Intro and a Question on longterm value of kits

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purist

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SO, I'm jumping full in. I just started drinking beer a year ago, I''m 30. Just for what ever reason, didn't get into it, mostly social stigma.

But, I am now a junky, with nothing new I haven't tried being safe. Rarely get sloppy drunk...but man, a beer for breakfast no longer sounds weird.

At the moment I'm loving Brown Ales, though Hefe is a close second... I had a pumpkin ale that I loved a year ago, and of course I cant find it. The michelob one doesn't count. So, I have decided that living in the sticks is a perfectly good reason to brew my own beer instead of relying on the guys in town to import something from the coast.

I'm diving in price be dammed. I am thinking I'll be buying this kit

http://www.breworganic.com/deluxe2stagebrewery2glasswithorganicbeerkit.aspx

Any thoughts on sustainability issues? What other toys would I want or need to really jump in? I will likely want to have a couple of batches in the works at any point in time, so what else will i need? And how long will this last?

And what if I want to jump into all grain brewing, how much of this kit will transfer?

Thanks guys for letting a greenhorn jump in this way. :mug:

Dan
 
that looks like a great kit. but i think if you pieced a kit together yourself it would end up being cheaper. just an opinion though, going by what i have bought from my local home brew store. but that will last forever. you just gotta buy more caps and stuff like that in the future
 
That kit would get you rockin' no sweat. All those things will also be good for AG batches. If you plant on having a couple batches going at all times another carboy or two would really help, that way you will have secondary fermenter if you choose to bulk age or dry hop anything. If and when you want to get into AG batches you will need to buy/make a mash tun. Tons of info on them here. Oh, and you will also need a burner if you intend to do full wort boils.
 
thanks for the quick responses!

I wanted stainless steel and Glass... so thatw was one the big motivations behind this kit.

I'll look around and see if I cant come up with a cheaper pieced together option. It is nice though to have someone else do the thinking for me!
 
Ouch. This is pricey. Very pricey, and probably unecessary. You don't even have a bottling bucket in there and it costs 300$ ?

What you need, basically, to brew beer from kits is:
a) Primary fermenter: can be glass or plastic, doesn't matter
b) Bung/airlock
c) Hydrometer with test tube (you can use the tube the hydro comes in)
d) Food grade tubing and racking cane
e) Bottles
f) Boil kettle: since you can start out with partial boils, 5 gal can be enough and can be had for 20$.
g) Bleach (many people on here knock it, but if you use the right concentration, even the maker of StarSan recommends it)

Cappers can be rented and many places will just lend it to you if you buy stuff there.

Then you have nice things such as a bottling bucket with spigot, bottling wand, etc. But I doubt you'll need a fancy hydro and all-cotton grain bag right from the start. Secondary is optional. You'll brew far better beer if you just keep it clean, sanitized and fermenting on the cool side than if you start with a million gizmos and tyr to use them all. Even a wine thief is probably a "luxury" if you just ferment in buckets: just dunk a sanitized mug to get the beer for your FG reading.
 
I got the $100 kit from Costco back in March. Aside from bottles and caps, it came with everything I needed. Everything I've bought after that is just toys.

It had all the minimum quipment. I agree that anything after that are just toys and are luxuries. +1 to jfr1111's post.
 
jfr1111 said:
Ouch. This is pricey. Very pricey, and probably unecessary. You don't even have a bottling bucket in there and it costs 300$ ?

What you need, basically, to brew beer from kits is:
a) Primary fermenter: can be glass or plastic, doesn't matter
b) Bung/airlock
c) Hydrometer with test tube (you can use the tube the hydro comes in)
d) Food grade tubing and racking cane
e) Bottles
f) Boil kettle: since you can start out with partial boils, 5 gal can be enough and can be had for 20$.
g) Bleach (many people on here knock it, but if you use the right concentration, even the maker of StarSan recommends it)

Cappers can be rented and many places will just lend it to you if you buy stuff there.

Then you have nice things such as a bottling bucket with spigot, bottling wand, etc. But I doubt you'll need a fancy hydro and all-cotton grain bag right from the start. Secondary is optional. You'll brew far better beer if you just keep it clean, sanitized and fermenting on the cool side than if you start with a million gizmos and tyr to use them all. Even a wine thief is probably a "luxury" if you just ferment in buckets: just dunk a sanitized mug to get the beer for your FG reading.
Click to expand...

i used to use only glass carboys for fermenting. but i switched back to the plastic bucket fermenters for 2 reasons 1: not a lot of light can get to the beer so you really don't have to worry about keeping it in a dark place covered and all. i just put mine in the closet. and 2: it's really east to get a hydro reading...just drop it in
 
It looks like the Coopers kit has a really nice fermenter, a color coded hydrometer, as well as PET bottles, bottling wand and carb drops. Even if you want to do more advanced brewing than prehopped Coopers kits, it doesn't hurt to just try the one that comes in the box and move on to more sophisticated recipes after that.

I don't have their kit, but I kind of wish I had gotten it when starting out.
 
I tend to agree with the other folks in that the price seems high. I have been brewing for about 3 years now, and I use the same plastic bucket fermenters. They store well (stacked on one another), and they don't break if you drop them 2 inches or more from the ground. The handles are important as well. This comes in handy when I am 5 beers in to my brew session and want to start transferring into my fermenter buckets. I'd consider the kits from Northern Brewer to save a few bucks.

I just think your money is better spent elsewhere.....like on kegging equipment.

If you get the kit that you have listed, I don't think you will be disappointed, but you may be broke. :)
 
+ 1

jfr1111 said:
ouch. This is pricey. Very pricey, and probably unecessary. You don't even have a bottling bucket in there and it costs 300$ ?

What you need, basically, to brew beer from kits is:
A) primary fermenter: Can be glass or plastic, doesn't matter
b) bung/airlock
c) hydrometer with test tube (you can use the tube the hydro comes in)
d) food grade tubing and racking cane
e) bottles
f) boil kettle: Since you can start out with partial boils, 5 gal can be enough and can be had for 20$.
G) bleach (many people on here knock it, but if you use the right concentration, even the maker of starsan recommends it)

cappers can be rented and many places will just lend it to you if you buy stuff there.

Then you have nice things such as a bottling bucket with spigot, bottling wand, etc. But i doubt you'll need a fancy hydro and all-cotton grain bag right from the start. Secondary is optional. You'll brew far better beer if you just keep it clean, sanitized and fermenting on the cool side than if you start with a million gizmos and tyr to use them all. Even a wine thief is probably a "luxury" if you just ferment in buckets: Just dunk a sanitized mug to get the beer for your fg reading.
Click to expand...
 
great thoughts guys, exactly what I needed to hear.

Thanks for the lists to, on your projected needs. Money isn't really the issue, though one always wants to get the most bang for his buck.

jfr1111, This list is useful. BUT I see some issues (for me), tell me where I'm wrong.
I want a secondary fermenter, i would like the cleanest beer possible. Also, I need another fermenter after that, since I want to be able to do simultaneous batches of brew. eh?

AS far as materials used...I'm not normal. My wife and I are very natural. To illustrate, we eat only natural, wild, organic food. As such, plastic, where possible, is out of the question. To me there's got to be a reason why everybody from Sam Adams to Samuel Smiths are only using glass bottles for their beer, not plastic or aluminum (allowing that I keep the glass covered to reduce light). Milk and wine always taste better stored in glass over plastic. And after fermenting for days in plastic, who knows what parts of the plastic we actually end up drinking.

Most here likely either don't think that it matters or flat don't care, and that's entirely fine with me, to each their own. But I'm sticking with steel and glass. Please don't think the input isn't appreciated though, cause it very much is. I don't care much about the Environmentally-sound debate, just a matter of taste and knowing exactly what is in my beer.

So, with that I'll likely look over your list and see what I can piece together on the market to fit my projected needs. I'll post it here for your thoughts before pulling the trigger.

Again, thanks a TON for your help. IT is very much appreciated, even if we disagree on a couple things.

Dan
 
Looks like a good kit. I use all glass in primary and secondary and its fine. I got some great deals on carboys and I don't need to save money on buckets.
I'd also say if money is not an issue just skip the bottling and go on to a kegerator and corny kegs. So much easier.
 
One thing you will learn after reading a few threads here is that a lot of people don't use a secondary at all. Not unless they are bulk conditioning. You can easily leave a beer in the primary for a month with no ill effects.
 
No offense taken at all, I was just pointing out that the kit includes items wich are probably marked up 200% while omitting others wich are pretty much a necessity. I know you don't like plastic, but hear me out: you will regret only having two glass carboys come bottling time. Why ? You need to prime the beer.

So let's say you go with the kit and have two glass carboys. You funnel your beer, pitch the yeast, everything is fine. You rack to secondary and pitch the new brew on top of the old yeast or clean the carboy and pitch as normal. Now what ? How do you prime your beer wich is in the secondary when you want to bottle it ? Glass carboys have small openings and you are supposed to stir the beer as little as possible... This is where a plastic bucket will do (or even just a big stainless kettle): you rack from the scondary on top of the priming solution and it gets mixed in. Primary fermentation in glass carboys is very, very common. Bottling from them, less so. Still doable, but it'll be a hassle.

The brewing techniques also have changed in the last 3-4 years. Rackign to secondary used to be regarded as the only way to get clear beer. Now, most people just wait 3-4 weeks in the primary to let the yeast floculate to the very bottom and rack to their bottling bucket, leaving most of the nasty trub behind, with identical results and less risk of infection, mishap (such as an early secondary halting fermentation). It's a matter of preference really: my LHBS probably produces 100 gallon of beer for clients and he still swears by the 1-2-3 method. Most of that is fear of boogeymen such as autolysis, but it seems to be working well for him.
 
JFR1111 has some great advice in this thread. I hear you about not wanting to use plastic, but I have and food great plastic stands up to me dumping in boiling wort. I would reccomend you get a plastic bucket just for bottling like JFR advised. The beer sits in there an hour tops so that should aleviate your fears of plastic.

Or an alternative method to a bottling bucket that suits your antiplastic desires would be to get a 7.75 gallon stainless steel sanke keg (the kind distributed by Anheiser Busch, etc). You can cut the top off of it and fit in a stainless steel ball valve.

Or you can add a stainless steel ball valve to your brew pot to make transfering from the kettle to the fermenter easier...then when it is time to bottle you can use it with a "diptube" as a bottling bucket
 
With a 6 gallon primary you're defiantly going to want to get a blowoff hose, otherwise you might have a beersplosion, and thats only funny to other people!
 
I see the importance of a bottling bucket, and can see the value in it. I am wondering then, in your opinion, is it better to not use a secondary fermenter, choosing rather to wait? Does that process take a couple weeks longer then using a secondary? OR does just waiting another week or so in the primary, remove enough particles to equal the use of a secondary? or is the only argument against a secondary that of cleanliness?
 
i like to use a secondary to let the beer clear and dry hop. This debate has raged on this thread and will continue to be an issue in the near future. Some people transfer to secondary and some people do not. A beer that sits in a primary for 21 days is as good as a beer that sits in the primary for 10 and a secondary for 11. The only downside to using a secondary is possible risk of contamination and extra cleaning/sanitizing. I like to use a secondary also to bulk age beers. And i like to look at how clear it is. Ok, ok I just like to look at it in general, cloudy or clear.
 
If I had the opertunity to do it all over again I would...

1. buy a boilermaker and a turkey firer, or bilchmans burner with legs
2. a couple glass carboys
3. fridge of craigslist and keg everything

You are going to spend some coin but trust me quality gear in the long run is less expensive...
 
party bible, thats the kind of advice Im looking for.

what about for the brew pot, etc? nail it down. Thanks again everyone.
 
For me starting off its the KISS method....Keep It Simple Stupid............starting with the Coopers kit..........if I really get into it all I have to due is pick up the pots
 
Party Bible, I see now, the turkey frier IS the brew pot... that was stupid.

sounds easy enough.
famous last words.:tank:
 
Here's my starter gear.

Immersion Chiller bought on ebay: $35
Keggle with Ball Valve purchased at a local Homebrew Club: $75
6.5 Gallon and 5 Gallon Carboys purchased at local Homebrew Club: $40
Wing capper given to me by friend that went to Kegs: Free
Turkey Fryer broken on CL fixed with new Gas Orifice: Free + $2.50
Bottling Bucket, hoses, bottle filler, hydrometer, thermometer, spoon: ~$50
Sanitizer: $15 for 1 gallon of Iodine from Tractor Supply
Keep looking, I recommend finding a homebrew club, lots of deals can be had plus you may meet someone willing to help you out with your first brew, that helped me immensely.
 
Homebrew clubs and Shops are pretty much out of the question in my neck of the woods.

Electricity is a blessing at times....

Yeah, i'm going to look into some used gear I think. I like the turkey fryer idea.
 
mlanoue said:
It looks like the Coopers kit has a really nice fermenter, a color coded hydrometer, as well as PET bottles, bottling wand and carb drops. Even if you want to do more advanced brewing than prehopped Coopers kits, it doesn't hurt to just try the one that comes in the box and move on to more sophisticated recipes after that.

I don't have their kit, but I kind of wish I had gotten it when starting out.
Click to expand...

I started with this kit, didn't like the beer that came with it but the bucket is nice and so was the hydrometer before it met the garage floor...
 

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