Can you build your own equipment kit?

[spydrpunk182]

Could I put together an equipment kit from scratch? If so would it be cheaper than buying one online? There aren't any home brew stores near me so that's out.

 

[rack04]

Could I put together an equipment kit from scratch? If so would it be cheaper than buying one online? There aren't any home brew stores near me so that's out.

Sure you can build one yourself. Do a little research to find exactly which components you need and begin piecing one together. When I did my research I found the kits to be slightly cheaper.

 

[tjpfeister]

A lot of the kits are very reasonably priced and it can become difficult to bring costs down that low when buying things piecemeal. Of course going the piecemeal route allows you to spend time hunting down each item and allows you to eliminate items you may not need or upgrade others immediately. If you plan on kegging there is no need for a bottle capper or bottle brush for instance. Carboy brushes too, practically useless if you have a water heater and sprayer on your sink. So either way works really.

 

[Revvy]

You can walk into many homebrewshops and ala cart a kit as well. For example why pay for a glass secondary anymore, when the trend is getting away from suing them, I'd get two fermenter buckets instead. Plus many kits don't include an autospihon...I'd opt for that rather than the traditional siphon setup.

 

[BendBrewer]

The basic kit is probably better to just buy a complete kit.

It is the kit(s) after the basic one that you will end up piecing together. Trust me.

 

[spydrpunk182]

Thanks everyone...

 

[anchorandoak]

hey spydrpunk, you're only a few miles away from me! i work in scranton! contact me, I can help you out and get you started!

 

[ongreystreet]

I just built my own kit, I thought it had a lot of advantages.

1) The kits are ambiguous in their descriptions, such as:

Tubing (what size, how much, is it enough, cause 5' kinda sucks)
Funnel (do you need one? How big is it? Does it come with a strainer?)
and so on....

2) Fermentation vessels.

They don't always provide what you want, buckets, glass carboys, better bottles, a combination of these, and so on.

3) they ain't ways cheaper

Just a fact, price out what you want, and get someone to go over your list, i think it will work out better, assuming exactly what you want doesn't happen to be exactly what they provide.

 

[anchorandoak]

I will help you go figure out what you need and help you find it locally. I did it so I know I can help you! In fact, I am brewing this weekend so why don't you come and watch? I can show you what it entails so you know what each piece of equipment does and understand the process better.

 

[BrewThruYou]

I was at my LHBS when they were putting together the kit. The guy mentioned that it's about $7 cheaper for the kit than buying individually ($65 vs. $72).

The kit included primary pail, lid w/ grommet, 3pc airlock, bottling wand, autosiphon, bottling bucket, bottle brush, capper, caps, stick-on thermometer, hydrometer, 5oz of priming sugar, and 10pack of c-brite.

Since the included capper isn't that great and c-brite sucks, it might be better to do it ala carte.