Now what?

I did everything that I was supposed to do with the Mr. Beer...sat it in a nice warm place and it is bubbling nicely. Now what? I wait. Dadgummit, waiting is HARD! What do you guys do while your brew stews in its yeast?

I was all excited last night while I was making it up...now Im just wanting to do more, but nothing to do more in. LOL.

You are where many of us started and why we now own a number of fermentors.

Soon a garage will not be big enough!!

Im gonna need a brewery, me thinks.

yeah, my wife is starting to hint that we need to get a process going. more beer = better.

carguy13 said:

yeah, my wife is starting to hint that we need to get a process going. more beer = better.

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It sounds like you are hooked and you have a supportive wife to boot! Now might be a good time to look for another Mr. Beer fermenter on Craigslist or perhaps go to the brew supplies store and get a plastic bucket fermenter. The buckets will be 6 1/2 gallons but you can do a 2 1/2 gallon batch in them just fine. It might be a good idea to get more than one of them so you can have more than one or 2 batches going at once. I have 4 fermenters and rarely have them all full at once but every now and then.....:rockin:

Your local brew supply store will probably have extract kits on hand too. These will be a little more difficult than Mr. Beer kits but I think the results will please you. It also will open up a lot more possibilities for varieties of beer you can make.

So the bucket fermenter is all I will need foir a few weeks until the fermentation is finished and then Ill need something to rack it in (6gal carboy)? Or, wait, I could just bottle from the fermenter? Dammit, Im confused now.

Im on very little money and would like to get another kit, but cant afford to buy it all at once. What should I get FIRST with spending the LEAST amount up front?

You can bottle from the fermenter but with all the sediment in the bottom it is more advised to rack to another bucket leaving the sediment behind to avoid alot of bottle sediment. Dissolve the amount of sugar you need for priming in a cup of boiling water allow to cool. Add this to your bottling bucket then rack the beer on top of it. This will help to mix the beer and sugar evenly.
Generally you would want to use 1oz. Sugar Per gallon of beer. This will give you approx 2.5volumes co2.

So I dont really need carboys at all then...hmmm.

GeorgiaTiger said:

So I dont really need carboys at all then...hmmm.

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Nope. Mine are gathering dust under my workbench

I don't own any carboys. I do just primary then bottle. I may get a carboy in the future though to use as a primary.

I use mine as fermenters if I have more than one Batch going at a time....like now

GT,

food grade plastic buckets are really cheap and make excellent fermenters. Use a couple of 6.5 gallon ones myself and don't bother with airlocks on their lids. Just cover the top of the bucket with saran wrap, that's been sprayed with starsan on the side that'll face the beer, then puncture a couple of small holes in the SW and place the actual lid loosely on top.

The Mr Beer kegs are only $10 a pop so they're a pretty cheap option as well but having the larger volume buckets means you can start fermenting 5 gallon batches

So...knowing that I am a complete newb and am practically broke, can you tell me exactly what I would need to get started and approximate cost?

If you want to break into 5 gallon batches here is my 2c worth:

Keep an eye on groupon and living social because Midwest often times has a deal to get you into a beginners brew kit for around 80 bucks ship. Last deal came with a fermenter, bottling bucket, racking cane, siphon tubing, capper, bottling wand, and 1 of 3 ingredient kits. I use this same kit now (about a year later) and have added on to it some. I'd say save up some scratch until that deal comes along and run that.

Otherwise, you could try and find some Mr. Beer kegs and do 2 or 3 of em at a time if you wanted which would give you variety.

A fermenting bucket from a homebrew shop is usually in the $15 range, ingredient kits range anywhere form 25-50 depending on the place and what they have and the type of beer you're brewing. I dropped some coin today at the LHBS (almost $60 bucks) on ingredients for a stout, corn sugar (for carbing bottles), and random other "ooo I hasta have it" kind of stuff.


Hope this helps!

I think absolute bare necessity items would be fermenting bucket with lid,
bottling bucket (maybe),
large pot for boiling (bigger is better if going all grain),
hydrometer,
thermometer,
sanitizer,
tubing for racking (auto-siphon highly recommended).
I think that's all you would have to have I'm sure I've forgotten something or Added something someone else doesn't feel essential but that's the bare minimum to brew I would want

Then if bottling you'd need
Bottles (No Twist off unless PET bottles)
Caps
Bottling wand (recommended but not essential)
Tubing
Capper
Scale for weighing priming sugar(HIGHLY recommended but not essential)
Sanitizer

Or if kegging
Kegs
CO2
Gas lines
Serving lines
Quick connects for gas and liquid
Taps (picnic or other)
Kegerator/Keezer with temperature controller

It all depends on what you want, what you can find how much it's going to cost. It can be as cheap or as expensive as you want the hobby to be.

Due to my location I don't think I can be of much help regarding the accurate pricing of stuff where you live

But if you are even slightly deft, in a DIY context, you could drill out a hole in one food grade bucket to fit a spigot, to give you a bargain basement bottling bucket (bbbb:fro for, probably somewhere around $10. Then another bucket or two to use purely as fermenters.

If you don't already, get yourself at least a racking cane, or even better an autosyphon, and some, 10 to 15 feet, food grade silicon tubing. A capper is a good idea but you can get away with using any PET bottles, that are made to contain carbonated drinks, to bottle your first few batches. Still use some myself so that I can monitor how well batches are carbing/carbed. Munton's, Cooper's and Black Rock extract kits work out quite a bit cheaper than the Mr. Beer stuff and can be added to, specialty grain steeping, DME, brown/white sugar and hop additions,to make some good beer, IMO/IME.

I've seen a few people on here turning up some great deals on brewing equipment through Craig's List.