Got a question

[reinman]

My son got a Mr Beer, and my son in law got a kit from Coopers. The Mr Beer has you boil the ingredients with water, but the Coopers just has you dump boiling water on top of the ingredients. Is there a difference in ingredients between kits, or is it they just do things differently.

I understand the Coopers is the better kit, but I wondered if the Coopers kit used a different way to make beer then the Mr Beer kit.

 

[sloweredcivic]

Not entirely sure on the only add water kits, The ones I have brewed you steeped the grains then add the malt and then your hops etc..... Hope this helps.

 

[bossdogg]

home brewed beer is great. oh yeah.

its just the difference in how they do things. from brewing beer for the last three years I can offer this advice to ya. the mr beer is an entry level kit. some sneer at it but hey making your own beer is better then not making your own beer so its all cool with me. I would stay away from adding any type of sugar to bring the alcohol up. buy another can of extract to bring your sugar up to normal strength. let me know what ya got as far as ingriedients and I can go further. I know the beer that comes out with making it with straight sugar tends to become cidery and lighter in body and flavor. The best part about brewing your own is you can have fresher beer then what you can buy and styles that you wouldn't normally be able to try if it wasn't for brewing your own. welcome to another obsession. because once you get hooked on brewing there's no turning back.

oh and to awesner the orginal question I would boil with ingriedants not pour the boiling water on top of the ingriedents. JMO.

 

[reinman]

Everything I had read on various forums had you boiling the ingredients, then adding more water to fill the fermentation jug. But when I went to help my son in law the instructions with the Cooper's kit had you warm up the can of syrup in hot water, and boil 2 liters of water in a seperate pot. You then added the two ingredients ( can of syrup and bag of stuff) into the fermentation jug, poured the boiling water over the top, and then stirred well. After that you added the rest of the water needed to fill the jug, and then poured the yeast on top of everything. This just seemed odd to me because I'd never read anything like that on any of the forums I'd gone to.

By the way it's been almost 2 weeks and it does taste like flat beer, so we must have done things right. We'll bottle it this weekend and let it sit another 2 weeks before chilling.

The Coopers kit comes with a bag of what looks like white lemon drops that you add to the bottle when filling to help it carbonate. I'm guessing these sugar cubes are just the right size for the bottles they provide. But if we use some smaller bottles we'll have to measure out and add some sugar instead.

 

[bossdogg]

yeah they are cabonation drops. they are made for 12oz bottles. sounds like it all worked out for ya in the end.