New to Brewing...Equipment Questions?

[Meat101381]

Hi all! I'm new to brewing and have been researching for several months now. I also read the first half of How To Brew. I've done a lot of thought about it and I wanted to go straight into all grain. I just prefer to have more of a hand in the whole brewing process. I've watched a friend of a friend (not really helped) brew all grain and it helped me solidify my choice to brew all grain.

At this point I'm trying to get an idea of what equipment/supplies I actually need since there is so much out there. I have $500 or so to spend on the whole setup. I already have a brand new never used 10 Gallon Igloo water cooler. One thing to mention is I have a gift card to Northern Brewer so I need to get approximately $150 worth of stuff there. I don't mind purchasing other equipment at other stores if needed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Marc


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[Luis]

That is amazing, I started with all grain as well.

This is what I bought in order to start brewing (The basics), later on you can buy more things in order to accelerate the process or make it more simple.
This is what I bought and have been using I hope it helps, but I would like to remind you that there are many ways to do and approach the same processes.

I might have forgotten something, but here is the main equipment.

A key I have found is Patience, be sure to have it before you start brewing.


 Milling
You can crush the grains in different ways, but you have to remember that your efficiency might not be the same as if you were using a mill or you can buy crushed grains.
 Sanitizing

Oxi-clean
Star-san or Iodophor.

 Heating water

1. A burner – You can use a stove, so it might not be necessary, but believe me, it will save you a lot of time and effort. I decided to buy one after spending about 2 hours just waiting for the water to boil.

2. Brewpot – Stainless Steel is recommended, although I have been using an aluminium one since it was way much cheaper and I had no idea if I was really going to like brewing as a hobby.
Note: You can use one brewpot, but two of them will save you more time in the sparging process.

3. Spoon or paddle - large enough (stainless steel) but you can use a wooden one I believe.
4. Thermometer.

 Mash

1. A Mash-Tun. - You can search how to make a mash-tun on several sites (This is one of them).

 Sparging

1. A second brewpot so you can heat the water and do a proper sparge while draining the liquid from the mash-tun into the first brewpot.

2. A heat-resistant cup – So you can re-circulate the liquid (wort).

 Boiling

1. A stove or a burner.
2. A spoon or paddle.
3. Thermometer.
4. A scale will be of great help to measure the grams of your hops, etc.

 Chill

1. Something to chill the wort. I have been using a large container with buckets of ice, but I am planning to buy a wort chiller, which will speed up the process. Since I don’t brew that often I have been hesitant about it, but I know it will be cheaper in the long run, since you have to constantly buy bags of ice (at least in my case).
5. Colander – It is not strictly necessary, but it can help you to remove a lot of hops or you can use a hop bag in the boiling process.

 Testing
- Hydrometer
- Hydrometer test cylinder.
- A way to measure PH (PH test strips are your best option).
- Wine thief or something similar to gather the liquid from the fermenter and measure the gravity.

 Fermentation.

1. A fermenting bucket. (I bought two fermenting buckets of 7.9 gal, which have been of great help).

2. A bung or stopper.
3. An airlock.
4. An atomizer Not necessary although it is really helpful so you can spray and sanitize your equipment during the fermentation.

 Bottling
(I only have experience in bottling).

1. Bottles.
2. Something to clean the inside of the bottles.
3. Caps.
4. Bottle capper.

There are several options, here are two, depending on what you intend to buy and use.

Option no. 1

1. Auto-siphon.
2. Bottle filler

Option No. 2

1. Bottling bucket.
2. Spigot.
3. Bottle filler.

 

[torontosudz]

all of the above is great - +1,000,000 on the auto-siphon... this small ticket item will save you big ticket migraines.

 

[surffisher2a]

Buy two or three hydrometers. They break easily at the worst possible time.

Starting right from all grain isn't a big deal, its just a couple more steps and some equipment cost.

If you have a local home brew store they can usually mill your grains for you so you don't need your own mill right away. Once you do a few brews and your efficiency isn't where you want it, you may consider getting your own mill, but for just starting out on a budget I would cross the mill off the list.

If you really want to cut costs, you can do all grain with one boil kettle. What you do is heat all your strike water in the boil kettle and then add that to the mash tun and start your mash. Then you use a large kitchen pot you already have to to get that three or four gallons heated for your sparge water (you can use two smaller kitchen pots as well if you don't have one that holds enough). Then you can empty your mashtun into the boil kettle (the one you used to heat your strike water). This really isn't the ideal way since its a pain to work with all those small pots and you can potentially spill them, but for getting going on a budget its an option. You can always add another big brew pot when you get a few $$$ in the bank account.

Here is my basic list of what you need (I am sure I am going to miss something here)
Mash Paddle (I use a cajun stainless paddle I got on Amazon for like $20)
Large 10 gallon stainless steel pot to use as a HLT / Boil Kettle) (15 gallon would be better)
Turkey fryer burner to heat strike water and boil the wort
Large pyrex cup to transfer water from various vessels and for vourlaf
Campden tablets for getting rid of chorline type stuff in your water
A cooler converted to a mashtun with a drain
An immersion chiller to cool the wort after the boil
two Hydrometers
Auto Siphon device
7 gallon or larger fermenting bucket
Star San
Oxyclean
Digitial thermometer (instant read)
Some type of timer (I use an app on my phone)
A yard stick to you can measure the volumes of water in your kettles (you need to do this ahead of time and mark where each gallon goes up to on your yard stick.)
Food grade RV type water hose if you are filling from an outdoor valve.
Airlock with rubber stopper for your fermenter or a blowoff tube setup

I didn't read the list above me, so hopefully what I missed that poster got, and what they missed I got. So put the lists together and get brewing.