Mr. Beer kit refills. (Would you use them?)

[thatguy314]

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

You can also see if you can exchange them for "premium kits" which are all LME

Mr Beer has a pretty sizeable forum, and some people have gotten to be pretty decent brewers on it. I mean, even Jamil says that if you're a talented brewer you can brew an excellent extract beer.

Basic Brewing radio has a show with a guy who basically brews with nothing but those Mr. Beer fermentors for whatever reason (I think it's a space concern), that's his optimal brew size. He started on Mr. Beer and then just kept using the fermentors.

Anyways, I agree with Bdawg, I have a lot of respect for Mr. Beer because they get a lot of people into the hobby at a low cost and that justifies the fact that they use the Booster in their beginner kits, to keep cost down. My only complaint is that I wish you had the option of getting the "premium" recipe kits for beginners, which are all extract brews.

[ResQ]

I am a member over at mrbeerfans.com and have been since I started with mr beer back in 2008. It made pretty decent beer, but I found after a couple of them that doctoring them up with DME, hops and different flavorings I wanted more. So I got into AG pretty fast and then the competitions started All in all, great place to start, the fermentors are great for test batches. I gave my mr beer equipment to a buddy hoping he would get bit by the brew bug.

[Cliff]

make something with it.
The malt extracts will make wonderful starter bases

[johnsonr529]

I say brew it, but ditch the booster or use it with some ME. Look at the website and see what UME goes with the cans that you got. 1lb can of MrB Pale Export is the same as 1lb Munton's Pale DME. Most people seem to be surprised by how good the beer turns out. But keep in mind, these are meant to be simple foolproof kits more for beginners. I've done several of the seasonal and premium kits and they turned out quite good.

I started with MrB last year as a Christmas present to myself. Got a couple of kits and a couple of refill kits for less than 1/2 price (clearance and BedBathBeyond coupon). It is a great way for people to get started, but few seem to stick with MrB and venture onward.

I like the fermentors, they are great for small batches. I plan to start AG brewing within the next few months with BIAB doing 2.5 gal batches (makes the math easy). Even James on BasicBrewing uses the fermentors for small batches sometimes.

[ArcLight]

I started with Mr. Beer. Its an easy and inexpensive way to enter this hobby. In fact, I didn't buy any Mr. Beer starter kits. Instead I purchased the fermenter ($8 with an online coupon) and a few recipes direct from Mr Beer (some are $15 each from Amazon). After a couple of batches I wanted something better. My wife and her friend thought my brews were good, but I wanted something excellent. Why bother brewing my own unless its excellent, if its just OK I might as well but a six pack of something good.

So I think Mr Beer is an excellent entry point into the hobby.

My suggestion is to get refills that use 2 cans of HME (Hopped Malt Extract) rather than 1 and a pack of Booster (Maltose-Dextrose or whatever is in it).

[Pharmbrewer]

So I ended up using 2 of the kits. I used the hefe kit and dr'd it up with some corriander, orange peel and cinnimon. I then fermented it with a wit yeast. It came out pretty good. It was a little low on the mouth feel and would not fair well in a comp, but it was definately a drinkable beer. The other one I did was the vienna lager. This one I added a some hops at the end of the boil and fermented with an ale yeast at a low temp. This one wasn't as good. It was fairly one dementional and while it was a drinkabler beer I probably would not bother making it again. All in all since it was a gift and therefore free It was worth the couple hours time to use these. Thanks for the responses and votes.

Prost!
PB

[PetenNewburg]

I also gave myself the MrBeer kit Christmas Gift. Also with no regrets! I made two of them as directed with okay results. I found the MrBeer forum where I found some recommendations for "Kit Repair". I brewed the "Sticky Wicket" Stout. I added Steeping grains, Briess Dark LME and some Northern Brewer hops. It was also my first kegging attempt. We just finished it this weekend. It was fantastic!
I used to just drink commercial beer, the rare occasional Craft Beer. I now have 3 tapped kegs in the refrigerator, 4 fermenters full of beer, 2 All Grain and 2 Partial Mash. The local home brew shop loves me. Since January I've spent most of my allowance there!