I bottled my second batch of homebrew (Bewitched Amber Ale) last weekend. It’s my last Mr Beer for a while, I’ll be brewing in my new 5 gallon setup. I did use a bottling wand this time and it was much faster, cleaner and consistent from bottle to bottle. This one should taste really good once it’s done, can’t say the same about batch #1.

Speaking of batch #1: I refrigerated a few for a couple of days after they’d been in the bottle for a few weeks but they were far from carbonated. I cracked one open and there was very little carbonation and still tasted apple-cidery. They are now back down in the basement for another week and I’ll try one again. Not holding out too much hope of a steller beer, who knows how old the ingredient kit in the Mr Beer was when it was bought.

Onto batch #3, my Irish Stout from Midwest Supplies. This was the ingredient kit that came in the 5gallon system I bought on a Groupon for $62. The ingredient kit sells for $27.99 so I’d say the Groupon was a steal (never mind the fact that the 5gallon system came with a $25 gift card for a future purchase). Anyway, brewing this kit was slightly more involved than the Mr Beer kits I did for the first two batches, but relatively straight forward.

I started with 4 gallons of water in my 10 gallon pot but I could have started with 5 since when I transfered the chilled wort to the fermenter, there was only 3 gallons (including the 1/2 gallon of LME)! The directions I followed are here if you want, so I won’t go into too much detail. But I did take pictures:

I’ve already planned out batch #4 and it is on it’s way via FedEx. Using the $25 gift card I mentioned above, I bought the White House Honey Ale.  It’s an extract kit based off the beer that the White House kitchen staff brews, although they use honey collected from beehives on the White House South Lawn. More about the White House Honey Ale here.