Advice for Newbie. Good starter kit for price?

I've been searching everywhere for a good starter kit, under $175. I have never brewed, or known anyone who has brewed. So if you guys have any suggestions relating to my choice of starter kit, or any other aspect of brewing please post.

Here is the kit from northernbrewer.com:

$140 + Shipping
Six gallon glass carboy
Five gallon glass carboy
Six gallon bottling bucket with spigot
Funnel
Blowoff hose
Fermentation lock and bung
Siphon tubing
AutoSiphon
Bottle filler
Bottle brush
Carboy brush
Bottle capper
144 bottle caps
Beer thief
Thermometer
Hydrometer
8 oz One-Step Sanitizer
Complete instructions
2 x Fermometer
Extra fermentation lock
Carboy dryer
Bottle capper (ugrade to red "Emily" capper)
Test jar


Also... This kit comes with the capping equipement. Do you guys generally buy empty bottle from companies, or do you recycle beer bottles from beer purchased at stores? Will the caps fit the recycled store bottles?

Please the more suggestions about beggining brewing the better. I'm nervous about purchasing the correct equipement and my first batch.

Looks good to me! Welcome to brewing!

Two suggestions for you before my spiel on bottling:
What are you going to use for a brew kettle? If you already own a stock pot of at least 16 quarts, you're all set for extract brewing. If not, look into buying one that has a capacity of at least 30 quarts, preferably 36-40 (stainless, preferably, but aluminum is fine).

Take a look at the plastic "Better Bottles" available on most of the online supply shops. They work just as well as glass, they don't shatter, and you can install a spigot in them.

On bottling:
I keg primarily, but when I bottle, it's in bottles that I've collected by drinking commercial beer. I bought one case of 24 22 oz bottles when I first started, but I've been saving bottles since. As long as the bottles are not "twist offs" you should be able to re-use them. I also buy Grolsch 4-packs in the 16 oz flip-top bottle from time to time - it's not great beer, but the bottles make bottling a breeze (no caps or capper required).

Hope that helps!

looks like everything you need is there

get the bottles whereever you can there all the same as long as they have the bottling lip

Thanks to everyone who posted for the advice, and thank you beer4breakfast for pointing me to that post, it seems no matter how hard a search the boards for a similar question I don't find it.

I will be so excited when I make my first batch! I just moved from Oregon, which has some of the best beers in the world to Utah which most definitely has the worst. I tried to order beers online, which is apparently illigal in utah. So this was the perfect solution to my woes.

You guys have a great community at homebrewtalk.com. I will be sure to post how my first batch goes as well as help others when I get good.

Thanks again!

Midwest supplies has the best prices on equipment kits that I could find. They shipped out very quick on my orders too. www.midwestsupplies.com