First Time Brewer

I am sure you get a ton of these threads but I may have a little bit of a spin. I am very interested and excited to try home brewing. I have been looking at the Brewers Best beginner kits and have heard great things about them. But I am wondering if it is worth it to get a kit like that or just piece together everything I need? The ingridient kit I am looking at is their American amber.

Thanks for any replies.

I chose to start with just canned extract so I could focus more on developing my process. I think it is important to know how your space will work and where you will keep your tools and ingredients while you are brewing. After that it is something you can check off the double check list.
After 8 Extract batches I went All Grain. It is way more fun/challenging for me to actually brew than assemble ingredients.

I recommend using kits for at least your first few batches. Usually the kit price is very close to what it would cost to piece it together. Some (many?) retailers only sell certain ingredients in 1lb increments, so you wind up having to buy more than you need for one batch. Also, buying a kit you don't have to worry about forgetting something or having to figure out how to substitute for something that's out of stock.

Kits work fine and it's understandable why some people would prefer to do those for their first batches, but if you are up for putting together your own recipes I say go for it.

I think kits are a good way to get started. I started with a Mr Beer kit. The beer tasted like crap, but it did get me interested (some would say obsessed) about learning to make good beer.

I loved having kits when I first started out. It helped me to explore some beer styles that I had not tried and the kits made some fine beer. I would say go for the kits while you are getting your feet wet and learning the other stuff.

Brew a few kits first until you have the process down, then get creative. Good luck either way.

Sounds good. I am going to hold off on doing the ingredients myself until i get situated with brewing.

Here are the things i am looking at.

http://www.homebrewers.com/product/STARTERPLUSKIT/Beer-Making-Starter-Plus-Kit-with-Ingredients.html

http://www.homebrewers.com/product/1007/Brewers-Best-American-Amber.html

And, thanks for all of the quick and friendly replies. It is nice to find a forum that welcomes newbs with basic questions.

Do a kit of something you like, something like a Pale Ale, not an Imperial or something else with a grand name, and stay away from Largers until you know more. Understand how to do itr and actually make it. See how much you like it and see the potential ...... You can make beer as good as that you buy (believe it or not, BMC type beers are actually some of the hardeast to replicate).

Then start searching for recipies and figuring out the best way to get your ingredients.

Buying in bulk (especially hops - check out Hops Direct) makes the hobby cheaper, but once you go that route, you are comitted to making a lot of beers or wasting the expense.

That is my plan. I thought the American amber sounded like a good base beer that would be easy to drink and not hard to make. And hopefully after my first brew turns out good I will try some different kits. And once I have become a knowledged brewer then I would like to start experimenting with making my own brews.

For equipment kits I started mainly just looking at the Brewers Best kits but now I found the Austin Home Brew Supply kits. Like these.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_52&products_id=12736

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_52&products_id=12737

After reading they do come with a few differet things but which would you recommend?

And, for a begginer using the extract kits do I need secondary fermentation?

If you read and read and read about home brewing you will likely come to the conclusion that you don't need to secondary unless you are in competition where the beer is judged on looks as well as taste or you want to add items like dry hops or fruit after primary fermentation is done. If you are careful and follow instructions well, you can get by with a real basic kit for a long time. As you learn more about the brewing and feel like making changes to improve your technique or increase the challenge you can add what you need. You don't have to have it all at the start.

Ok. I am just gonna go with the Brewers Best Kit and get their American Amber. Thanks for all of the replies.

When it's time to experiment (after you do a couple of kits, or at least as many as you think you need to do), I'd recommend looking into SMaSH beers to get a feel for how different grains and hops taste in brew.

(Search SMaSH on the forums and you'll find a ton of info on them.)

My 1st good batch was an American Amber kit from Brewers Best. Simple kit and came out great! Just write down all of your included ingredients and everything about your process so you can tweak things later. I forgot to write down my Crystal L# on my first few, like Crystal 60. Good to know later when you formulate your own recipes. On howtobrew.com they show you basic ingredients for diff styles. I also like doing clones of my favorite commercial beers(which I find recipes to online) so I can get an idea how to make my favorite brews and make my own adjustments. Good luck and have fun! Nothing like enjoying your own homebrew!

I am very excited to start brewing and make many different beers. I will look into the Smash brews too. Any drinking them will be great too!

Now i just have to get to ordering my kit.

Ok. I have my kit now and have read about the process. But for a boil kettle i have a stainless steel pot that will hold 2 gallons of water with about 2 inches left to the top and a large SS crab cooker that is probably 4 of 5 gallons. My questions are is the smaller pot big enough for an extract batch and if i use the crab cooker do you think some flavor may escape from the stainless steel pot?

Use the large pot. Check the instructions on your kit. They'll probably say to use 2, 2-1/2 or 3 gallons. If you're boiling 2 gallons, the smaller pot is still too small. You need to achieve a strong rolling boil which will likely spill over your small pot. There is also the possibility of a boilover as the proteins coagulate and form a foam. Lastly there's a safety issue as you carry your pot with 2 gallons (20 lbs) of boiling wort from your stove to your sink or wherever you're going to cool it down.

The crab cooker is unlikely to affect the flavor very much.

I have a 5 gallon stainless steel kettle and boil about 3 gallons. I have to watch and maybe stir for a bit when I add the hops or it will boil over.

The bigger pan right now will hold 3 gallons with 5 inches left to the top. I'm guessing it is about 15 quarts.

So with my extract should i try to get as much water boiling as possible? As in using 3 gallons instead of 2 if it is possible.

And, what is the best way to clean out a pan like this that has had crab boiled in it many times?

I'm going to answer your first question in two way which might be contradictory.

First: Boil however much water the instructions with your kit say to boil. (I'll return to that later)
Second: Boil 2 to 2-1/2 gallons since you don't yet know how it will behave when it gets boiling.

OK, back my first answer. While I'm a huge proponent of HBT and I think it's great that we all have this resource available, your first few batches of beer are really about learning the process, getting used to sanitizing and figuring out a workflow that works for you in your kitchen (or wherever you brew). And the kits are great for that! There's no measuring or weighing; the instructions were written to make your beer successful so you'll come back and buy more kits.

While I've gotten lots of great advice on HBT, as a beginner there's a real risk of "too many cooks in the kitchen." The truth is, there is not one single best way to make beer - however there are lots of wrong ways. So when you're not entirely sure what you're doing to begin with, and you've got all these more experienced brewers telling you to do this or that - and none of them agree - it's easy for you to get confused and wind up not learning a process that works for you. Additionally, in the confusion there's a greater risk of your beer not coming out well as things get misunderstood or forgotten. So that's why my default answer is going to be follow the instructions with the kit.

To your 2nd question: Does the pot smell like crab? If not then I wouldn't worry about anything other than making sure it's clean. If it does, try filling it with water and adding some OxyClean Free (the unscented one) or it's generic equivalent, and let it soak overnight.

Kits would be the much safer rout to start with. I messed up my first serious batch because of novice mistakes; I would hate to see you do the same thing! Kits also have the advantages of having everything you need, being a reliable recipe, and the possibility of customer reviews.

I just picked up a kit from Austin Homebrew Supply and user comments are supported. This might be a great place to start. They give you flexibility as well by offering most of their kits as either extract, partial mash, all grain, along with yeast options. Your LHBS can also point you in the right direction if they offer their own kits.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178