Beginner Brewer Looking For a Nice Kit

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IYO whats better?

I personally prefer carboys myself. There are a lot of horror stories on here about how dangerous glass carboys are though, so if you do get them, make sure you know the dangers before using them. Some people have been seriously injured.

Than said, I still prefer them. I use an ice bath to cool my wort to pitching temps (well, I start with an immersion chiller, but in the summer my ground water gets up to 75F, so it's hard to get it below 80-85...) I get it as low as I can, then transfer to my carboy/bucket (depending on what's free), and stick it in a water bath with some ice to help it drop to my pitching temp, and with glass being a better conductor, it goes faster to get it down to temp, and I find it easier to keep control of the temperatures during fermentation as well... at least, that's my experience.

On top of that, I can see what is going on inside the carboy, which is fun too :). If you really want to see what's going on inside, and have the safety of plastic, they do make plastic carboys, which are clear as well. For a lot of people, these are the best of both worlds.

With the clear ones, you need to make sure to keep any sunlight off them (wrap them in a towel or blanket), as sunlight will skunk your beer.

And again, while I prefer my carboy for most purposes, I do use buckets as well and they work fine, and if I'm going to dry-hop, I'll use my buckets as it's a lot easier to do. You can't really make a "wrong" decision here...
 
Nothing wrong with glass carboys if one is careful in their use....I've only had one break on me, and it was an unfortunate user accident.....bad allergies, a violent sneeze as I was moving it about my basement, it bumped the concrete floor, and the bottom dropped out....what a waste of perfectly good IPA...luckily it was an unfinished basement/laundry room, so there were drains in the floor to mop the mess into....it sucked, but no injury involved, just hurt pride :( Ever since the incident, I use a milk crate for transporting the glass, silently praying the bottom of the crate holds up...LOL....I use buckets for primary these days, but I primarily make meads anymore - not as "fun" to watch as a strong beer ferment - on the rare occasion I do make a beer, I primary in glass for the whole show :)
 
I prefer Pails with lid seals to ferment in. Lighter, stronger & easy to carry. I have a PET plastic better bottle of 6G size for secondary. Or primary if I want.
 
Ok so I did what you guys suggested. I went to my local shop and got all my equipment, or most of it I followed one of the northern brewers kits and it came to half the price. She specialized in wine so it was a little harder for her to understand but I got a free coopers kits from her that some one had ordered and left. I may buy 3 or 4 carbs that day just not sure. I want 2-4 nice recipe kits for a cheap price shipped to canada could you guys help?
 
You have to contact Midwest or Northern Brewer for shipping outside the USA. but being in MN, they should be able to ship to Canada pretty easy.:mug:
 
I've always bought my ingredients from ontariobeerkegs.com. The shipping is very reasonable and they have a high turnover so you know the ingredients are fresh. They have plenty of kits available, you should be able to find you like. Also, you could find a recipe you like and just buy the ingredients separately.
 
I just dont really know what I like so I would like something that others think is good so I can start trying stuff
 
Well, let's see...there's the cascade pale ale from midwest (PM kit). They have many kits in different categories, including 20 minute boil kits that're basically kit-n-kilo beers. The Irish red & ESB E/SG kits from Morebeer are damn good. I'm drinking them now. NB's Petite saison de eta' kit looks to be another crowd pleaser. That one's almost ready for fridge time.
 
What commercial beers do you like? It would be easier to recommend kits if we had an idea of what you like. Keep in mind you can pretty easily buy the ingredients separately and put together your own kit from a recipe. There are some very good recipes posted in the recipe section of this site. Also, although Northern Brewer doesn't ship to Canada they do publish all of their recipes online so it's easy to put the kit together yourself using ingredients from a Canadian store.
 
Well I know I enjoy rickards red and other dark beers like that

I use to drink bud lite because it was cheap
I liked moosehead
Didn't mind all my hipster friends hoppier craft brews

But I would say my favourite was rickards red but I want to try more stuff
 
Based on that if I were going to chose four kits from Ontario Beer Kegs I'd probably go for the Amber Ale for something close to Rikards. An American Pale Ale will be hoppy but not too hoppy, the cream ale will be nice and light and drinkable and the nut brown ale will be a little darker then the rest but still very drinkable. If you're not sure what you like you could always go with their 3 gallon kits instead of the 5 gallon kits. Those are just kit suggestions, keep in mind it's easy to buy all the ingredients yourself if you find a recipe you like somewhere else.
 
Im thinking about ordering
Amber Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit
American Pale Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit with Specialty Grains
Cream Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit
Nut Brown Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit with Specialty Grains
Toy Soldier Stout (5.25 gal) Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains, Oak Chips & Vanilla Beans

What do you guys think?
 
Im thinking about ordering
Amber Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit
American Pale Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit with Specialty Grains
Cream Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit
Nut Brown Ale (5.25 gal) Extract Kit with Specialty Grains
Toy Soldier Stout (5.25 gal) Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains, Oak Chips & Vanilla Beans

What do you guys think?

Are you ordering these all at once to get flat rate shipping? If not, it may be better to just get 1 or 2 at a a time. Milled grains and liquid yeasts don't stay fresh forever and it may take you a while to brew all 5 of these kits unless you have multiple fermenters.
 
Well I was planing on doing 2 at a time so it will only be about 3 months of brewing and yea I was thinking of shipping to make it cheap

im also looking at legging kits
 
Do you have a home-brew supply store within driving distance? Most of the ones in the Atlanta area carry both extract and all-grain kits as well as custom orders. They are also a wealth of experienced knowledge and can get you in touch with the local clubs.

My supplies are coming out just a touch cheaper if I buy locally and save the shipping plus I'm supporting a local small business. I've also run out of something just before brew day and being able to call it in for pickup can be a life saver. I also like getting my yeasts right out of the refrigerator and getting them right home as opposed to a few days in a cold pack in a UPS Truck. If a pack doesn't swell that I bought locally, I just take it back and get another.

Try a couple of kits at first and make sure you like the kit and their process. When we first started we tried kits from about 4 or 5 places and then decided to go to partial mash or whole grain. Once you have the process down, the extra steps in mashing open up a lot of posibilities.
 
ok so what kit should I look at like what companies have nice kits/are the kits I listed nice

and what other stuff do I need

and what recipe is nice and easier

Really like morebeer, austin home-brew, northern brewers as far as extract kits. Austin home brew has probably 100 or more clones of commercial beers in kit form and they are pretty darn good.
 
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