How to Brew Using a Mr. Beer Refill
Mr. Beer refills are easy-to-use brewing extracts that make your brewing process quick and simple while still giving you great-tasting craft beer.
All of our brewing malts are provided by Cooper's Brewery in Adelaide Australia. Cooper's is the largest family owned brewery in Australia, and the world's leading provider of high-quality brewing malts.
What Are Refills Anyways?
Our refills, or brewing extracts, are a combination of hops and malts that are concentrated from various grains. These malts contain all the necessary sugars, nutrients, and proteins needed to make beer.
Once the extract is mixed with water, it's called wort. Making wort from our extracts takes just a few minutes, while making wort from grains takes several hours. In short, our extracts are very concentrated grains and hops that take the labor out of making beer.
Mr. Beer carries refills for many different styles of beer. Whether you are a pale ale enthusiast or a die-hard stout fan, we have something for everyone!
Step 1: Sanitize Everything
Now, before we get started brewing, we just want to remind you that, while this blog post is about brewing with a Mr. Beer refill, before any brewing begins you MUST sanitize everything properly.
Once you have everything sanitized, it is time to get going!
Step 2: Prepare the Extract
The first thing you want to do is remove the lid of your refill and locate your packet of brewing yeast. This yeast is one of the most important parts of brewing beer, because the yeast eats the sugar in the brewing malts to create alcohol and carbon dioxide... so there is no alcohol without that yeast!
Place the refill can in a bowl of hot water to help soften the extract, making it easier to pour later in the brewing process.
Next, you want to boil 4 cups of water in your 4 quart or larger pot. Once the water is boiling, remove the pot from the heat and turn the burner off. Open your brewing extract can from the bottom using a sanitized can opener. You want to open the can from the bottom because:
- Our refills contain hops in them, and inverting the can to open it makes sure the hops that may have settled at the bottom get mixed up in the extract.
- The top of our cans are specially designed to hold your yeast packet, so a can opener couldn't open it from the top even if you tried.
Step 3: Making the Wort
Once your refill is softened from the hot water and opened up, you want to pour the extract into your hot water.
Make sure you are pouring slowly and stirring constantly to ensure your extract becomes fully dissolved in the water. You can use a sanitized spatula to make sure you get out all of the extract, making sure that yeast has plenty to eat later.
Once your extract is fully dissolved, fill your keg up to the #1 or 4 quart mark with cold water.
Note:you DON'T want to use distilled water, as it doesn't contain the necessary minerals to keep your yeast happy during fermentation.
Now, carefully pour in your water and extract mixture. This will still be hot, so use caution! Once the mixture is in, top off the keg with more cold water to the #2 or 8.5 quart mark.
Give everything in your keg a vigorous stir to aerate your mixture, sprinkle your yeast on top, screw on the lid and you've got yourself wort. Remember, you don't need to stir in your yeast. Simply sprinkle it on top, and close the keg on up. That hungry yeast will work its way down.
Step 4: Fermentation
Once the lid is screwed on, you're now in the fermentation stage. Depending on your refill, fermentation time will vary, but is on average 2-3 weeks.
It is extremely important to store your keg in a cool, dark place between 65° and 75°F. Too hot, and your beer could develop off flavors; too cold and your yeast will fall asleep.
Next steps
That is all you need to do for brewing one of our Mr. Beer refills.
After 2 weeks of fermenting, you will need to start bottling the beer. I suggest reading this blog post to learn a little bit about the carbonation process to ensure your beer tastes great when you're all done.
Best Refills to Try
We have several different refills available in all different beer styles.
Diablo IPA Craft Refill
One of our best sellers is the Diablo IPA Craft Refill.
It's a great tasting American IPA with an intense mouthfeel, a blend of floral spice and stonefruit aromas, and finishes with a strong and lingering bitter taste.
With an ABV of 5.5% and a 70 IBU rating, this beer is essential to try if you're fond of IPAs and want to see just how good a beer you can brew with your Mr. Beer kit.
Oktoberfest Lager Standard Refill
Another popular refill is our Oktoberfest Lager Refill.
What makes this beer so popular is its beautiful deep amber color and malty taste with a smooth body. This refill was created to celebrate the distinct taste of Munich, Germany's world famous Oktoberfest.
This refill produces a beer with an ABV of 3.7%, but can be as high as 4.9% if you're keen on increasing the alcohol content. You can view all of our refills here.