Knowing what you know now, what would you buy starting out?

[Jaybird]

Myself... I would have just bought that 20BBl system from JV Northwest and called it good....O'well live and learn....

Cheers
Jay

 

[shutupjojo]

Fermentation temp control and a ph meter.

 

[EROK]

Here is what I have and I do not need anything else at this point other than brewing ingredients:

All my current equipment if I start from the beginning:

2 6 gal glass carboys (w/ brew-haulers for each)
2 5 gal glass carboys
1 6.5 gal glass carboy (for Hefe's etc.)
2 bottling buckets
2 fermenting buckets (one for 5 gal of Star-San solution while brewing) (one extra bucket)
2 hop bags
metal spoon
Silicone tubing for draining mash tun into brew kettle
10 gal brew pot
8 gal pot for sparge water
large size auto-siphon
10 gal Rubbermaid cooler w/ false bottom (to mash in)
digital thermometer
2-3 airlocks
Carboy caps w/ blow-off tubes for all
long plastic spoon
Strainer double mesh (Northern brewer)
3 piece plastic thief
hydrometer
refractometer
Barley Crusher
funnels -- small 8" and huge funnel for less spilling
9 cu ft chest freezer (w/ Johnson temp controller) for fermenting
Two tap fridge in garage w/CO2 and 2 keg system, 2 extra corney kegs
Stir plate w/2L pyrex flask (for yeast starters) (from stirstarters.com)
Oxygen system (from Williams Brewing)
Star-San
PBW (great cleaner)
DME (for yeast starters)
brewing salts

Started off with $400 with my 1st kit, now I bet I'm in for over $2K !!

Nice hobby !

 

[ciphin78]

Start out as cheaply as you can. Get a starter kit from NB. Brew a few times from start to finish and see if you think it's worth all the work. Don't waste your money until you know you're ready to waste your money.

 

[rack04]

I would have bought a larger brew kettle and mash tun.

 

[luvinit]

I would have bought a larger brew kettle and mash tun.

this is just a shot....but were you ever a member on clubstogie forum there was a member with your id

 

[EdWort]

Knowing what I know now, I would skip extract brewing all together since it is basically add water & hops and you are done.

I would find an All Grain Mentor and help him brew a couple of times to see the process first hand and learn about the required equipment.

You can start off with a batch of Apfelwein and learn a lot about cleaning & sanitizing of fermentation vessels and bottles, racking, bottling, etc. These skills transfer to making beer.

That's my two cents. I could have been making MUCH better beer 10 years earlier.

 

[tennesseean_87]

Look for free buckets at your local grocer's bakery, etc. You may have to do so extra cleaning, but you can't beat free!

 

[ABrewingApe]

How are those different/better than a standard fermenting bucket for half the price?

A bit late to check back in, but the answers are right in the original post: they're more heat-tolerant, so boiling wort can be poured straight in without softening/deforming the plastic, and they have a handle strong enough to lug it all around by. Handy, even if you're not carrying hot wort down a couple flights of stairs.

 

[luke2080]

I would have bought pretty much everything in the order I did, except I probably would have bought a better quality kettle for the stove. Now that I've been banished to the outdoors it's probably less of an issue.

This is the biggest piece of advise I have. I started with extract, and had a 5 gallon kettle for the stove top. But, this only lets you do half-boil extract batches. Of all of the beginner equipment I purchased, this is the piece that rarely gets used. (I now use it to fill my HLT with hot water outside, to save myself 50 minutes of water heating from near freezing temps, outside in the cold)

Get yourself a 10 gallon kettle (or 15 if you envision doing 10 G batches) and an outdoor propane burner. Don't waste buying the smaller kettles.

 

[jaynik]

A nice thermo, burner and big kettle to at least allow full extract boils.

 

[rack04]

this is just a shot....but were you ever a member on clubstogie forum there was a member with your id

Sure was.

 

[bighorn_brew]

Keggle, 10 gallon water cooler for mash tun, and turkey fryer...