What starter kit to buy?

Straight up noob here. My fiancé is buying me a home brewing starter kit for Xmas. I've been a die hard craft and micro fan so she thought this would be fitting. I have a stock pot, a dial thermometer, the bottles, and a 21inch metal spoon already. So I figured the best bang for my buck would be Midwest supply 99.99 dollar brewing starter kit.
What I'm asking is that kit a good kit for the items I already own? Would I just have to than get one of their ingredient kits and boom I can start brewing?
And for the ingredient kit I was thinking Fultons Libertine imperial red ale.

Thanks for your help!

Check craigslist. I found all my gear for $100. All you need to brew for your first time is, sanitizer, 5g ss pot, fermenting bucket or carboy, bottling bucket, racking cane, bottle filler, bottles, and I would suggest some hop bags and grain bags. You have everything else. Oh and don't forget the recipe!

I went with the $144.99 kit Midwest had but I didn't have pot or bottles like you. Honestly, you will find that a lot of people don't use a secondary on here (or atleast I'm one of them) unless you are dry hopping or putting something else in the secondary. If I were you, I'd go with the $64.99 kit. That would get you started and if you want a secondary, get a better bottle instead of the glass carboy. That would actually save you money ($64.99 + $25.00 = 89.99). Save you $10. Just my .02 on this.

Thanks all for the help. You guys know your stuff. Now If only Xmas was tomm im so ready to brew! But for now I suppose I'll kick back a few 2xmas by southern tier!

Slingshot068 said:

Straight up noob here. My fiancé is buying me a home brewing starter kit for Xmas. I've been a die hard craft and micro fan so she thought this would be fitting. I have a stock pot, a dial thermometer, the bottles, and a 21inch metal spoon already. So I figured the best bang for my buck would be Midwest supply 99.99 dollar brewing starter kit.
What I'm asking is that kit a good kit for the items I already own? Would I just have to than get one of their ingredient kits and boom I can start brewing?
And for the ingredient kit I was thinking Fultons Libertine imperial red ale.

Thanks for your help!

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Take a look at this (GREAT PRICE TOO) new complete starter kit from http://www.windriverbrew.com/apprentice.html
it comes with an ingredient kit too and they will even let you switch it for any one of their other kits.

I just picked one up to replace some of my equipment, nice people to deal with and you can't go wrong with this kit.

Cheers
and welcome to brewing!

I would absolutely pay a few bucks more for an autosiphon as opposed to a cane + tubing alone.

Also, make sure you have some kind of vessel big enough to easily soak all your gear in sanitizer. For example, that 21" spoon... got something it can lay flat in? The racking cane or autosiphon is also pretty long.

Great to have you Sling. Look forward to seeing you around!

Check your local brew shop to see what they have to offer. They may be flexible and build a kit around what you already have so you save money. My wife took me to our LHBS and they were charging $150 for a starter kit plus 10% off entire purchase for first time buyer. My kit was everything from the temp tape, carboys, bucket, tubing and the rest of the works.

Just like what DrewBrew said, there's really no need for a secondary, but I like to use it for dry hopping or running a second batch so there's ways to work with having 2 bottles/buckets.

Just take a look around locally before you really decide. Never know if you can work a better deal and mostly get more helpful info.

EDIT: Welcome to homebrewing and best of luck!

The 99 kit from midwest + a bottle of starsan + a spray bottle. Make just enough starsan to fill the spray bottle, spray everything to sanitize.

Also, a little bottling trick, cut off just enough of your siphon hose to attack the bottling wand to the bottling bucket valve. Then you can just set the bottling bucket on a counter with a chair in front and go to town bottling.

When I started I got the kit from http://www.homebrewit.com/ (which is local to me) and it came with a ingredient kit for the same price.

Horseflesh said:

I would absolutely pay a few bucks more for an autosiphon as opposed to a cane + tubing alone.

Also, make sure you have some kind of vessel big enough to easily soak all your gear in sanitizer. For example, that 21" spoon... got something it can lay flat in? The racking cane or autosiphon is also pretty long.

Click to expand...

I actually was thinking about that. I have a large cooler that the lid broke off. I never tossed it out and that's like 32 inches long.