From a newbie on the coast

[Logan]

G'day guys, I'm new here and really want to get to know the in's and out's of home brewing. I bottled up my very first brew this evening, and I'm looking forward to hopefully having made a great tasting beer. I used a Mr Beer kit, and I was wondering if that was only good for extract brews, or if you can use it for all-grain as well?

I hope you guys can help me out

 

[carniebrew]

Welcome Logan! Is the Mr Beer kit the one with the 2 gallon (~9 litre) fermenter?

You can only do all grain or full extract (as opposed to kit) beers if you can boil wort on your stove, and perform your own hop additions. If you're not wanting to perform the boil yourself, then you'll have to stick to kit cans, and unfortunately a 9 litre fermenter limits you to small kit cans, as opposed to the 1.7l cans you'll find at most home brew outlets. As an example 1 can of Coopers Australian Pale Ale with nothing else in your fermenter will give you a 6% beer and 47 IBU. Maybe not a bad thing, but that's your call!

If you want to move up to bigger volumes, buy yourself a 25 or 30 litre plastic jerry can at Bunnings or Masters to use as a fermenter, or a more traditional style one from here: http://discounthomebrewwarehouse.com.au/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_10&products_id=973

All the best!