New to brewing and this forum. Decided to try brewing for the first time with a Mr Beer kit. I also have another unused kit and have a problem with both fermentors. Both have a very slow leak at the spigot. It takes several minutes for a drip to develop, so I know it’s unusable that way. I’ve tried tightening the nut inside to varying degrees but still no go. I have tried calling the Mr Beer help line and chat, but no one seems to be answering, possibly because of Covid-19. Now for my question. Is it ok to use a silicone sealant (food grade)on the outside sealing washer to try stop the leak? Any other suggestions? Thanks.
make sure you don’t over or under tighten, just hand tightened. check out the gasket and see if it is damaged in any way, i’m assuming they are filled with beer at the moment and the only thing i can think of is moving it to another vessel like a 2 gallon food grade bucket
Thanks for the response. I finally made it through to Mr Beer and they are sending me another fermentor. They also told me that it would be ok to try fix the one I’m replacing by using food grade silicone on the gasket where it fits into the fermentor. Tried it and it no longer leaks, but I plan on waiting for the new fermentor before actually starting to brew. Guess it’s a good idea to always water check those cheepo fermentors before actually brewing.
A lot of people started with Mr. Beer back in the day (myself included).
My suggestions to you are:
- Sanitize the hell out of everything
- Temperature control: keep the fermenter cooler rather than warmer.
- Booster is crap. Replace it with an equivalent weight of more unhopped malt extract (liquid or dry doesn’t matter at the batch sizes we are talking about for a Mr. Beer batch), From memory, I think a can of Mr. Beer hopped malt extract is something like 1.2 lbs. Just get another lb and a quarter of pale LME or DME and just forget you ever got any booster.
Good luck and ask if you have questions.
I resemble that remark!
Yup.
Yup! Me Too!!
Me too
Mr. Beer alum, circa 1989?
It’s been around that long? Wow… 2009 for me. I thought it was newer lol
I’m an extract brewer too. The 2-gallon MrBeer kit makes for a good experimenter size batch. I have one for that purpose, my other 3 fermenters are the BigMouthBubblers with Spigots.
A slight dribble usually self seals after a day or so from the particulate in the wort and yeast bits.
I would not recommend sealing the spigot onto your MrBeer with silicone. That assembly needs to be removed after every batch and scrubbed down with little bristle wands to remove any crud.
-Doug