Brewing Beer with Mr. Beer - Part 2

Welcome back to brewing with Mr. Beer!
Part 2 Brewing your beer

Last week we blogged about the Mr. Beer Premium Brewing kit and the steps we took in preparation for brewing our beer.  You should have cleaned and sanitized everything you are working with. 

Cleaning everything

If you missed that blog you can read about it here.

We took our can of American Light Beer malt, removed the top and took out the yeast packet before placing it in a pot of warm water.  This makes working with the malt easier.  While it was warming, we boiled the specified amount of water in a pot.  Once the water boiled we removed it from the heat.

Warming the malt

Open the bottom of your can of malt.  Yes, the bottom!  We opened the wrong end and it does make a difference.  Do you want very sticky malt all over your kitchen?  We didn't either!

Opening the wrong
 end of the can

Pour the malt slowly in the hot water, mixing as you pour.  Make sure you completely stir the malt and water.  Here is where we used the spatula to scrap all of the malt out of the can.

Stir in the malt

Using cold water we poured the indicated amount into our keg and then added the malt water mixture to it.  This was topped off with more cold water. We didn't add the water slow enough and ended up with it bubbling over the top so be sure you add the water very slowly.  Also you don't want to use distilled water.  The mixture needs the minerals that are in the water.  For that reason, we didn't use filtered water either.  We used refrigerated tap water.

Malt mixture

Foaming up

Once everything was in the keg, we sprinkled the yeast on top of the mixture and put the lid on the keg.  Don't mix the yeast in, just let it sit there.  Our keg was moved to a room that is about 68 degrees and covered it with a cloth for darkness.

Ready to brew

The DVD said we could check for a yeast party after a few days to see if the beer is brewing.  We did and the yeast are partying!  The mixture is hazy but will clear up when the yeast have done their job.  We can't open the keg but can peek inside and check with our flashlight.  

We will blog when our beer finishes brewing in the keg, how we carbonate it and bottle it.  That should be around March 19th.  See you then!