Hi! From Sunny California.

Howdy!

Well, I'm a total newbie. Long time beer lover. I've had the idea to brew my own beer for a very long time, over a year or two. I think people are tired of hearing me say "i'm going to brew my own beer on day". So I figured it's time to stop talking and start walking. I got a book(How to Brew) to give me some direction, but like always it best to have some experience to ask.

So my B-day(nov) is coming up and a gift to myself will be a beer making kit. I don't really see much difference in kits other then price. Any kits I should lean towards or stay away from?

Well I hope this is the place to be.

Alex

Welcome to HBT! Looks like our Cali section keeps growing! Where abouts in Cali?

iHeartBeer said:

I got a book(How to Brew) to give me some direction...

Click to expand...

Awesome, I think this is the first time I've heard this! Good on ya! If I were you I'd go with a basic plastic bucket kit because I KNOW that it won't be long before you want to upgrade everything anyway, so might as well start small & basic before you go crazy.

Austin Homebrew Supply has some good kits at good prices, and the owner of the joint is an active member of this community so if you have any questions he'll be more than happy to help out.

Welcome! Where in CA are you from? I would make sure that the kit has a decent sized brew pot, most kits don't come with them.

Welcome!


If you are anywhere near a MoreBeer! location you should hit them up! Otherwise, I would order from Austin Homebrew because the shipping will be cheaper and you will save on taxes.

Looks like we already scared him off.
Welcome to HBT. This is the place to be to learn about brewing.

Welcome. I just ordered my kit after hours of searching the internet for "best deal for the kit". I finally picked a morebeer.com kit. I think it all depends what you want to spend. I got their #4 kit for $315. If you don't want to spend that much, they have cheaper ones too. Austin HB seems a little expensive for the kits you get, but maybe that is just me.

Don't forget taxes & shipping. That can be a deal breaker at times..

Morebeer has free shipping! Austin HBS has $6.99 flat shipping, so both aren't bad.

Thanks for the welcome guys. I'll definitly look into those links for a kit. First I just want to learn the basics. I want to learn every proccess with a small simple kit. Crawl, walk, and then run. Hopefully I won't have to do much crawling. Then if all go's well then I can start dreaming of bigger and greater things.

I'm located in Silicon Valley.

iHeartBeer said:

Thanks for the welcome guys. I'll definitly look into those links for a kit. First I just want to learn the basics. I want to learn every proccess with a small simple kit. Crawl, walk, and then run. Hopefully I won't have to do much crawling. Then if all go's well then I can start dreaming of bigger and greater things.

I'm located in Silicon Valley.

Click to expand...

That's a good approach, on that we don't really seem much of... There's a bunch of us here in the Bay Area, If you'd like I'm sure one of us could invite you over for a brew session so you could see what it's like. Unfortunately I won't be able to brew for at least a month due to my schedule but I'm sure others will.

iHeartBeer said:

Thanks for the welcome guys. I'll definitly look into those links for a kit. First I just want to learn the basics. I want to learn every proccess with a small simple kit. Crawl, walk, and then run. Hopefully I won't have to do much crawling. Then if all go's well then I can start dreaming of bigger and greater things.

I'm located in Silicon Valley.

Click to expand...

If you are near Redwood City, I would be more than happy to help you out. You could come over for one of my brew days, or whatever works for you.

iHeartBeer said:

Thanks for the welcome guys. I'll definitly look into those links for a kit. First I just want to learn the basics. I want to learn every proccess with a small simple kit. Crawl, walk, and then run. Hopefully I won't have to do much crawling. Then if all go's well then I can start dreaming of bigger and greater things.

I'm located in Silicon Valley.

Click to expand...

Welcome from San Francisco! This is a great place to learn.. I'm on my second batch and it's not as difficult as it may sound sometimes.

I'm located in Mountain View to be specific. Thanks for the open invitation. That's really awesome of you guys.

I'm going to read thru the material first, which may take some time with all the other things going on. Once the b-day comes around I'll order the kit.

Thanks again.

I guess I better read the newbie threads now....

Welcome from El Cerrito!