Started first batch today.

USASTOUTMAN · Jun 2, 2011

I purchased a MR.Beer kit and started my first brew today. I used half of the pack of supplied "booster" (corn sugar I guess). A cup of dark brown sugar, some black sugar, and 3/4 cup of honey. After I stirred this in, I brought the water to a boil and boiled a bit of orange zest, cinnamon, cloves and cherries in it. then added the supplied hops. It will make about two gallons of beer. The wort was a beautiful dark color, very aromatic. I will try to post a picture of the finished product and port thoughts on the beer. Any thoughts on how this combination might come out?

Thanks guys!

anthonyUK · Jun 2, 2011

Hi,
What are you making? Beer or a cocktail? Only joking. I have no idea how it will come out but would be interested to hear.
You are very brave to be so experimental on your first brew. I have not been brewing long myself and still getting to grips with the whole process.

Anthony

stevander74 · Jun 2, 2011

Welcome to the forum. : cheers:

That sounds like its going to be a very interesting beer.
Good luck with it.

broadfordbrewer · Jun 3, 2011

Welcome to the forum :thumb:
How's the fermentation coming along?

judasegg · Jun 3, 2011

Is there any malt in there?

That almost sounds like a pseudo-mead/melomel, with hops added, rather than "beer".

I'm not sure how well yeast performs on just sugars/honey, my understanding, from a mead perspective, is that you need do staggered yeast nutrient additions to keep the fermentation moving at a decent pace.

The difference with beer, if I understand correctly, is that the malt from barley contains loads of Free-Amino Nitrogen, aiding in fermentation and yeast health.

That said, just wondering if you are in for a long fermentation...!

Well, it is definitely good to be adventurous! Good luck!

USASTOUTMAN · Jun 3, 2011

Yeah, Sorry guys, I did not mention the hops and malt I put in. They came with the home brew kit. I am thinking for my next shot I will go out and buy some malts and hops from a homebrew store, so then that way I can get a better feel for what my brew should come out like.

But yes, there definitely is malt in there.

Part of the reason for all the crazy stuff is, we started out looking at things we would like to have in our beer. We just kind of went back and fourth until we narrowed it down to a few things we liked. At that point the ingredients seemed like they would taste good together, so we just went with it. I mean, if it turns out bad, so be it. I can just start another batch. I have big hopes for it coming out well.

Thanks for the comments guys, and when it is done in a month or so, I will post pictures for you guys.