Oh.. just fyi...
Once you get bitten by the homebrew bug, you'll hear about making beer "all grain". Basically, no extracts and no kit. Only grain, hops, yeast and priming sugar. And, of course, a lot of water
A pretty good investment (maybe a couple hundred for specialized equipment), and instead of making 5 gallon batches for $40, you can get it down to half of that.
My ingredient list has me using about $8 in grain, $5 in yeast, $4 in hops, and negligible cost for priming sugar when it comes time to bottle. Burn some propane, but again, that cost is minimal per each brew. Extract kits allow you to use your home stove cause less water is heated... like 2 gallons or so.
Doing all grain will have you putting a brew pot on the burner, trying to raise the temp to boiling, a kettle with maybe 6-7 gallons of water! No stove I can think of has enough oomph to get that much water to boil.
My neighbor, who brought me into homebrewing, says that I'm 'ate up with it'. Yes, I've jumped in headfirst and am on my 3rd batch of going solo. He's on a once-a-month brew schedule, and we do that monthly brew together, 10 gallons at a time.
Only piece of equipment I still need is a grain crusher. My neighbor has agreed to crush grain any time I ask him AND this new brew supply store has a crusher too. They'll crush your grain if you ask em:rockin:
I just inquired about hooking up with the local Katy area homebrewer's club via facebook... they're called Cane Island Alers on fb. I think they're having a monthly 'get-together' on Sunday May 27th, basically at the corner of Morton and Fry at a member's house. Check out their page on fb... I'm going to ask if I can come and bring some of my homebrew
That poster in this thread, #6 calebawilson, is part of this CIA group. Ha... my last name is wilson too!
That is, I'm a cheap a** and I got EVERYTHING (except for the grain crusher) about as cheaply as possible! I also put together a list of every last item necessary to brew 'all grain'.
