No matter what see it through...and remember it will still be beer. Keep us posted on your next brew and how it goes.

The wife just bought me three kits for Christmas; Baltic Porter, Maibock, and a Triple Abbey. I will be very busy over the next month! :-)
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I know the quality of this kit isn't really comparable to the better stuff out there. I wanted to see first if I'd actually go through the whole process enough to decide I'd continue with it before getting something better. I didn't want to invest the money and everything if I decided it was too much of a pain in the rear for a nice setup.
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Single hop best bitter turned out pretty well for my first solo brew. It's a little cloudy, but it tastes pretty darn good.
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From everything I've read you need to just let them sit in the bottles and give it time. Give them a few weeks and give it a try and it should get a lot better. This is all advice pertaining to all grain or extract brewing, but I'm sure it holds true for Mr. Beer as well.
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Yeah im going to try one in a week to see how the bottling went and let the rest sit for a bit to see what happens. Im interested to see what happens but im not holding out much hope. Ive heard the base Mr beer recipies are not all that great but you can get some good stuff by playing around with some of their better stuff. My wife also got me an Oktoberfest kit that im going to tweek with and brew next.
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Ugh, I was hoping to be able to brew my first batch this coming weekend, but my stuff from Midwest was supposed to ship last Friday and still hasn't been picked up by Fedex yet. I guess maybe next weekend I'll get started.
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Just bottled a hoppy mild that sat on some oak chips for a few days. I call it Privateer. I'm cautiously optimistic :-)
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Anybody have experience with Northern Brewer? On-line I typically buy from Midwest, but I found a bunch of hops that I liked and placed a pretty good sized order a few weeks ago. Wide variety of mostly pellets, in multiples of 1oz. They did have Centennial leaf, which I really like, so I bought a pound (~$21, I think.)

Order arrived in good time, everything was there except they shipped Centennial pellets (~$16) instead of leaf. I called, and the guy said, "Sorry, we'll send you the correct item, keep the pellets though, it's not worth it to ship back." Great customer service!

Except when the order arrived--it's another pound of Centennial pellets! And the invoice was even checked off as leaf, and verified by some quality control checker person :-)

Now, I could call them up again and complain, maybe send pictures to show them that I'm not pulling a fast one. But I figure I'll just keep the pellets. At this point, I'm ahead in the count and I guess they really, really wanted me to have pellets.
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I have gone to their local store. Extremely helpful, and when I got a kit missing something, they took care of me, knowing I didn't realize I was screwed mid boil and had to go somewhere else to get a component to finish properly.
VERY good customer relations, I can tolerate a few bobbles when they bend over backwards to make sure you are happy.
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The pal I brew with only orders through them, I tend to spread my orders out a bit.

At the point you're at I'd be happy with the pellets I guess. I might call and just say hey somethings going on with fulfillment to give them a heads up, but my guess is if there is really an issue there they are moving enough stuff that they are hearing about it.

I'm guessing you'll be putting some hoppy IPA's into fermenters in the near future eh?
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Surly Furious clone in primary...


You could make this - which I've been eyeing since Ruination is so darn good!

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/ston...-clone-155771/
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:-)
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If I'm looking to brew some hefeweizen, any suggestions for a retailer online to make my first batch? Thanks!
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Do you have a local homebrew shop you could pick a kit up from? Might help to have someone to toss questions at with the first brew.

I checked out northern brewers bavarian hefe kit and it would be around the same price as a kit from morebeer. If you go with the northern brewer kit I'd recommend paying the little bit extra for the wyeast weihenstephan yeast.
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I would try the Bavarian Hefeweizen at Austin Homebrew Supply. Use either WLP300 or Wyeast 3068.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produc...roducts_id=318
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I'm making something hoppy saturday, but haven't decided on the hop schedule yet. I've got some centennial, Amarillo and Falconer's Flight to play around with along with a couple bittering hops. I just finished a keg of an all-Amarillo IPA that was really good, but will probably change it up a bit.

Monday evening my girlfriend is having some friends over for some kind of party - kitchen stuff, candles, cleaning products, who knows?!?!?

I'll probably head to Northern Brewer this weekend and pick up some kind of extract kit to brew Monday after work. It will keep me in the garage during the party, but won't take as long as the usual all-grain brew so I'm not up until midnight.
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Making a smaller beer based on the ruination recipe. Realized I didn't have Magnum, or even a decent sub (thought I had columbus in the freezer). Decided I needed something that will be done in a few weeks so I came up with this recipe. I didn't consider the lag time with lagers and noticed I might run out of kegged beer shortly. Hopefully with a good yeast cake I can get this thing to glass in 3-4 weeks.

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L
86% 11 0 Two-Row
8% 1 0 Weyermann Munich Type I
4% 0 8 Carastan 30-37L
2% 0 4 Flaked Barley

use time oz variety form aa
boil 60 mins 1.25 Northern Brewer leaf 10.0
boil 30 mins 0.5 Centennial leaf 12.7
boil 10 mins 0.5 Centennial leaf 12.7
boil 1 min 1.0 Centennial leaf 12.7
dry 7 days 1.5 Centennial leaf 12.7

We'll see how she goes... 9SRM, 68IBU
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I brewed a Milk Stout last night. I hope it turns out anywhere close to LeftHands
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I did my first brew yesterday. The Mr Beer kit I got came with the west coast pale ale. Not too ba I guess to get the entire kit w/ a first brew for $25 shipped. Now I only have to wait another 13 days.
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Dumb question-I'm looking at some of these kits that make 5 gallons. My Mr Beer keg does 2 gallons. Am I limited to using their kits due to the size or what should I know if I used a 5 gallon kit and used it for multiple brews? Not so much a measuring standpoint but the shelf life so to speak?
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