Question for any other home brewers here...

[NRaleighLiberal]

My daughter got me a MR Beer kit for my birthday - great, all I need is another hobby!

Well, it came with two recipes - for a Czech type lager, and a Corona type lager. I just bought two others - the Irish Stout (but the powered up version - can reach nearly 6% ABV) and a souped up Porter.

I made the Czech lager - really quite nice - I am not much of a pilsener/lager drinker, but it tasted better than Bud and the like. Very light, though.

I made the Stout - we had the first bottle - and it was pretty good. Somewhat Guinness-like (of course, not the nice creamy head from the hand pump keg), but just a bit thin, not too complex - which I suspect is because I am using canned/packaged starting materials.

Any suggestions for where to go next - to pump up the flavor complexity in stouts - perhaps make a coffee or chocolate stout? Will my limitation be the Mr Beer kit itself and using their recipes.....

Any suggestions from those in the know are welcomed! It's fun and I was surprised how easy and quick it all was just to make those two initial batches.

[kentauros]

1. When my father used to make beer

(from a kit I gave him one Christmas) he learned far more about brewing and trying new things by joining a local brewers' group.

So, have a look at meetup.com and see if there are any groups. Or ask the people where you buy your supplies.

Good luck!

[Kali]

2. make a fruit beer out of that other light lager

throw 5 to 10 pounds of ripe peaches or apricots in with the first ferment - smash them up a bit, or you can buy flavor extracts but if you can find some fresh or frozen real stuff it will be much better.
yum


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[Warpy]

3. I agree about getting to know local brewers

Homebrew is always superior to just about anything you're going to get in a can, especially carbonated cat piddle like mass marketed lagers. Even homebrew plain lager will be better than the stuff in the can because you'll be using full strength malt instead of watered down malt combined with glucose. The brew will be amber instead of piss yellow and you will be able to taste the difference.

In addition, you can get an occasional laugh out of screwups, like people who aren't willing to wait for dextrose to be overnighted and try to use sucrose or worse--fructose-- instead. Or bread yeast. Or wine yeast.

Just be aware that a pound of dried hops will fill a large brown shopping bag. Some people find the odor of boiling hops unpleasant. I never did.

I think if I started brewing now, I'd probably get a couple of kegs rather than bottling it, especially because I do like the darker beers like porter and some of the ales better than McLager.

[Trillo]

4. I'm an enthusiast, not an expert....

Last edited Thu Sep 4, 2014, 05:28 PM - Edit history (3)

Try adding some crystal malt. Maybe 1/2-1 lb per 5 gallons. Get a low Lintner# Lovibond# for a light-colored beer, and a higher one for dark (check with the shop that sells the crystal malt). Before you start boiling the water, bring it to 150°F, hold it at that temperature, put the crystal malt into a straining-type bag (you could probably use a sock or maybe pantyhose, but there are also nylon-mesh bags designed for the purpose), and let it steep for 15-30 minutes at 150°F. Remove the crystal malt, then continue to heat the wort to boiling. When I make mine, I don't add the dry (DME) or liquid malt extract (LME) until the water is close to boiling, it seems easier to dissolve.

This should fix your perception of the beer being "light" or "thin". I use the term, "water like". The crystal malt adds dextrins which the yeast will not consume, giving the beer more body.

I think you might find that instant oatmeal added to the wort (I mean mash)--a grain technique as opposed to extract--will give your stout a bit more body. The problem being you'll also need to use malted barley for its diastatic (enzyme) effect. That introduces you into grain brewing.

I'd recommend the online book How to Brew by John Palmer for grain extraction techniques/temperatures. There are different temperatures used depending upon which enzyme you're attempting to activate. I've read a lot of folks just use 150°F, but there might be issues with oatmeal, I used a slightly more complicated set of mash temperatures in the few stouts I've made, and have never tried oatmeal at only 150°F.