Additives to Mr. Beer Kit?????

[BlackQueenBrews]

Good Evening All!

I completed my first Mr. Beer Kit (Long Play IPA) with success! It’s the first beer I brewed and it didn’t come out bad at all. I am using the fermenter to brew a 1 gal batch of Pineapple Honey Wheat by Brewer’s Friend so we’ll see how that turns out. I have a new 2 gal Mr. Beer Fermenter and was able to get the American Lager kit for free. I wanted to experiment with some flavors or dry hopping with this kit so, I am looking for tips and suggestions to make this kit more of my own creation.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance and Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

With your very limited experience I would simply brew this kit as is. If you start making changes without knowing how it should taste you won't have a clue whether it was a mistake in your technique or a bad combination of ingredients. If it tastes bad after you have made changes it will be hard to determine what went wrong.

 

[Soulshine2]

Good Evening All!

I completed my first Mr. Beer Kit (Long Play IPA) with success! It’s the first beer I brewed and it didn’t come out bad at all. I am using the fermenter to brew a 1 gal batch of Pineapple Honey Wheat by Brewer’s Friend so we’ll see how that turns out. I have a new 2 gal Mr. Beer Fermenter and was able to get the American Lager kit for free. I wanted to experiment with some flavors or dry hopping with this kit so, I am looking for tips and suggestions to make this kit more of my own creation.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance and Cheers!

research beers you like as to their hops. I found my hops "go-to" is hallertau, so I keep that on hand for any additions.
I would also suggest experimenting with different yeasts so you can taste the differences that makes. some are subtle , some very different.

 

[Kirkwooder]

Lager's benefit from Hallertau, like Soulshine2, mentioned. I have brewed the American lager kit from Mr. Beer and found it to be very bland. I would ad some more bittering hops @ 60 min and a bit of aroma hop at flame out. Hallertau, Fuggles, Saaz, would be the go to's for me in this type of beer.

A 2 gallon batch would really benefit from about 1/4 oz at both 60 min. and flame out.

Just my $.02

 

[Lefou]

One of my first beers consisted of a partial Mr. Beer kit, extra hops, honey, and yeast.
Wife bought me the pre-hopped American lager kit and I didn't trust the dry yeast packet. I added a measure of Cascade hops and used a known good packet of US-05. The honey gave the beer an extra kick with color. This was before I knew much about grains, yeast strains, hopping, and water treatment. The beer turned out OK and was a great learning tool before stepping off to larger batches of all grain beer.

 

[jrgtr42]

I agree with RM-MN, at least to start. Brew the kit as-is the first time, to get a baseline for what it should be like. Then, you can brew it again, varying one or another factor. Adding some extra hops is a pretty easy way to start, either dry-hopping or during the boil.
either way, don't go too heavy, like Kirkwooder said, 1/4 to 1/2 oz max.

 

[Lefou]

+1 on the extra hopping advice. Don't go too extreme on the additions.
With my extra Cascade and honey to the basic Mr. Beer kit, the end result was a bit more like an amber pale ale than American light lager.

 

[FatDragon]

On the other hand, if you're not much of an American lager gal, you could hop it a bit to make it more like a pale ale or IPA. I don't know if you're doing much of a boil with a Mr. Beer kit. If you are, a bit of extra bittering (to 30 IBU maybe?) might help along with as much as an ounce of your favorite hops in the late boil (5 minutes remaining or flameout) and another ounce for a dry hop a couple days before you bottle. The dry hop option works whether or not you boil, and if you aren't doing much of a boil but want to increase the bitterness, you can boil some hops in water or a bit of extra wort and dose that into the beer to taste. I wouldn't go too bitter or heavy on the aroma and dry hops, though, since the base kit is meant to mimic a pretty light beer that probably wouldn't stand up to that.

Then again, if you want to go nuclear on the kit and go all-out IPA on it, you could add up to a pound of malt extract, add bittering hops to ~50 IBUs, and add up to a couple ounces of IPA hops (Centennial or Cascade would be classic, Citra and Mosaic more fruity, tons of other options out there as well) in each the late boil or whirlpool (steeping the hops for a while after the boil ends for flavor and aroma with less bitterness) and dry hop. That's assuming you're an IPA drinker, as your first kit might suggest. The sky is the limit for doctoring a kit like that, from IPA (add malt extract, bittering hops, and late/dry hops) to porter (steep roasted malts) to imperial stout (steep roasted malts, add lots of malt extract and bittering hops) or barleywine (add lots of malt extract and bittering hops). It depends mostly on what you want to make and how comfortable you are with various processes and tweaks. You can strike out on your own from scratch (which may end up sub-optimal), build a recipe from research, or tell us or other experienced brewers what you want to achieve and follow their guidance to the goal.

One of the joys of brewing is realizing that there are many roads you can follow to reach your goal, and finding the one that works best for you. I'm over five years and several dozen batches in and I'm still finding new ways to make beer. In fact, I just got my first brew day in five months today and I tried a technique I'd never tried before, to resounding success! Brew, learn, drink beer, and don't forget to have fun!

 

[Jag75]

IPAL that bad boy

 

[JohnSand]

Plenty of good advice, props to all who contributed to this thread.
I'll only add that whatever you decide, please keep us posted.