Mr. Beer Premium Edition Home Microbrewery System
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List Price: Our Price: $28.99 You Save: $21.01 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Mr. Beer Premium Edition Home Microbrewery System
Customer Review: pretty darned solid
Summary: 4 Stars
I will preface this by saying I will post a second review once my first batch is done.
I am at a slight advantage over most because I live in Tucson and am only 2 miles from their offices. So much easier to pick up product.
If you follow the directions in the book you can become a lot more creative and try more complex beers. I would also say the biggest thing is a clean environment. Wait more than 10 minutes on the sanitizer step, more like 15. I would also say get a larger than 3 quart pot to brew with and sanatize the reck out of it. If you use more complex recipes a 3 quart pot is too small and will spill all over the fermenter keg when you pour into it.
I read the reviews of all the people who have had negative comments on the booster. I have used it in combination with honey, brown sugar and mandrin orange and you get a better percentage than just using booster alone. in my first batch, light lager with honey and mandrin orange the flat taste was excellent.
Get the better yeast and ingredients and you get a better beer. A good beer takes more than 14 days to make so be patient and if not get a second keg and start a second batch. my first batch fermented for 9 days and bottles should be ready by the end of the month.
Great customer service and help on brewing ideas. I do reccomend this product but only real drawback is that the system is not dishwasher compatable. Get grolsh type bottles!!! Fischer makes a 22 oz amber that is perfect for this.
Customer Review: Super easy, great results!
Summary: 5 Stars
I waited until I got my first batch completed before writing this review... I'm an absolute novice, never brewed anything in my life. I have a few friends that are into it, and I've become quite addicted to trying various microbrews, so I thought I'd have a go at home. I didn't want to start out with the full-blown "real" homebrewing setup, though, just in case it didn't agree with me... Plus I thought some easy initial success would make it more enjoyable :).
I purchased this kit, along with the Tower Porter and Oatmeal Stout premium refills. The standard refills got reviewed poorly, so I decided to skip those entirely... The price difference isn't that much, and no matter what I buy it's still cheaper than anything but Bud Light when compared to buying beer. But that's not why we're doing this, right?
I brewed the Oatmeal Stout first, and just opened it last night. I let it ferment for two weeks, and sit in the bottles for five weeks. Overall, it's great, and I'm pretty impressed that I could get those kind of results since I'm basically clueless aside from the directions they provide. I may try a bit of experimentation with "steeping grains" next, to give things a bit more body. I may graduate to a "real" system at some point, but this really is very easy, and there's still a lot of options to try to create variations on their basic refills. That alone could keep me busy for quite a while!
Customer Review: Great equipment, poor ingredients
Summary: 4 Stars
This kit is a great way to start homebrewing or to make smaller batches for those of us who do not have the space or thirst for 5 gallons of brew.
The biggest problem with Mr. Beer are the ingredients. Toss the booster in the garbage, it will not help you in your quest to make a great beer. Also, DO NOT USE TABLE SUGAR-EVER!!!!! The booster is just a sugar mix and will add a cidery taste to the final brew. By using all malt extracts you will get a much better flavor and no cidery taste. Those reviewers who have commented on the cider taste- this is the reason why. The cider taste will go away gradually over time, but most guys do not want to wait that long to try their first home brew.
What you need to do is use two cans of the Mr. Beer malt extract or buy a single 3 pound can of malt syrup from a home brew store. You will also need to boil your wort before you start the fermentation process. No need to add any other sugar, just the malt extract, water, hops and yeast.
If the malt extract you are using is not hopped, you will need to buy some hops (only a couple bucks at most home brew shops) and add them yourself. It is pretty easy and gives you a lot of control over the flavor and aroma of your brew.
There are a number of websites and forums that will help you make a great beer from the Mr. Beer kit. Do some searching and you will not regret it.
Customer Review: Mr. Beer in neither bad...nor good. It is just so-so
Summary: 3 Stars
Last Christmas, my wife bought me this Mr Beer Homebrewing Kit. I made 5 different batches of beer from this kit, ranging from the included Pale Ale to the Mr Beer Irish Stout. I have since moved on to making my beer in larger batches from kits purchased at my Local Home Brew Store (LHBS).
The Mr. Beer kits can produce "ok" beer, but I don't want to produce just "ok" beer. I can buy "ok" beer at the store. To produce good beer (which you will quickly want to do once you start) you will have to move beyond the so-so ingredients Mr. Beer has.
My recommendation is to skip the Mr. Beer route and go to your friendly, local home brew store. They will GLADLY show you what you need and answer all of your questions. Also, they may offer free classes on the weekend to show you how it works. You can get started with a proper brewing setup for about what the Mr. Beer Products cost. Also, the ingredients that you can purchase from your LHBS are not in 3 yr old cans (Mr Beer) with generic dry yeast (Mr Beer).
For a few bucks more than a 2.5 gallon Mr. Beer ingredients kit, I can purchase a higher quality 5 gallon kit from my LHBS with fresh hops, fresh malt, and more specific yeast for the beer style I am brewing.
My father and friends enjoy drinking the beer that I produce now. They regularly drop by to taste my most recent creations.
Customer Review: Get your man in the kitchen!
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, so he won't ever cook dinner unless you ask, plead, and beg him to. You're just going to have to come to terms with that. BUT you can definitely get him into the kitchen with BEER!
Spend some quality time with your hubby in the actual kitchen, and a few weeks later, after you drink all the beer, you get to do it again!
My husband and I had a lot of fun teasing each other about this, but the truth is it's quite easy and it does make a fun family activity. We don't have kids living at home anymore, but if we did, they could have participated in the beermaking too. Fermentation is a very interesting process.
You can complete the first step (mixing and heating the ingredients) in one easy afternoon, and then it's fun to watch the semi-transparent barrel over the next couple of weeks, to see signs of the yeasty, beery goodness while it ferments. Step two (bottling) takes just a couple of hours, a few weeks later.
BTW: It doesn't take only two weeks for decent beer. That is just a clever marketing ploy (i.e. a LIE). Actually, two weeks is how long it takes to get it into the bottles, depending on your climate, but then you have to wait for the beer get carbonated and to pressurize in the bottles, which can take several more weeks. If you drink it before the magic is finished, it will taste flat and cidery.