BeerBorg

Hey guys. I'm back on the board after a brief break to deal with a family member's addiction problem. I think I can brew again without messing up her recovery.

I have two Mr. Beer HME kits.

1. Patriot Lager
2. American Classic Light.

Most of the Mr. Kits can be greatly improved with additional extract,different yeast, dry hopping,and steeping grains.
Could I get some suggestions on how to add some ingredients that I have on hand to improve these two kits?
I could buy some yeast, hops,grains ect ... if I need to.

Here are the ingredients that I have.
Extracts :
1. MB Patriot Lager - hopped LME
2. MB American Classic Light-hopped LME
3. 1 lbs. Amber dried malt extract- color EBC 18, Lovibond 7

Hops
1 oz German Hallertau Alpha Acid-4.5, Beta acid- B 5.2
.5 oz Cascade Alpha- 5.2 , Beta-6.2

Yeast.
1 packet US-50 ( 11.50 grams )
3 packets MB from under

Grains.
.75 lbs Weyermann Cara Red
.75 Weyermann Caramunich III

Adjuncts
Coriander, Grains of Paradise, Orange peel.

I could lager because I have a mini fridge and a temperature controller.


It's great to get the brain thinking about brewing again. I missed all of you!

Thanks for any suggestions.

Good to see you getting back into the swing of things! Unfortunately I have no good suggestions for you but I'm sure someone will chime in with some suggestions.

Welcome Back!

If those extracts are two years old you might be disappointed in the results:

From How To Brew:

The freshness of the extract is important, particularly for the syrup. Beer brewed with extract syrup more than a year old will often have a blunt, stale, even soapy flavor to it. This is caused by the oxidation of the fatty acid compounds in the malt. Dry malt extract has a better shelf life than the liquid because the extra de-hydration slows the pertinent chemical reactions.

I don't think these are off flavors that will condition out.

These are only 4 months old. It's hard to know how long they sat around the warehouse. These were pretty inexpensive and were from Walgreens I think. I got them online.
I am done with Mr. Beer extracts and will be coming up with my own brews by using software or from borg member's suggestions. I made about 5 Mr Beer batches and found that they were very disappointing unless I added more extract, steeping grains and/or hops.

I have to get my head back into thinking about how much to add.

I was hoping to get the ball rolling with some suggestions.

Sorry BG I thought that you were saying the cans were 2 years old.

Even if they were older they would probably still be OK with added malt extract, steeped grains, and/or hops. I once used a Mr Beer HME that I hadn't noticed when I bought it that it was more than a year out of date, and didn't feel like going out of my way to return it. I approached it cautiously, but it turned out fine.

Any combination of what you have would probably be fine, and even if you don't have a good store for beer supplies, you could find things like pasteurized 100% fruit juices to add. Both of these HMEs would be fairly light, so you could look around the recipes on the Mr Beer web site to find something using a light HME and that sounds appealing. Or you could use your available extract to increase the body, and add other ingredients as experiments.

Now I'm not any kind of hop head, myself, but I have learned to appreciate their importance in beer. And one thing I've found from trial and error is that extra hops can do a pretty tidy job of covering over some off flavors from the extracts. Just this week I enjoyed an extremely pleasant brew that T8r Salad made completely from some expired TBM malt that wasn't even good BEFORE it expired. He just added a bunch of extra hops to it and I couldn't tell it apart from most any IPA that I brought home from the store.

That's all I got right now, but I consider it a golden nugget in my brewing tool box of tricks.

Okay, maybe I lied. I do have another trick which is to go half extract and half fresh grains. That helps, too, especially if you include some prominent specialty grains. If you do the fresh grains plus the extra hops, you should blow those off flavors out of the way pretty good.

Good luck.

[update] - I see that Foothiller already posted about the grains and hops while I was slowly typing this. So now I'm going to revise my post to......

+1 to what Foothiller said.

I'm going out to the store tomorrow.
I'll get carapils for body and head retention.
Some hops for dry hopping and possible late hop additionis.
I have :
.75 lbs Weyermann Cara Red
.75 Weyermann Caramunich III

Those are specialty grains aren't they?

If not any suggestions about what kind and how much for a Mr Beer batch?

I've never tried a lager yeast and I have a controlled temp environment now.

Would the grains that I add be steeped?
I am a little rusty on the techniques ,
Is that the same as a partial mash?
It's amazing how I've forgotten the basics.
Sorry for all the questions.
I'll ask at the homebrew store also.

With what you have on hand I would do the following:

Use both cans of HME
Use the lb of amber DME
In the DME boil
Hallertau .25 oz for 35 minutes
Hallertau .25 oz for 15 minutes
Cascade .25 oz for 10 min
Cascade .25 oz dry hop at day 14 in fermenter
Use the US-05 yeast, the whole pack

If you can get 1/4 lb of Carapils for head retention that would be nice but not absolutely necessary

I have not run this through Qbrew, but just guessing this should give you a fairly hoppy Pale Ale with ABV in mid 6% range and I would guess IBU around 60 or so

Thanks for the detailed suggestion.
I should add the HME after the hop addition because boiling the HME will change the character of the hops in 2 cans of Hopped Malt Extract I think .
I'm trying to figure out how much water I should use.
Am I right to think that I should try to end up with 2.13 gallons?

Yes, boil the hops in the DME, then add the HME at flameout (when you turn off the heat)
I would dissolve the DME in about 1 1/2 gallons of water, bring that to a boil carefully, watching for a hot break, which can cause a boil over if you are not paying attention. Then add the hops for the times noted. After adding the HME, cool the wort in a cold water or ice bath to about 80 degrees. Add to the LBK and top up to the 8 liter mark with cold water. That should about get you to pitching temp of about 65 degrees.

I have a bit of grain that I was considering steeping.
.75 lbs Weyermann Cara Red
.75 Weyermann Caramunich III

I am not really sure how that would effect the final beer.

If I steep these grains should I just add the DME to the steeped liquid and then proceed with the boil and hop schedule as I planned.

I realize I am going about this in a bad way. I should have taste profile in mind before I make a recipe. I am just trying to make Mr. Beer brew that I will like. The ones that I brewed in the past were a little disappointing.

I am going biab next time brewing.

Thanks for the help.

Yes, you add the DME to the steeped liquid and proceed.

By using software like QBrew you can see the exact effect of your two steeped grains instead of wondering.

I put this into qbrew.
I couldn't figure out how to enter dry hopping.

it doesn't help me understand how these two grains will affect the taste of the brew.

I'll brew this just to use up theses ingredients and then start fresh with an all grain method or maybe one more extract brew to get back in the swing of things.

Dry hopping affects aroma only, not bitterness, so it wouldn't have an impact in QBrew.

You're correct that QBrew isn't going to tell you the taste. It will tell you the impact on ABV, color and bitterness that steeping those grains will have. Put in everything but them, see what you have, then put them in and see the difference.