TheCacheGuy
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Ok so I've been a wine maker for a few years. Looking to get into home brew. What's a good kit to start out with?
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Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Are you talking ingredient kit, or equipment kit?
As far as equipment kits, any of the starter kits from the online homebrew sites (Northern Brewer, Austin Homebrew Supply, Midwest, etc) would be a good place to start.
As far as ingredient kits, I'd check the same places and go with an ale kit for a beer style you like. I almost never brew kits, so I wouldn't be much help past that.
As far as equipment kits, any of the starter kits from the online homebrew sites (Northern Brewer, Austin Homebrew Supply, Midwest, etc) would be a good place to start.
As far as ingredient kits, I'd check the same places and go with an ale kit for a beer style you like. I almost never brew kits, so I wouldn't be much help past that.
There are equipment kits and ingredient kits. Which were you asking about?
TheCacheGuy
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Thanks, guess I should clarify. I'm going to add on to my wine making equipment. So is it better to find recipe or buy a recipe kit. And would be better to just buy a starter kit? And I have a few brew shops in the area to choose from. So getting equipment its no problem.
If you're already making wine, you should have a lot of the same equipment and be familiar with it already. Anybody LHBS should be able to get you anything you're missing. As far as ingredients, nothing wrong with putting together a shopping list from someone else's recipe, or just using a kit. If you want to pick up a copy of Brewing Classic Styles, they give award winning recipes for every beer style, all extract based with additional info if you want to do it all-grain. I use that book as a starting point for a lot of my own recipes. Picking up an ingredient kit isn't too bad either, but you want to make sure the kit is fresh. Old ingredients plus old yeast = not the best beer you can make. The online shops seem to have good turnaround and fresh kits (so I've been told), can't say the same for your local shops.
TheCacheGuy
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Thank you so much. And yes I do have most of the equip. I will check out some recipes.Qhrumphf said:
One of my favorite places to browse for ingredient kits is austinhomebrew.com. They have hundreds and hundreds of recipe kits, and if you know of a certain commercial beer you like you can even find a "clone kit" of that. I highly recommend them- good ingredients, fresh ingredients, and good instructions.
I would recommend making an ale, and not a lager until you have some experience with brewing beer and good temperature control. There are some great ales, of course, and depending on what you like we could give you some recommendations. Let us know if you like brown ales, stouts, wheat beers, etc, and we can help you pick out a recipe kit that is perfect for you.
I would recommend making an ale, and not a lager until you have some experience with brewing beer and good temperature control. There are some great ales, of course, and depending on what you like we could give you some recommendations. Let us know if you like brown ales, stouts, wheat beers, etc, and we can help you pick out a recipe kit that is perfect for you.
TheCacheGuy
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Thanks I'll check out the link.
PackerfaninSanDiego
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thanks for the link Yooper.they have my death beer .Stella Artois
Remember that Stella is a lager, so if you're not set up for lagers that could be an issue!
Most beginning beers are ales. Ales require roughly "room temperature" or cooler fermentation (cooler is better) while lagers require strict low temperatures in a narrow range for fermentation (48-52 degrees usually).
PackerfaninSanDiego
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Yeah I know.......I'm looking at getting a chest freezer once I make room for it in my garage. Is that the only difference between fermenting ales and lager, the fermenting temps?
There is a difference in the method to the fermenting too. You'll start with the wort a little warm (not every one does that) and let the yeast get started a bit, then bring it down to the proper fermenting temperature until it is nearly done. At that time you probably want to bring it to room temperature to dispell DMS (D rest) and then chill it to near freezing for lagering.
Do you mean DMS or diacetyl?
Also, you'll generally need a much lager pitch of yeast.
Edit: I mean larger, not lager. But I guess the way I had it isn't exactly inaccurate
Oops, I tripped over some terminology. It's diacetyl that I meant.
