, at least I did (paid around 150€ for the hardware over here in Germany.. could be much less in the US).

[lerxstcat]

You can count on the Europeans to know what to do when it comes to beer, or bier, respectively!

[skorb]

I've done a fair bit of homebrewing, but only top fermenting ales.

these are the kinds of beers I like, they don't have any added sugar...

English Bitter

• 5 pounds amber malt extract
• 1.5-2 ounces Cascade, Fuggles, Kent Goldings, or Willamette bittering hops (7.5-10 HBU)
• .5 ounce Cascade, Fuggles, Kent Goldings, or Willamette finishing hops
• Wyeast #1968 or #1084

Pale Ale (India)

• 6-7 pounds amber malt extract
• 1 pound crystal malt specialty grain
• 1/2 pound Cara-Pils mild toasted malt specialty grain
• 3-4 ounces Cascade, Fuggles or Kent Goldings bittering hops (10-20 HBU)
• 1 ounce Cascade finishing hops
• Wyeast #1056 or #2112

[Mordor]

I'm a homebrewer too. I have to start with the all-grain method yet but I got some nice beer with Cooper's bitter and mild brown ale. Too bad this year I did not have any free time for homebrewing