a lucky new brewer

Hey everyone, I just wanted to get some varying opinions. Here is my situation, I get home sometime in the beginning of dec. My wonderful fiance has given me the okay to invest in some home brewing equipment. I have seen some of the kits, and have thought about piecing together everything. And here comes the questions. Being a first time brewer, should I start with kit recipes, I am leaning toward AG but not quite sure yet. I was also curious about conical fermentors. All being said, I have about 1,000$ start up.

Wow, $1,000 dollars is a lot to start out with!

I would definatly start with a delux equipment kit for a little over $100 and brew a kit to start off.

You'll be able to use everything in that kit in the future and it will help with decisions for your future equipment purchaces.

If you have a good size pot, that will let you brew now and ponder over the size you'll need in a future set up. (10-15 Gal)

For little extra cost ( BIAB or Papasian Zapap) you can try your hand at AG and see it you want to develop a system.

What you'll find among homebrewers is that they will experiment and figure out what works for them. There are so many variations on a set up that work for individual brewers.

Start basic, and build from there based on what works for you.

Read alot and ask questions here as you develop your system.

Good luck,

Bull

Hey,

You are right down the road from my Dad (Freeport).

Read as much as you can on this site and a few decent books before you spend your cash. If you are smart and plan ahead you can buy equipment that will allow to learn the basic process on kits and then use most of that equipment when you go AG, but you need to read up for a while.

Do you have a few good books?
How far along are you in understanding the process?

BTW, good catch with that woman!

I'd say, don't jump on the conical right away. Start with buckets until you get your methodology down. When you know you can dispose of 5 gal batches then you can start deciding whether you want to make much, MUCH larger batches in the conical.

Conicals are very nice... but that's a *lot* of beer.

I would spend half of that on kegging gear and a keezer (keg freezer)/keg fridge, because bottling (for me) takes a lot of fun out of the process. Being able to walk over to your taps and draw a fine brew whenever you feel like it is pretty frickin sweet (it was a dream of mine since high school).

For gear I would get three fermentation buckets (fermenting) and two carboys (secondary fermenting) with five airlocks, and an auto-siphon and a snitch and a hydrometer and an outdoor propane burner and a 7.5 gal pot (for outdoor 5 gallon boils) and a 5 gal pot (for 3-3.5 gallon indoor boils when the weather doesn't permit backyard brewing) and a jug of star-san and a couple of lengths of tubing (for siphoning) and a carboy brush and a thermometer and maybe a bottle brush (in case you do a little bottling) and a bottling bucket (again, you might want to bottle a high-gravity beer for long-term storage and conditioning).

(I think that's most of it, that should run you a couple hundred bucks or so)

Then I would get a nice extract kit from Midwest to start out (Octane IPA is a popular recipe, their India Brown Ale is also pretty good), and brew that up.

For kegging I would get the midwest three- or four- keg starter set (that's $300 or so) with tank and picnic hoses, and either get a Craigslist fridge or a chest freezer (probably $70 for either) with temp regulator (those are $50-60). Later you can pick up the shanks and faucets and fittings and tubes to have taps sticking out of your chilling solution.

You might just stick with bottling first, if you aren't sure that having awesome, cold beer on tap in your house is for you.

You're coming in at around $600-700, I approximate. Maybe a little more including sales tax.

To jump to all-grain once you're comfortable with extract brews you'll just need to spend $100ish to set up your mash tun (I have not done this yet but I'm thinking about it), but I would start with extract because if you haven't brewed before you're gonna want to get your feet wet a little.

Well... let me first by saying welcome to the hobby. I will give you my typical response when people ask me about what kind of equipment to get to start up. Let me first preface this by saying that in my 8 years of homebrewing and six years browsing these forums I have seen many people come in strong only to drop the hobby after 3-6 months. I am not positive why the fallout occurs but I imagine it is a combination of the amount of effort put in upfront, slow turnaround times of the product, and maybe a few less than awsome batches.

For this reason I usually encourage new guys to go with a basic kit and a few extract batches with steeping grains (like from Austine homebrew or midwest). Start with a beerstyle you know you like (even if it is BMC). Some guys who drink BMC but do appreciate real beer will jump in and make something like a IPA or porter only to discover that they really don't like it enough to drink 50 of them, not to mention usually your buddies are going to want to try your first batch and they may not like those styles, etc etc. I usually recommend something like an irish red or cream ale.

The reason I suggest to go so light with equipment is because if you do end up dropping out of the hobby after 6 months you will not be out much money. I imagine it is hard to have that foresight right when your starting up because you have no intention of giving up on it, but it happens.

Another option is to buy good quality items, (even though some may be cheaper to DIY), this way if you give up on it you will very likely be able to get on this forum and sell your stuff to us for (usually) not a huge loss.

Alright thats enough pessimism. If you are already having the AG and conical itch you probably won't be satisfied until you try it at least once. I still think you should try an extract kit or two just for your own comparisons, plus no matter how much you read you really need to go through the motions and make the typical mistakes to get used to a brewday.

Since you'll likely go all grain anyways I suggest getting a BIG brewpot, at least 20g. You can use this for 5g-10g full boils no problem. Instawares has good prices on their update international pots, which are the same as the megapots from the homebrew stores.

I suggest putting spigots on everything. Brewpot, mashtun, HLT, fermentors, etc. This makes transfering wort a bit easier.

Make sure anything with plumbing is 1/2" or larger, including the wort chiller/valves/etc. If you later plan a RIMS/HERMS build you'll likely want at least 1/2" so you may be able to reuse a lot of that stuff.

Buy a good thermometer that can be calibrated, if it has a probe on a wire make sure you waterproof it before using it else it will likely give incorrect readings.

Skip glass carboys, use buckets, betterbottles, or cornies. In fact if I could do it again the first thing I would do would be buy a keg kit, and many cornies. You can use the cornies as fermentors, storage, distribution etc. And if you ever decide to get a chest freezer for a fermentation chamber the typical design will hold more cornies than carboys/betterbottles.

That is all I can think of for now. Good luck with the hobby.

Justibone said:

I'd say, don't jump on the conical right away. Start with buckets until you get your methodology down. When you know you can dispose of 5 gal batches then you can start deciding whether you want to make much, MUCH larger batches in the conical.

Conicals are very nice... but that's a *lot* of beer.

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Well they make conicals for 5g batch sizes, but similar to your line of thought if your going to drop hundreds of dollars on a single fermentor may as well get one of the bigger ones (15g+). Since I do not really have the ability to store a conical of that size in a fermentation chamber I stick to corny kegs/carboys for fermentation.

I've never seen 5 gallon conicals... guess I haven't looked hard enough.

Justibone said:

I've never seen 5 gallon conicals... guess I haven't looked hard enough.

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Well the fermentor would be larger than 5 gallons since you have the added headspace for the fermentation process to avoid blow off. Here is a 7g at williamsbrewing:

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/7_GALLON_FERMENATOR_-_Free_Dr_P882C135.cfm

Typically you'd be aiming at a 5 gallon batch when using that fermentor, but I guess you could pull off 6g or more if you are ambitious. There are other cheaper versions out there that I have seen, but I think even those are over 400 dollars.

Thanks for all of the advice.. I still have about three months in the armpit of the world, so that gives me quite a bit more time to study,and research.. I did find what I think to be a decent starter kit at mountain homebrewing and wine supplies. Is anyone familiar with them? I understand that it's all personal preference, but for some reason glass carboys just seem to resonate with my mad scientist.. It looks like I will start out with a pale, or maybe amber.. and according to the other half. I have to come up with a good pumpkin lol.. that's her only concern.. I really like that conical from williams brewing, but, it will probably have to wait until next year.

My two cents:

Everyone's brewing situation (at home) is different, and that will affect the gear you consider buying. For instance, I happen to live in an apartment (third floor), so no heavy-duty, propane-powered outdoor equipment / tiered setups for me. Something to consider.

Having said that, $1,000 isn't a lot of money after you tally up the gear and all the little things you'll be needing once you start brewing. Especially if you start dropping big bucks on high-end gear (Blichmann brewpots, etc).

I don't think you'll need conical fermenters just starting out; I would recommend picking up an assortment of 6 and 5-gallon glass carboys instead — much cheaper! The money you would have used for a conical fermenter can now go towards a decent 7.5-gallon+ brewpot and some AG equipment (I use two custom 10-gallon Igloo coolers as my HLT + mash tun), but you may be able to afford some modified SS brewpots.

I recommend starting with an extract kit (or two), then progressing into AG.

Start as big as you think you'll ever want to go. No sense in wasting the money buying beginner equipment just to re-buy better. Put out a feeler here for local brewers and hang out with them to get a feel for different setups and also look around the brew sculpture/rig thread to see whats possible.

I din't go glass when I started and felt like I was cheating. Now having read many threads about dropping them and other issues I am glad I went plastic.

Now plastic has its own set of issues, but serious frag wounds is not one of them....

It is interesting to consider what you can do if you go into the hobby expecting to spend 1000 on equipment rather than doing it the way a lot of us do, which is to buy a kit for around 150 and then avalanching into equipment upgrades (usually involving multiple iterations of replacing beginner equipment). As stated above you definately want to build for where you would like to end up.

I'll +1 the kegging/kegerator setup. If you ever decide to drop the hobby you can still sell off the cornies and put commercial in it. It is nice to be able to poor beer from the tap at home. You can buy a kegerator or build your own. There is a lot of savings to be had by watching craigslist for fridges/freezers.

I gotta admit I want to keg (and bottle) as soon as I get the room. I tried out a pals basic keg system for 6 months and it was heaven. It was winter so I kept Porter and Stout in my cold basement - perrrrrrfect! :rockin:

But I strongly recommend going extract full boils with a Pot large enough to go AG down the road.

I eventually plan on kegging, I also have been on CL already looking for freezers/refrigerators. My main concern with kegs is keeping them chilled during transit upta camp, and the various shindigs we go to.. which during the summer months vary between 2 or 3 up to twice a month.. lol..

Oh, btw here is the link to the starter kit i am looking at.. www.mountainhomebrew.com/deluxehomebrewingstarterkit Granted, I will have to invest in a larger boil pot.I think it has just about everything else I might need to get started..

If you get a glass carboy, make sure you get a handle or some straps or something. SERIOUSLY heavy when full!

Alright since you are asking I will go through this and state how I feel. Keep in mind this is just me and everyone's style and needs is different.

6 Gallon Glass Carboy Fermenter complete with Stopper, Airlock, Carrying Handle, and Stick-on Thermometer.
5 Gallon Glass Carboy Fermenter complete with Stopper, Airlock, Carrying Handle, and Stick-on Thermometer.
Glass carboys are useful and will last forever as long as you don't drop them. I'd recommend better bottles for two reasons: they won't break and you can buy them with spigots! Spigots are nice imo. FYI I have 1 6g glass carboy and 2 5g glass carboys, I still use them if my better bottles are full.

Siphoning System featuring the "Auto-Siphon"
Auto-Siphon is cool works fine. I've had mine since the beginning but prefer not to siphon at all when I can help it. This goes back to why I recommend putting spigots on everything, avoid having to sanitize the diptube/autosiphon, (though you still have to santize the hosing so its not much of a huge improvement, just a preference).

Funnel
Don't really use this anymore since I am doing full boils and have spigots. Used it when doing partial boils. All in all I would probably recommend having one around incase you need to top off a partial boil or even full boil that you evaporated too much off of.


Bottling System with Bottle Filling Wand
2 Cases of 22oz Beer Bottles
Bottle Capper and Bottle Caps
Skip this and go with kegging.

20 Quart Stainless Steel Brewing Pot
Will not be useful since you'll need a bigger pot for full boils if doing all grain.

Boil Proof Brewing Spoon
Gotta have this or a mash paddle.

Floating Glass Thermometer
Never use mine, unnecessary. You will need some thermometer though. I recommend a good quality digital thermometer that can be calibrated. And a laboratory thermometer to calibrate it with.

Hydrometer and Testing Jar
Absolutely must have. They make "deluxe" precision hydrometers that are a little more expensive than the standard triple scale. I recommend getting a good one, itle be easier to read.

Carboy and Bottle Cleaning Brushes
Cleaning Kit containing PBW Cleaner and Star San Sanitizer
The brushes aren't really needed. Warm water, soak in oxyclean and rinse will pretty much get everything. If you have crud on the side you can stuff in a cloth and swirl it around, I found this easier than using the brush.

The cleaning kit looks pretty nice with the PBW and star san. You can live without the PBW if you opt for the cheaper oxyclean but you gotta have the star san.

"How To Brew" Book
Great resource. I advise you read it cover to cover. I also think it is a good idea to buy it to support the economy and blah blah blah etc. However the first edition can be accessed at www.howtobrew.com

In closing, before I get off my shoebox. I think you can buy just the items you need and leave out the more expensive things you won't use (bottling equip, and especially the kettle). You'll save a bit of money that can be used elsewhere.

EDIT: Oh yeah by the way after you buy kegging equipment and a bigger kettle you'll be going over what the cost of that kit is, but you'll be getting more for your money, IMO.

patrck, thanks for stepping up on your soapbox, in a few months I will def. be following your advice.. I know starter kits are great items, but like you stated, eventually I plan on going all grain, so it would be kind of senseless to continually upgrade IMO. Going over the cost of the kit isn't something i'm really concerned with, I just want to brew good beer and enjoy the entire process.. I actually found the online how to brew book the day before I found this forum... haha.. ended up reading the whole damned thing in one night.. I plan on getting the hardcopy as soon as I get home.. Thanks again for all of your great input..

menewbrewer said:

...I still have about three months in the armpit of the world....

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no offense, but if you think Brunswick, ME is the armpit of the world, you clearly have been to WAY too few places in the world (or have WAY too high standards)

pd230soi said:

But I strongly recommend going extract full boils with a Pot large enough to go AG down the road.

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This. My 10 gallon pot with a dump valve and bazooka screen is the most important piece of equipment I have in terms of producing a decent beer. I also have a conical, but I have to admit, it's nice but not highly important; I could make beer just as good with buckets.

Go buy a propane cooker, a cheap aluminum 10-gallon pot, have your LHBS set it up with a dump valve and a bazooka, and go crazy with an extract kit and leaf hops.

Then, while your first batch is in the bucket, go buy a kegerator and a cornie keg or two

JLem said:

no offense, but if you think Brunswick, ME is the armpit of the world, you clearly have been to WAY too few places in the world (or have WAY too high standards)

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Yeah!

It's Oregon, right?

haha, umm Brunswick is home,, right now I am in afghanistan.. and this place truly is the armpit of the world...

menewbrewer said:

haha, umm Brunswick is home,, right now I am in afghanistan.. and this place truly is the armpit of the world...

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Ah - sorry for the mistake. Never been to Afghanistan, but I would bet it is a few steps down from Brunswick!