Museum • Homebrew • Later Developments
I really did use those mini-kegs a few times.
A relative sent me a couple of Mr. Beer ingredient kits, not realizing the proprietary nature of their kits. I decided to have a go at brewing them anyway. This is their "Irish Stout" kit. First I downloaded and printed the Mr. Beer instructions.
Contrary to the instructions I started a 2-gallon boil rather than the recommended 1-gallon. Here I'm adding the "Booster", which is a granulated mix of mostly dextrose (corn sugar) and dry malt extract. The liquid malt extract included with the kit is made from a mix of malts so there's no steeping, and pre-hopped so there's no hop boil. I poured in the liquid malt mix and then gave it a 20-minute boil anyway.
Since Mr. Beer only makes about 2.5 gallons, it only half-filled one of my 5-gallon carboys. I had just racked another 5-gallon batch into secondary so I decided to repitch some of that yeast rather than use the dry yeast that came with the kit. I pitched warm, and it was bubbling and had some krausen within an hour.
The final result of the Mr. Beer Irish Stout batch was actually better than I had expected.
When I used to make starters it was tough controlling the boil inside the flask
When I harvest yeast for repitching I first boil and cool about a gallon of water. Then I dump that on the trub left behind in the carboy. Then I shake that up and pour it into a sanitized container. In a few days it should settle out with the true and hop solids on the bottom, yeast in the middle, and diluted beer on top.
I moved up to boiling at full volume. Need to really keep an eye on things to avoid boilovers.
To bottle I place the bottling bucket on top of another bucket on the table. There's a short hose from the spigot on the bucket to a "bottling wand" with a little spring-loaded valve so the beer only flows when it's pressed against the bottom of the bottle.
I've replaced the 1/2" NPT coupling on the inside of the drain valve bulkhead assembly for my boil kettle with a 1/2" stainless-steel 90 to make a kind of "pickup tube"