Time to order!

[RadicalEd]

So it's about time to place my big order and I was wondering if you guys'd take a look at what I'm ordering to make sure I have everything .

From morebeer (cuz it's the cheapest I found)
2 - 5 gallon Better Bottles $19 ea
1 - 6.5 gallon Better Bottle $23
3 airlocks $1 ea
8 oz of starsan 7.5
sample taker 6.75
stir bar (for DIY stirplate) 7
A few 1 gallon jugs for experiments, starters, and semi-bulk bottling

From LHBS (somewhat limited selection):
carboy caps
Fermometers
hydrometer+jar
siphoning setup
nylon bag

From elsewhere:
basic kegging setup (cylinder, reg, and 2 kegs)
18 flip-top bottles
Brewpot (too small for full boils)

Which leaves me short one critical component: ingredients! Can anybody recommend to me a good beginner's recipe or kit that's "in season"? I figure the earliest I can brew is the 15th, or so. If a kit, from morebeer would be preferred since I'm already ordering from them, but if there's a couple kits that are truly superior elsewhere at a comparable price, I'll appreciate the suggestion (I know a lot of people like AHS).

Also, what would you recommend as a good base for a newbie's ingredient stockpile? Sticking with kits would be waaay to expensive beyond short term. I'm thinking I'll be starting with extract and then shortly move on to PM (to get better beer and save a few bucks a batch).

Beyond that, am I missing anything? Thanks in advance for your response!

 

[Hemi]

I could also pick up a thermometer, wort chiller, beer line and air hosing for your keg, air and liquid disconnects and some PBW (you need a cleaner as well as a sanitizer) and would hold back on the stir bar/stir plate for now as its not an essential.

 

[gresc]

Did you get drilled stoppers ? More beer refers to them as "Stopper #X" where X is the size.
Also may want to get a carboy brush.

 

[Jekster]

Wow! And I thought I went big for my first purchase.

I have a few questions though. Are you confined to an indoor kitchen? If not, I would probably sub out the two small kettles for one large kettle and a propane burner.

If you do this method, I would also think about buying an immersion chiller. I've done two batches in ice now and wished I had bought an IC from the start. Yeah, ice water chills ok and all, but in the long run it'll cost you more money.

Also, you might want to check your morebeer.com cost versus midwest brewing supply. Yeah, morebeer gives free shipping, but their 5 and 6 gallon better bottles are $6 more than midwest! (morebeer currently shows $24 for 5 gallon and $26 for 6 gallon) That, and I had very bad luck with morebeer.com and my order. They only sent one of the three better bottles I ordered. It has been nearly a month since my order and I still don't have all my gear. As for Midwest, I personally haven't ordered from them although I have heard good things.

As far as ingredients, why don't you just buy them from morebeer or AHS and make your own recipe or use one here? I know people seem to like kits for ease of use, but I personally started with my own recipes or tweaks of others from around the internet. It really helps you to understand the process of creating recipes and what is involved more in the style. If you're looking for somthing easy, I would suggest Edwort's Haus Pale. It's a very simple recipe that involves PM, but that can be done in a kettle in your oven. If you want something even simpler make a hefeweizen using one of the recipes in the database. They are fairly simple, will finish quickly and don't require that much work at all!

Wow, I kinda ended up putting more into this post than I planned and it doesn't feel too structured. Let me know if you have anymore questions man. I just jumped pretty hard into this myself, but am happy with everything except my lack of a Immersion chiller which I'm going to fix very soon.

 

[Jekster]

Did you get drilled stoppers ? More beer refers to them as "Stopper #X" where X is the size.
Also may want to get a carboy brush.

No Carboy brushes for better bottles, that would ruin them....

 

[CharlieB]

and also get a big long stainless spoon. helps alot, especially once you do full boils

 

[rdwj]

Also, what would you recommend as a good base for a newbie's ingredient stockpile? Sticking with kits would be waaay to expensive beyond short term. I'm thinking I'll be starting with extract and then shortly move on to PM (to get better beer and save a few bucks a batch).

Kits are usually less expensive then if you order the ingredients separately. I'd start with a couple of kits that are similar to what you like to drink now. You'll get a feek for what makes sense to keep around.

For bulk purchases, hops from freshops.com are a great way to save a few bucks. Reusing yeast helps too.

 

[Hemi]

Did you get drilled stoppers ? More beer refers to them as "Stopper #X" where X is the size.
Also may want to get a carboy brush.

He went with carboy caps instead

 

[RadicalEd]

Wow thanks for all of the responses!

Hemi: I like the thermometer idea! There;s a no brainer for you! I'll grab some oxyclean and tubing locally, too. But a chiller is a little to much for me right now; since I'm doing partial boils I figure I can at least start by mixing with ice and put a chiller on my "to get" list.

Jekster: Yes, I'm confined indoors; I'm moving into a small apartment shortly and will need to do my brewing inside. I'll also price check against Midwest, but I added the BB's to my cart a while ago, when they were still at 19/23. I didn't know they had upped the price so much! And yeah, I hear brushes are bad news for BB's.

CharlieB: consider it added!

rdwj: that's kinda the thought process I had on ingredients; kits are more expensive than bulk but generally seem cheaper than ordering the ingredients separately. Thus, to me the real options are either to start by ordering bulk or start by ordering a few kits and then move to ordering bulk; buying individual ingredients doesn't seem to make too much sense.

Thanks for the replies! Keep 'em coming!

 

[SoCalBrewing]

Ive had all good experiences with MoreBeer.com. In fact I just got a pretty large order from them yesterday. I got 2x6 Gallon Better Bottles, 4x5 Gallon Bottles, Extra Carboy Caps, Extra Airlocks, some ingredients for beer, etc. No problems at all.

One huge note though. Buy a good liquid yeast if you go with a kit. It will add about 6 dollars to your kit, but will be will worth it.

Also, if your gonna do anything other than an ale, make sure you can keep the ferment temps right.

 

[Jekster]

Wow thanks for all of the responses!

Jekster: Yes, I'm confined indoors; I'm moving into a small apartment shortly and will need to do my brewing inside. I'll also price check against Midwest, but I added the BB's to my cart a while ago, when they were still at 19/23. I didn't know they had upped the price so much! And yeah, I hear brushes are bad news for BB's.

Ah, just keep them in your cart and I'm pretty sure they'll honor that price.

 

[Matt Foley]

I like morebeer. I have brewed and tasted the American Wheat, Irish Dry Stout, and German Hefe. The wheat and Stout both done with dry yeast and turned out great. If you like stout this is a fun one to brew and really tastes great (but not less filling . . sorry). I have their Belgian Pale brewing as we speak. Good Luck.

 

[RadicalEd]

Thanks for the feedback! Since there's been some positive response on the morebeer kits, I'm thinking I go with one or two of them. I like the idea of the hefe and stout, Matt; get the hefe going quick and then get the stout going so it can age for the winter months.

Beyond freshops, where do you guys buy your ingredients? Morebeer, AHS, Midwest, LHBS? Sadly my LHBS is fairly limited; they have your basic DME and a few grains, but they don't have a mill or anything fancy like that, so I'll either need to buy it milled or get a mill myself ($$$) when I get to PM.

Thanks again!

EDIT: oh yeah, about temperatures; I'm moving into a "first floor" apartment where I need to go down a few steps to get to my door; it's essentially like a basement. I'm hoping that despite our recent heat wave, it'll maintain a nice cool temp in there, and I'll have a wet t-shirt party if it starts getting too warm . But that's about the extent of my temp control; maybe the future holds better fortunes...

 

[RadicalEd]

Thought I'd toss up an update. Morebeer was out of 6.5gal better bottles, so I decided to split up the order between them and Midwest. By juggling around the shopping carts, I ended up spending a whopping $2 extra . But Morebeer was really slow to ship; I ordered on Sunday, got my Midwest shipment Thurs. (I screwed up the order so it was delayed a day), and Morebeer just shipped yesterday. I'm thinking that it would have been worth the extra $10 to buy everything via Midwest and have it all here this week...Oh, well. If I can go borrow some bleach, I can have some 1 gal batches of Apfelwein going by the end of the weekend, at least .

 

[ScubaSteve]

Man, I just saw this thread...I would have reccomended that you only buy 1 5 gal better bottle, and just get 2 6.5 gal primaries. You'll very rarely use a secondary...most beers are good with just the primary and then conditioning in the keg. You also could have put that money into getting a ported better bottle with spigot. Way easier.

 

[bandt9299]

I have never seen a 6.5 Gallon Better bottle, are you sure there not just 6?

 

[RadicalEd]

I think they are just 6 gallons.

Scuba, thanks for the advice, but I'm tentatively planning on having Apfelwein going pretty much constantly, and IIRC it doesn't produce too much in the way of foaming (is it krausen if it isn't beer? ) so it figured that a 5 gal would do fine with that. That, and I tend to like the heavier beers a little bit more, and they seem to benefit more from extended aging (and my keg space is very limited). But I'll keep your advice in mind and restrict any future purchases to 6'ers.

 

[ajf]

Stir bars and gallon jugs don't go together. (At least, mine don't).
The gallon jugs have a convex base which prevents the stir bar from stirring.

I'd also get a few more airlocks. At $1 per, they won't break the bank. You will eventually break one at the most inconvenient time, and the spares will save the day.

-a.

 

[RadicalEd]

ajf, thanks for the heads up on the stir plate. I hadn't given it any thought, and I'm kinda bummed about that...Flasks are so ridiculously $$$! I suppose I can try it at least; nothing ventured nothing gained!

Yeah, I picked up a few more airlocks while ordering. I plan on grabbing a couple at my LHBS soon as backups.

 

[ajf]

Certainly try it. I know mine doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that yours won't.
If it does work, let me know. I may need to build a bigger stir plate, or commission somebody to build one for me.

-a.