Beer Forum

So My In-laws gave me a 3 pack of Mr Beer refills for christmas, (bless their hearts its the thought that counts) I have been an all grain brewer for 2 years now and never used a mr beer kit. I was thinking what the hell Its just hopped extract why not boil it up add some late addition hops use some better yeast and see what happens. Then I opened the box and found some very small cans of hopped extract and a bags of dried corn syrup with the words "for alcohol and body" stamped on them. Now thats pushing it for me, I think I could take some hoped extract and doctor it up to make a decent beer, but hopped extract and corn syrup!

Anyone ever made beer with these before?

Am I better off not wasting my time and tossing them or should I "waste not want not" and boil em up and toss them in the fermentor?

PB

Pharmbrewer wrote:So My In-laws gave me a 3 pack of Mr Beer refills for christmas, (bless their hearts its the thought that counts) I have been an all grain brewer for 2 years now and never used a mr beer kit. I was thinking what the hell Its just hopped extract why not boil it up add some late addition hops use some better yeast and see what happens. Then I opened the box and found some very small cans of hopped extract and a bags of dried corn syrup with the words "for alcohol and body" stamped on them. Now thats pushing it for me, I think I could take some hoped extract and doctor it up to make a decent beer, but hopped extract and corn syrup!

Anyone ever made beer with these before?

Am I better off not wasting my time and tossing them or should I "waste not want not" and boil em up and toss them in the fermentor?

PB

There was a Brew Strong recently that covered exactly that topic. I'd give that a listen and go for it. I bet you get a pretty good beer.

And turn that corn syrup into "belgian" candi syrup!

http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/candi_sugar.html

Pharmbrewer wrote:So My In-laws gave me a 3 pack of Mr Beer refills for christmas, (bless their hearts its the thought that counts) I have been an all grain brewer for 2 years now and never used a mr beer kit. I was thinking what the hell Its just hopped extract why not boil it up add some late addition hops use some better yeast and see what happens. Then I opened the box and found some very small cans of hopped extract and a bags of dried corn syrup with the words "for alcohol and body" stamped on them. Now thats pushing it for me, I think I could take some hoped extract and doctor it up to make a decent beer, but hopped extract and corn syrup!

Anyone ever made beer with these before?

Am I better off not wasting my time and tossing them or should I "waste not want not" and boil em up and toss them in the fermentor?

PB

They're usually half hopped extract and half "booster" which is partially corn sugar, but also contains maltodextrin.

I wouldn't bother with the booster, though you could probably use it for a pliny-style beer (minus the carapils malt) to replicate the same effect.

A few years back I won an extract kit in a brewing comp. I hadn't brewed an extract beer in years but I decided not to let it go to waste. The first thing I did was plug the ingredients into Promash just to see how close it was to the style it was supposed to be (Russian Imperial Stout). It wasn't anywhere near close. I threw out the hops and yeast. I then turned the recipe into a partial mash using the extract and specialty grains that came with the kit supplementing those with enough base and specialty grains to bring it back to style. Turned out quite good, taking a couple medals in small competitions.

Try doing this with your Mr. Beer refills. Those are hopped extracts but I would still use additional hops for flavor and aroma. Good luck with them!

Wayne

Mr. Beer is like the ghetto crack pusher who gives you a small free sample. My wife's sister gave me one of these things back in 2002 for Christmas. My wife is still pissed off at her for creating a monster.

Anyways, it comes with little half-kilo cans of hopped LME, and as described before, "Booster", which is corn sugar and maltodextrin powder.

Use up the hopped LME, but doctor the shit out of it.

Try and return them and use the money for real ingredients. I think the refill 3 pack goes for about $20. Good luck!

Walked into out LHBS Friday with half a sack of grain and a bucket, there was a guy in there who had just received a Mr. Beer kit. He was smart and came in to as for brewing advice and the shop owner was basically gave him a run down of regular extract brewing. Basically told him brew the Mr. Beer kits and come back, don't let those results ruin his opinion of homebrew.