new. need advice (equipment)

Hi all,
My name is zack and I am new to the site as well as home brewing. I have been doing much research and before purchasing a kit figured I'd as for some guidance. I've looked primarily at Brewers Best, Mr Beer, and some kits from midwestsupplies.com. I was wondering which kits are better overall and also which are not good (lack pieces, bad quality, etc..). Also, I am wondering whether I need one or two carboys and what the pros/cons are... What about Better Bottles? why is the set cheaper and would you recommend? Finally, if you don't mind take a look at Compare All Kits :: Midwest Supplies Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies
and tell me which set youd advise for me and if none, where else to look.
One last thing. I am looking at some cobalt or amber flip top bottles. Other than price, any cons?... If it helps I am planning to start out with either English pale ale, amber ale, or some kind of ipa... please break and down and give me any feedback. Thanks a lot!

I would start with the Stickies read through them!!
Several members have put lots of work in to these

there are several just for the topics you are interested in !

-Jason

I'm pretty new to brewing as well. I've been at it for about a year now and have to say I am very satisfied with the hobby. I got my kit from Midwest. Went with the plastic bucket fermenter. I have been tossing around the idea of a carboy but the cleaning looks to be somewhat of a pain. You can check out Northern Brewer and Austin Homebrew for kits as well. I'm happy with the one I got from Midwest. I did break the racking cane just last week but I don't think it was due to faulty construction. I have used some Grolsch bottles a few times and they are convenient. I don't know of any draw backs to them other than price. As far as multiple carboys, that just depends on whether you want to have multiple beers fermenting at once or use on for a secondary. I use a Corney Keg for secondary right now. I would say that if you have the cash then another carboy would be a good idea as homebrew doesn't last long. At least, it doesn't in my house! HA! Good luck and I'm sure you will enjoy the obssession as much as the rest of us. There is a ton of good advice and experience on this forum so browse away.

Welcome! I bought my kegging kit from Midwest, and am very pleased. I drool over their catalog each night, as well...

Really can't go wrong with the starter kits from Midwest. The equipment is good and will last for years.

Hi Zack and welcome to a fun hobby.

I only use the cobolt blue in my mead making. I have not tried that color of bottle with beer, I have stuck to amber and brown bottles.

I would go with a kit from midwestern or from Austin Homebrew or your local homebrew store. I had the stuff from making mead so I just purchased a bottling bucket to make the setup complete. I think you will find that you will outgrow the Mr Beer quickly...

How many carboys to get? Well, how many can you afford? I currently have 8 carboys; 2 of the 6 gallon Better Bottles, 2 of the 3 gallon glass carboys for mead and 4 of the 6.5 gallon glass carboys. I am in a lucky spot this week, I actually have 2 empty carboys at this moment! I find that I like to brew about 1 - 2 batches per week to rotate them. I have lots of friends and like to keep the pipeline stocked with beers that need to age a long time (such as stouts and porters) and faster beers like pale ales and wheat beers. I find each 5 gallon batch makes about 2 cases plus a six-pack. If I keep 1 batch per week going, I can fill 4 carboys in rotation. I also have one bucket but I only use it when I am doing a secondary onto fruit...

You will find many opinions between if glass or plastic is better. I like my 6.5 gallon glass carboys better because I find I don't need to attach a blow-off tube with the amount of headspace left in the carboy. They are heavy as hell and it is a good idea to keep them in milk crates for easy lifting and keeping them from getting broken. I love the lightweight and non-breakability of the better bottles but you need to be careful with them and not use a brush to clean them so they don't get scratched. (Oxyclean is great for cleaning them) I always attach a 1/2 inch blow-off hose to the airlock and I have found that the blow-off tube is always a mess after the first few days.

I hope this helps you a bit. Read the past posts and you will get a ton of information! There are lots of great folks on this board! Their advice has helped me make some killer beers and make this a really fun hobby!

Whoah! Speedy and verrry helpful responses. Thank you all. Hopefully I will be able to get started soon!... Laurie, any reason you dont use the cobolt blues for bottling? Also, any specific brand of recipes anyone would recommend? By the way, it's nice to hear such positive things about Midwest Supplies.. it's the one I wanted to go with originally. Talk to yall soon!

If you don't have a LHBS close then I assume you will be ordering ingredients or kits. I have had great success with kits from Midwest and Nothern Brewer. I currently have a Northern Brewer Extra Pale Ale bottle conditioning and a California Common from them in the primary. You can't go wrong with either.

Hi Zach, Midwest will be great for you. Other than pricing, shipping costs and quality, I would say that proximitry to your location is something to consider when ordering. Shipping from Midwest to your location will likely take UPS or Fedex two or three days with ground shipping.
when you order yeast and hops, you need to remember that you don't want that in a hot truck or warehouse for very long.

Welcome!

sticcs said:

Whoah! Speedy and verrry helpful responses. Thank you all. Hopefully I will be able to get started soon!... Laurie, any reason you dont use the cobolt blues for bottling? Also, any specific brand of recipes anyone would recommend? By the way, it's nice to hear such positive things about Midwest Supplies.. it's the one I wanted to go with originally. Talk to yall soon!

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Cobalt blue bottles don't block light the way the brown ones do. You're much better off with the amber bottles.

sticcs said:

Hi all,
I was wondering which kits are better overall and also which are not good (lack pieces, bad quality, etc..). Also, I am wondering whether I need one or two carboys and what the pros/cons are... What about Better Bottles? why is the set cheaper and would you recommend?

Click to expand...

Hi Zack,

I'm a new brewer too... and bought a much more expensive kit from another supplier. My kit ran about $300 and the biggest things it included were large kettle with welded fittings, and wort chiller. My kit only came with one glass carboy and one bottling bucket. I've since added 2 more better bottle carboys, a cooler for doing all-grain, and a kegging setup (seems this hobby is addictive for most people!)

If I had it to do all over again... I would have bought either the "Brewing Intermediate Kit with Better Bottles", or the "Masters Brewing with kegging" kit from Midwest. Depends how much you want to spend. I think getting 2-3 fermentation vessels in your initial kit is good so you can have more than one batch going at the same time. I have both glass and better bottle carboys, and find the better bottle to be lighter & easier to move around, and I'm not worried about bleeding to death if I drop them. The glass one is my primary fermenter and is 6.5 gallon and heavy when it is full. The suggestion to use a plastic milk crate to move it is a good one.

You can always buy a 7+ gallon kettle and wort chiller when you are ready to start doing full 5 gallon boils.

Good Luck!

carnevoodoo said:

Cobalt blue bottles don't block light the way the brown ones do. You're much better off with the amber bottles.

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To elaborate a little more, light exposure makes beer taste skunky by causing a reaction with the hop compounds in the beer. That's why a lot of import beers in green glass have that skunky taste to them - they often don't sell as quickly and sit on the shelves under the flourescent light longer, and green, blue and clear bottles don't filter out the UV light like brown and amber ones do. For other beverages that don't use hops, bottle color doesn't really matter.

khiddy said:

Welcome! I bought my kegging kit from Midwest, and am very pleased. I drool over their catalog each night, as well...

Click to expand...

And here I was thinking I was the only one...

Actually I purchased the intermediate kit from midwest and am very happy with it. Though I did purchase the one with better bottle as I'm afraid i'd break or somehow have an exploding glass carboy on my hands (I know the probablity is low, but still).

Welcome to the board!!! There's been quite a few great responses already on the kits, so I won't go there. On the Grolsch bottles I do have an opinion. They are super cool and convenient at bottling time. HOWEVER, one thing to keep in mind (other than the cost, of course) is that because they have more parts and those parts (lid and lid gasket) come into contact with your beer, sanitation can become an issue. It's not impossible, and it's not too much more work than any other piece of brew equipment, but it would be easy to overlook. Those lids can be a great spot for bugs to grow if not rinsed right after use in addition to being cleaned and sanitized later.

I'm not recommending against it at all. It's just something else to think about.

Tsuyako said:

And here I was thinking I was the only one...

Actually I purchased the intermediate kit from midwest and am very happy with it. Though I did purchase the one with better bottle as I'm afraid i'd break or somehow have an exploding glass carboy on my hands (I know the probablity is low, but still).

Click to expand...

I have a kit from Midwest as well. I went with the basic kit since I have limited space available at the house. First batch went in the primary last saturday.

welcome!

just recently got into brewing myself (3 months ago). I did lots of pricing online, and i ended up getting a kit from windriverbrew.com. Found them to have a great price especially for including your first extract kit. From there I've purchased everything from austin homebrew supply or the LHBS here.

enjoy!

What recipes to recommend? Wow! There are a bunch!

That would depend on the kind of beer you like. Since I love beer, I have been trying everything from stouts to porters to IPAs to wheat beers to pale ales. My first few recipes were from the LBHS and they were extract recipes with steeping grains. 2 of my favorite kits I have tried were the South by Southwheat beer from Austin Homebrew Supply and the Irish Red from Northern Brewer. (My Irish Red was an all-grain kit).

If you haven't brewed before, I would start with an extract kit with steeping grains. Think a big grain teabag that you steep in hot water before you add your extract. It is pretty easy and the extract allows you to worry about other things (like sanitization and getting the brewing process down) when you are starting out. An amber ale or pale style will be ready a lot faster than a stout or a porter (mine will be aging for a while longer, they still have that green taste to them right now).

There are some good dry yeasts out there that can be used. Liquid yeasts usually require a starter and it would be a good idea to find a recipe where you can use a good dry yeast like Nottingham or the Safale to give you one less variable to worry about on your first batch.