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Nashbrew

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Hello,
I am happy to be here. I am new to this hobby and trying to learn it all. Basicaly, i want to make my own beer instead of buying the store bought beer, which in my opinion does nt taste good.

I want to buy a beer kit to start with, if that is advisable. The only two i have come across is the "Beermachine" and "Mr.Beer" nambrands. Which one do you suggest? Or are there others you can advise me about? Mr Beer is cheaper but heard bad things about their product, beermachine you don't have to bottle it.

Any advice, sites,links, magazines etc. will be greatly appreciated. Thank You.
 
As always, I recommend reading Palmer's intro Next, do a search on beermachine and "mr beer" on this site. There have been several discussions. I haven't used either, but I've gotten the impression the beermachine is more useful after you move on to kettles, tuns and carboys.
 
i would get the most basic kit for brewing that you can find that includes a couple buckets, airlock, siphoning hoses, hydrometer, and capper. theyre usually 50 bucks and the product is much better than Mr. Beer or the like. then you should start brewing.
 
Go here: howtobrew

If you can't find a homebrew supply store, see if there are any ubrew places around. They will often sell liquid malt extract in bulk, hops and yeast.

I don't use kits, but I'd try to go with an all malt kit that doesn't tell you to add sugar.

If you red through the above wesite, you'll get an understanding of what needs to be done. I'd then look up a recipe or try one of the ones on his site and use unhopped extract and buy some hops and add them to the boil as directed by the recipe.

I don't like these no boil kits. The beer machine is a small plastic keg that doubles as the fermenter. They are ok for using later as a small minikeg (they are aslo only 2.5 gal)but you really should buy a plastic bucket with lid and airlock and a glass carboy.

For a first attempt you can just use the plastic bucket/lid/airlock to brew a decent batch of beer. You will also need a canning pot or other large pot to boil water and malt in. This is all mentioned in the above site.

A good book is The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing
Good luck and have fun!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
drengel said:
i would get the most basic kit for brewing that you can find that includes a couple buckets, airlock, siphoning hoses, hydrometer, and capper. theyre usually 50 bucks and the product is much better than Mr. Beer or the like. then you should start brewing.
Hello,
Thanks for the advice. I always thought making the beer the regular way would be too hard for a newbie like me, so was thinking of getting a Mr. Beer kit. Some people have said the regular way is better. I need to know exactly what i need to get started, also can somebody tell me where i can buy the supplies? I would assume a website somewhere. Also, where do i buy the ingredients like the malt extract, hops etc. I guess the kind of hops i buy depends on what style of beer i want to make. I can get recipes from here right?
Thanks.
 
Denny's Brew said:
Go here: howtobrew

If you can't find a homebrew supply store, see if there are any ubrew places around. They will often sell liquid malt extract in bulk, hops and yeast.

I don't use kits, but I'd try to go with an all malt kit that doesn't tell you to add sugar.

If you red through the above wesite, you'll get an understanding of what needs to be done. I'd then look up a recipe or try one of the ones on his site and use unhopped extract and buy some hops and add them to the boil as directed by the recipe.

I don't like these no boil kits. The beer machine is a small plastic keg that doubles as the fermenter. They are ok for using later as a small minikeg (they are aslo only 2.5 gal)but you really should buy a plastic bucket with lid and airlock and a glass carboy.

For a first attempt you can just use the plastic bucket/lid/airlock to brew a decent batch of beer. You will also need a canning pot or other large pot to boil water and malt in. This is all mentioned in the above site.

A good book is The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing
Good luck and have fun!
Thanks for the links.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nashbrew said:
Hello,
Thanks for the advice. I always thought making the beer the regular way would be too hard for a newbie like me, so was thinking of getting a Mr. Beer kit. Some people have said the regular way is better. I need to know exactly what i need to get started, also can somebody tell me where i can buy the supplies? I would assume a website somewhere. Also, where do i buy the ingredients like the malt extract, hops etc. I guess the kind of hops i buy depends on what style of beer i want to make. I can get recipes from here right?
Thanks.

Nashbrew, Good advise from all above. I've just started brewing and love it.

My advise is that for your first brew keep it realy simple, you can increase the quality of the brew as your skill and knowledge builds up.

I'd just use a Hopped liquid malt kit and add an unhopped extract (Dry or liquid) Follow the instructions. Give it a week in the fermenter then bottle.
That should give you a drinkable brew in 3 weeks.

If your itching to go, then after your fermenters free do something similar but use some adjuncts (Hops, specialty grain) and let it sit in a secondary fermenter for a week or two before bottling.

to do that you need a largish pan, a fermenting bin with (possibly a spigot), a lid and airlock, a hydrometer is a worth while addition.

That way you can compare the results of the both and see if you think the extra time and cost is worth it. (I think you will)

----------

If you think you are going to stick with it then you will likely upgrade your kit so it may be worth going for a 6.5 gallon glass carboy to start with and a plastic secondary fermenter bin. If you do get a glass secondary the bin will always com in handy anyway.
 
I should have added that roughly, the darker and stronger (alchohol) you make the beer the longer you should age it. So don't try and go for a barley wine on the first attempt unless you are reeeeeeeeeeeealy patient. :D
 
I'd stay away from the Mr. Beer kit. You can get a complete brewing starter kit from a few places for a price slightly above but comparable to Mr. Beer, but your beer will be tenfold better.

Check out our thread on Homebrew supply sites and try and find a good price. Morebeer, Northern Brewer, Midwest supplies, etc., all have beginner kits for close to or under 100 dollars. It will be everything you need to get started making better beer than you could ever imagine.

Good luck and welcome to the forum!
 
Where to get supplies really depends on where you live (for me it is cheapest and easiest to mail order, for some the Local Homebrew Shop- LHS is an option).
As for what kind of kit to start with it all depends on what you want to do. A kit can vary from a pre-boiled bag of hopped wort to which you just add water and ferment (the instant ramen of beer brewing) to the ingredients kits (many LHS have their own in-house kits) which include steeping grains, malt extract, various hops, sugars and detailed instructions. All the ingredients to make the extract beer you order. Basically learning to cook with pre-chosen and measured ingredients.
There is a bit more equipment required for the more "difficult" type of kit, but not a lot.
 
Excellent advise all around. All I can add is to read up as much as you can stand before starting, and to not be intimidated by the idea of making your own beer. With extracts, the process is very straightforward. And remember, there's no stupid questions (only stupid answers ;) )
 
My 2c...as a new brewer who started about 2 months ago, I found two suppliers of immense help. One was my local home brew supply house (well, "local" is relative - it's about 45 miles away). It is Home Brew Headquarters in Richardson, TX. FYI, they have mail order via the web (www.homebrewhq.com) and their owner (Kelly) and his guys are extremely helpful and talked to me for a LONG time to walk me through everything. He also participates in our local (north Texas) brewing club. I recommend joining something like that - great people, fun, informative!

Someone else mentioned www.midwestsupplies.com, and I also like them. They are also very helpful - get their number from their website and call them for lots of very useful advice, even with questions when you're not sure of something about a batch. Midwest also has a number of clone kits. Most homebrew stores, like mine, will gladly look up a clone recipe for you and give you the proper ingredients.

Last, and also mentioned earlier: read Palmer's site, and read Joy Of Homebrewing by Papazian (spelling?). When my local store said Papazian's book was a must-buy, I was a little skeptical. I was wrong. It has a lot of great background. Even if you want to stick with simple brewing, it presents some of the science of brewing in understandable terms, has good background on the different beer types, and a fair number of recipes.

Final 2c (so that makes 4c total, I guess :) ) - take Papazian's advice to heart and relax. I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to matters of the kitchen, and not knowing everything there was to know about brewing freaked me out. There are TONS of great advice-givers here and elsewhere, and if you are thorough (not obsessive!) about sanitizing, use good (non-chlorinated, sanitary, good tasting) water, fresh ingredients and keep fermentation temperatures in a decent range (60-75 for ales, closer to 65 is ideal), you will get a beer that you enjoy sharing with friends, the ultimate signal of success in the kitchen.

Or garage. Or shed. Or wherever your spouse tells you to do your brewing!
 
I have not been brewing very long very noob like 2 months but I was paranoid to start out on something more than a mr beer or something so even before I started brewing I bought Homebrewing For Dummies and the Papazian book. I read them both almost cover to cover before I started brewing and it was worth it. Following the step by step in the Homebrewing for dummies makes it really easy and the papazian book gives you some piece of mind. Get a bucket, carboy kit and read and research. But then again I'm a noob so this is just the way I went. But my second brew a Pumpkin' ale was a recipe I concocted myself and it's great!!! I owe much thanks to the books.
 
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