Mr. Beer DIY kit for $25 at Target, includes a 2 gallon fermenter, brewing ingredients, bottles, caps, labels and instructional DVD.
All you need to make 8 litres of the included 'American Light' (3.7% ABV) beer.
Additional cans of the 'hopped malt extract' are $4. Only have Classic American Light and American Porter available seemingly.
I know what I'll be doing on the weekend!
oooo…showing your age
Going out to buy this now, was always curious on how it tastes like!
Mmmmm beer !
Would the kit only work with the DIY-beer from the same brand?
Nah, it would work with any ingredients I would presume
nope. most beer concentrates (probably all except this brand) are for making 22L batches. 2 gallon is only ~8L so cant use any of the usually available DIY cans of malt…..
if your going to home brew, get a proper sized fermenter. they arent overly expensive and will no doubt save you tons by being able to buy normal concentrates rather than only this brand of them
(ive been homebrewing on and off for about a decade)
sorry gets a neg from me for not being the "normal" size and being stuck to only buying there concentrates
It would work with any DIY ingredients, the only issue is the size. This one is about 8L, compared to the normal 21L. That being said, you can just buy 2 and use half in each! :P
best part of making beer is buying the tallies and drinking them to save for bottling them.
until you get your first keg… and wonder why in the hell you ever cleaned so many bottles… :)
oh god…. watching that…….. NEVER USE SUGAR IN BEER it makes the beer taste crap. use dextrose or even better a dried light malt….. NEVER table sugar….. EVER…
Don't believe the "never use sugar" brigade. Using table sugar is perfectly fine, as long as you realise that there is a time and place for it. Plenty of good beer is made with sugar, it's not the demon that people make it out to be. This is of course assuming that you know what you are doing.
Mr. Bean Premium Edition DIY kit… what the heck is that!?
Ohhhhh…….
Yeah…don't expect great results from this.
At a minimum buy a Coopers DIY kit, buy decent yeast, buy starsan and use a cupboard/fridge to keep an even 18 degrees for fermenting.
I know kmart sells i think coopers beer kits. I think there around $80-90?? anyone can compare the two? obviously the coopers a lot more expensive but i can imagine the beer tasting much nicer and i think it produces a lot more as well
22L v 8L batches, with this kit your stuck to only buying there branded beer, of which there are only 2 differnt kinds apparently. the coopers kits theres millions of different varietys
coopers kits taste MUCH better. they are my favorite tho ive made all kinds of beers just for fun mostly. im usually a coopers pale or sparkling drinker anyway.
There is at least 4 kinds, the. Shops are just selling out of them
This fermentator is only about 8 Litres whereas the Coopers is 20 odd litres.
Coopers bought out mr beer didnt they? If so, this mightn't be a bad buy but I've heard nothing but bad reviews of Mr. Beer.
Anyway, I have a Coopers kit and I haven't bought a carton of commercial beer in about 2 years. It's incredibly simple to make and you'd be surprised at how decent it tastes.
Mr Beer kits are bad in the same way that Coopers kits are bad; unfortunately both kits come with rubbish instructions, so it's because people ferment too fast, too hot, and put in too much sugar, rather than anything wrong with the kit itself.
i used to make homebrew a few years ago. screw the kits. buy yourself a 20ltr food grade bucket and lid ($8 - kmart) or go to a deli or wholefoods shop (they often just through them out). get a tap ($3). a grommet and 50 cms of clear plastic tubing for making the "airlock" with a glass of water on the lid.
buy your mix cans when on special or from coopers when they have a special/free shipping. hold on to your empty beer bottles or find the nearest bar the sells boutique capped beer and ask them to put the empties aside for you. i used empty 1.25ltr soda water bottles. not a problem.
I guess its the ozbargain way! making cheap beer isn't cheap enough, gotta make the kit yourself :P
camping places and some bulk food places (gaganis in adelaide) sell the fermenters as well, in either the single batch (30L) or double batches (60L) making double batches is only like 10% harder. i gave up on the singles batches long ago
That's about one step away from fermenting fruit juice in the prison toilet…. ;-)
Or http://www.oztops.com.au/ - the socially acceptable alternative.
See also http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/59645-home-made-version-of… . :)
Being able to do 8lt doesn't sound that bad to me, I have a coppers kit I haven't used in ages as I live in a unit and space is tight. Might use this if the beer is decent and the price is right, which at 4 bucks a pop seems fair.
even in a unit….. how dont you have 1 square foot of room? thats all the coopers fermenters take…..
stick it on a wardrobe or something to let it ferment. if its the "massive" 2 cartons of beer that the coopers make thats the problem…… get some friends and share :)
Its actually 23 litres that a standard coopers kit makes which is 60 stubbies worth of beer if you want to compare to standard cartons. So its actually getting closer to 3 cartons worth of beer to store per brew. (or ~45 grolsh bottles, or ~ 30 Longnecks). the space adds up
I brew beer and cider all the time in a unit. The space does become a issue when bottling, cleaning, storing etc. I have at least 3 batches worth of longnecks and Grolsch bottles sitting around in cupboards and garage at any one time. I'm lucky having a garage + separate laundry to use so Yeah i imagine a smaller kit like this might be good for a really small unit without extra storage space
I also don't drink anywhere near as much as I used to, so it would be nice to be able to experiment more without the need to be stocking up on more bottles. Let's say you want 3 types of beer available, that's 180 odd bottles with the Coopers kit.
Target Bass Hill also has The Beer Machine (only one of them) for $10 (marked as $30, but scans as $10) and heaps of both Mr Beer and The Beer Machine extract available ($4 each). Note that bottles aren't included in that $10 (they are included in the $25 Mr Beer).
Is that the one that has been compared to making love in a canoe?