New brewer

[Mcody014]

Hey guys my name is Mike and I live on Long Island NY and have been wanting to take the plunge to start home brewing so I just bought this home brewing kit for $250 off Craigslist what is everyone's thoughts ? Was it a good deal ? Here's a pic of the ad of what was included in Craigslist and a pic of the setup. I'm starting off with a summer ale all extract kit I was thinking about adding 12oz of honey at the last 5 mins of boil .. Any pointers ?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I'm no expert, but it looks like a great start to me....

And welcome to the forum! Lots of great people here who will be able to help you learn to use it and get the best from it.

 

[corkybstewart]

Welcome to the site and to the addiction.
Adding 12 oz's of honey(is that volume or weight, I love the English system) in the boil will really do nothing but give you a slight sugar increase. If you want honey flavor, ad it in the fermenter. It will still pretty much ferment out but you might get some honey flavors if you use enough.

 

[Calypso]

Looks like a great deal! I can't tell how big the buckets are. For 5 gallon batches, I recommend the 6.5 gallon Ale Pails. I'm also not sure what that big bottle is...? It's not a Better Bottle.

Re: Honey, as corkybstewart says, all that will really do is increase your fermentables slightly. If you want honey flavor, I'd probably use some honey malt. And honey, why not! Double the honey, double the fun.

 

[Sourz4life]

Yea, it was a good deal.

 

[ncbrewer]

Looks like a good kit for extract brewing. I don't see a hydrometer - you should have one. I use a bottling hydrometer for checking final gravity, checking it twice to be sure it's stable. Can't tell what he had in mind for the buckets. The wide mouth fermenter should be a good primary fermenter - generally no secondary is needed. Then one of the buckets would be for bottling. I don't know about the second bucket. They're generally not used as a secondary, even by those who use a secondary - need to minimize air space. And if your cooling water is warm in summer, you'll need to make some kind of arrangements for getting the wort down to mid 60's.

Welcome to HBT.

 

[schatzke]

Welcome to the hobby! Looks like you have most of what you need to get started.

 

[schatzke]

@ Calypso it is a fermonster. Similar to the BMB.

 

[Civicrice17]

Can't tell what he had in mind for the buckets. The wide mouth fermenter should be a good primary fermenter - generally no secondary is needed. Then one of the buckets would be for bottling. I don't know about the second bucket.

I actually use two buckets during my brew day. The bucket that he bought without a spigot is great to fill with sanitizing solution, sanitize everything in it and keep it full throughout the day to sanitize anything you may have forgotten and I personally sanitize my bottles on brew day. The second bucket with the spigot is a great way to do a fly sparge, I just add my hot water to the bucket and set it above the mash tun and open both spigots enough to match the flows.
Also, there is a what looks to be a copper wort chiller on the left side of the table.

It looks like a good deal to me, you should be able to get your start right, I wish I would have done the same.

 

[corkybstewart]

For 12 years I used buckets with spigots for fermenting, the spigot really makes transfers and testing easy. But if that's a 5 gallon bucket use the spigot bucket as a bottling bucket, you'll need at least 6.5 gallon container for a fermenter.

 

[Calypso]

@ Calypso it is a fermonster. Similar to the BMB.

Oh, neat. I wonder if I could fit my giant meathooks in there. I got rid of my Better Bottles because I couldn't get the crusted on hop debris and krausen cleaned off the inside.