getting started

a couple years back i wanted to get into all grain home brewing, i had an old 4.5 gallon glass carboy laying around the house that iv for as long as i can remember and i made a mash tun out of a 48 quart cooler. things got in the way and that was as far as i got. iv found a killer deal on an immersion chiller on craigslist and he also has 5 gallon kegs for $10 so i think im gonna grab one of those too. i know i need a brew pot, hydrometer, an airlock and cap for the carboy. is there anything else that i missed as far as equipment goes? and also do i need to get a bigger fermenter or will i be ok with the carboy i have? thanks in advance for any answers.

Your carboy will be fine just be sure to scale your batches accordingly. Be sure to get at least an 8 gallon brewpot (ideally) and whatever hoses you would need to transfer wort from your fermenter to your brew kettle and brew kettle to your fermenter. I would look into a way to syphon your beer from your fermenter to your keg then of course the CO2 beer and gas lines and whatever kind of tap you want to serve your beer. Other than that you should be good to go! Welcome to HBT

I dont agree on the 4.5 gallon carboy. Your going to loose up to a gallon between trub and blow off depending on your beer. If you fill it up to the top your not going to have headspace you will loose more on blow off. On average I think I loose about .5 gallon to trub, I use 6G fermenters. You can get a plastic bucket for a fermenter its nice and cheap and great to start with, home depot has 6 gallon I think.

I've only been making wine for 20 years or so, but I've never once seen a 4.5 gallon carboy, or even a 4 gallon carboy. I'd double check the volume on that before deciding batch size.

You will need a siphon tool of some sort.

Yooper said:

I've only been making wine for 20 years or so, but I've never once seen a 4.5 gallon carboy, or even a 4 gallon carboy. I'd double check the volume on that before deciding batch size.

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This carboy is REALLY old, I'm not sure how old though. I've checked it a couple times. When I checked it it was 4.5 gallons when filled to point where it starts curve at the top so it could be 5 gallons.

I've also got a plastic carboy from when I had a water cooler and it's 5 gallons but it says water only on it.

If you found a guy selling kegs for $10 a pop you should buy them all. If nothing else keep what you want and sell the others at mark up

carboys are one of the cheapest things to buy, I would just go get a new 5 or 6 gallon one. You would know it wasnt scratched and didnt have any weird stuff in it at some point.

I just ordered a 40 qt stock pot and lid off amazon and I talked to the people at the bakery up the street to see if they had any empty buckets, they didn't but I gave them my number and they are gonna save them for me and call me when they are empty. The buckets are 5 gallons so I figure if I can get a few of them I'll have some fermenters and I can add a spigot to one for a bottling bucket. Now I just have to wait on the guy with with the chiller to get back to me and I'll be good to go except for a hydrometer and airlock but I think he's got those for sale too.