Picking up the hobby again.

Hello everyone. First off let me say I've brewed 1 beer with a MR. Beer kit and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. That was about 6-8 months ago. Well it's time to get back into the hobby, as my cousin is VERY into it and has gotten me into it again.

Looking to buy my first really beer making kit this weekend, but don't want to spend a ton of money right off the bat. Any suggestions?

Careful it can be quite heavy.

But seriously, you looking for extract or All grain? And are you looking for equipment kit recommendations or ingredient kits?
Welcome (back) to the hobby.

Actually probably looking into doing a partial mash, unless you guys think I should do acouple more extracts first? I need everything as I just had like a 2 gallon pot before and everything that came with the MR. BEER kit.

Nothing wrong jumping in as far as you want. I only did 2 extracts, a PM, then moved to AG. It's not hard.

You'll need some sort of cooler for mashing. You could just use a muslin bag for mashing. Then a boil pot. I'd recommend a 8 gallon or larger. Then just a bucket fermenter. You planning on doing full boils or topping off? What about a heat source? Stove or Propane burner?

I'de like to get a burner. When boiling tap water will it take most of the taste out of it? I live in waterford, mi and the water is alittle hard. What is the second fermentor for?

I just got a kit from the local shop in my area. cost me $145. but i had some of the small stuff. Like a cap-per and some brushes. It came with a HME and every thing i need to make a batch of beer.

You let the beer sit in your primary fermenter for 3-4 days then transfer the beer to a GLASS carboy. its helps clear the beer and you get to watch it work.

if you're up for partial mash then I would say do the partial mash. Read up here and probably get a book so you truly understand what the techniques are.

Regarding the water, if you look in the brew science forum there are a lot of threads about water chemistry. You may be fine, but if you are mashing then water chemistry becomes more important. more for you to read up on...

There are 2 ways to do this:

A) I want/need it NOW!!!! This is the most expensive way to aquire equipment.

B)Take your time and hunt for deals/sales and classifieds (like CL) and scour the DIY section here.

What I did was an extract on borrowed equipment. Then set myself up for DeathBrewers easy All Grain stovetop partial mash followed by a split boil AG. (The link is stickied at the top of this section and there are links inside linking one to the other.) I really suggest that you at least read these through.

I did this because it was fairly cheap to get the equipment and it bought me some much needed DIY / bargain hunting time.

I will be brewing my next batch outside on all my DIY equipment (keggle and easy Rubbermaid MLT) so, I do understand a tight budget.

Welcome back!

barnyard said:

You let the beer sit in your primary fermenter for 3-4 days then transfer the beer to a GLASS carboy. its helps clear the beer and you get to watch it work.

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Generally, you should be leaving beer in primary for a minimum of 7 days prior to racking to secondary to be sure that fermentation is complete. Many of us don't secondary at all and leave the beer in primary for 4+ weeks to allow the yeast to clean to age and clean up byproducts from fermentation.


Welcome to back to the hobby!

I read the sticky on This vs That. I think I want to go with a glass carboy because I don't want to risk scratchs in a plastic bucket. Can I add flavors to the beer without adding fruit? Like a honey wheat.

KalvinKlein said:

I read the sticky on This vs That. I think I want to go with a glass carboy because I don't want to risk scratchs in a plastic bucket. Can I add flavors to the beer without adding fruit? Like a honey wheat.

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You can add fruit flavor using fruit extracts. A honey wheat will usually use actual honey.

Glass carboys are great but just be careful with them because its a disaster if they break. I've switched to plastic Better Bottles after hearing so many stories about people ending up in the ER after breaking glass carboys. I use Oxyclean to clean the Better Bottles so I don't ever have to put anything abrasive inside that may scratch them (e.g. carboy brush). That said, many people use glass carboys for years without ever breaking one.