Online Brew kit providers

Just wondering what peoples opinions are on the online brew kit ordering companies. Weve used Northern Brewer a few times and are impressed with the kits, not so much the documentation (dont really undertand their steeping instructions, steep for 20 minutes or until it reaches 172 degrees? ) But we are always looking to improve our act here and know the kit or supplies have to be spot on also. Anyone else have any favorites?

order your ingedients from whoever gives you the lowest price, take your instructions from www.homebrewtalk.com

Barley is pretty much barley. What you want to do is buy/ order from a busy shop so you get fresh stuff. Freshness matters, even on a really big beer you plan to cellar for a year.

While you are fooling with steeping is a great time to learn to run a partial mash. Instead of wondering about 172°F, try to hold your steeping grains at 155°F for an hour.

It won't make any difference at all right now, your steeped grain beer will be the same; but once you can do it, "steep" all your specialty grains with a pound or so of basic USA 2 row pale malt and see if your finished beer doesn't get you favors of the Biblical kind.

Both NB and Midwest sell good kits, and a lot of folks here like Austin Homebrew Supplies (AHS). My only problem with the Midwest kits is that they add priming sugar, which I don't need (I keg). The AHS website gives you a ton of flexibility when ordering kits, but I like the user feedback/ratings that the NB and Midwest sites provide. I don't think you could go wrong with any of the three.

NB's steeping instructions basically tell you to stick 2.5 gallons of cold water on the stove, turn on the heat, and drop in the grains to steep until the water gets to 170. I prefer to heat my water to about 160, then drop in the grain bag and let it steep at that temp for 30 minutes. You can save time by doing the steeping in 1 gal of water while the other 1.5 gallons are being heated to boiling in your main brew pot.

I prefer Northern Brewer because they put together their own kits, and I think it's their own recipes. I really enjoyed all of the kits I have gotten from them. I have brewed a couple of the "mass produced" kits like Brewers Best and True Brew. I wasn't really impressed with either one. You should consider Austin Homebrew.. Very close to you and they have an awesome reputation around here. I haven't done any of their kits, but their reputation says it all.

NB's instructions for steeping grains means: Either steep in ~150 degree water for 20 minutes, or you can just throw them then the water and let them sit until your water heats up to 170. I think the end result of steeping is always the same, as long as you don't get too hot.

gtpro said:

order your ingedients from whoever gives you the lowest price, take your instructions from www.homebrewtalk.com

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Couldn't have said it better myself.

Thanks for all the feed back, really helps us novices!!

I just ordered an ingredient kit from Austin Homebrew. I really like their website and ordering options. They have tons of ingredient kits that will probably keep my lazy a** from ever venturing into recipe creation. I would definitely reccomend them, especially to someone in TX.

I couldn't be happier with my experiences with Austin Homebrew. Quick to fill orders, excellent customer service and the $7.99 flat-rate shipping is great.

Do you have a local homebrew supply store in your area? Mine makes their own kits (also ships them) and I like supporting a local business whenever I can. I don't mind paying a little more to keep them in business.

kingmatt said:

Do you have a local homebrew supply store in your area? Mine makes their own kits (also ships them) and I like supporting a local business whenever I can. I don't mind paying a little more to keep them in business.

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I agree to support a local shop even at a little higher cost, but not at the expense of quality. I am not too impressed with the local shops here. Really nice people, but otherwise not impressed.

kingmatt said:

Do you have a local homebrew supply store in your area? Mine makes their own kits (also ships them) and I like supporting a local business whenever I can. I don't mind paying a little more to keep them in business.

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What part of PA are you from?

Bert1097 said:

What part of PA are you from?

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I live outside of Philly and get my supplies from Keystone Homebrew. They have two locations, one in Montgomeryville and one in Bethlehem. http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/

Yea we have supported the local ones as well. We started brewing in October 2009. To date we have brwed 13 batches. At least half were purchased locally. We just got tired of going back nad asking questions and they would answer, " well did you use this"? ahhh no you didnt tell us to use that... oh it doesnt matter... Kind of kills your confidence when you are really looking for guidance. We have stayed wih extract brewing with speciality grains. Looking to move to all grain next fall when it cools down.

TresHombres. You live in the DFW area right? Check out the HBHQ on Coit (just north of the Richardson Kroger there).

http://www.homebrewhq.com/

I've only done a couple of kits, but have had what I consider to be great success with Listermann's kits. www.listermann.com

Treshombres said:

Weve used Northern Brewer a few times and are impressed with the kits, not so much the documentation (dont really undertand their steeping instructions, steep for 20 minutes or until it reaches 172 degrees? )

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I'm a little surprised by this; I have made a half-dozen NB kits and find their instructions excellent.

How about Home Brew Heaven? It's local to me so I can buy my stuff in person.

Oh we arent dissapointed with the NB kits, not at all. Just didnt make sense on the steeping instruction. If you drop your grains in cold water and heat for 20 minutes, you may not even hit 150. someone else here recommended 150 for 20 minutes. makes more sense. Either way we have made probaly 6-7 NB kits and liked them all. matter of fact I have 3 of their kits being bottled this weekend, 1 in the primary and 1 more to brew once we free up fermenters :> Its a long hot summer, need to make sure we have lots of good beer.

kingmatt said:

I live outside of Philly and get my supplies from Keystone Homebrew. They have two locations, one in Montgomeryville and one in Bethlehem. http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/

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I'm in the western Philly burbs and have bought stuff from Keystone's Montgomeryville store. Good folks, and there's some pretty serious homebrewers that associate with that store.

I'd recommend Austin Homebrew for kits...They have been very good, the few that I've done.

Holy Crap - I had no idea AHS has so many clone kits. I've moved away from kits and into 10gal all grain batches, but I still like the occasional kit for those cold winter nights when I really don't feel like standing outside over a brewpot and trying to keep my propane tank from freezing. Can anyone vouch for how true to the original their kits are? Ayinger Maibock is one of my all time favorites, but impossible to find around here.

I just brewed a DFH 60 minute IPA on friday (from AHS). I really liked their instructions that came with the kit. Really detailed and seem to be accurate.