Total Newb From Waco, TX

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Joshua79

New Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2022
Messages
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Location
Waco, TX
First and foremost, thanks to anyone who offers some advice/criticism…

My wife bought me a 1 gallon west coast IPA kit from Craft Beer as a gift for my first crack at home brewing. Pretty much a total success. Beer fermented well, and tastes delicious.

Needless to say it ignited something inside me and now I’m slowly procuring equipment to do my first 5G brew. I’ve read a lot of great threads on this forum, so I’m gonna continue my first 10 or so brews with extract kits to get familiar with the process. I’m all about IPA’s, Lagers and Stouts.

That being said, I now have…

2 Plastic 5 gallon Carboys (used)
2 Airlocks (1 used, 1 new)
Coil Chiller with pump (used)
Auto-siphon (used)
Hydrometer (used)
Star San
2 bottling sticks (1 new, 1 used)
24 new 12 oz bottles (I know I need more)
Bottle caps
Bottle capper
30” Stainless Steel mixing spoon (used)
BIAB bags (used)
Beer bottle dryer (enough for 3 cases of beer)
Mesh Strainer
All the tubing I could possibly need (used)

In my house I have the perfect closet for fermenting…temp varies between 68-72 consistently, and it’s totally dark.

What I still need is a brew kettle with spigot, a propane burner to actually brew the wort, and perhaps a sample syringe device. Looking for recommendations. Too many options online to just choose one and my local home brew shop is 2x’s the price of anything I see online.

Everything above that has “used” beside it is in pretty good condition. I acquired it all for $40 bucks from a guy here in town who just needed to get rid of his stuff. He also converted a keg into a brew kettle (with spigot and thermometer, but I’m leery to use it) and he gave me bottling buckets that I’m also a little leery of using.

Is it just me, or does it sound like I have everything I need, minus the brew kettle and ingredient kit, to get this party started?

I want my first 5G to be a Mosaic IPA.
 
Hey (delayed) welcome, I have some family in Waco. Cool place.

If you are decently strong, you can forego a spigot on the kettle. I have one on mine and almost never use it anymore. I just lift up the whole kettle and pour into my fermenting bucket, lined with a home depot 5g paint strainer bag to filter out hops, etc. Especially if you are doing extract and partial boils (since less volume and less weight).

Also, I'd encourage you to support your local shop as much as you can. Double the price is steep, but man when it's a brewday and you've forgotten something, it's sure great having them there. Plus there's no substitute for being able to walk around in the shop, physically look at stuff, ask questions, etc.

Welcome to the hobby. It's a blast.
 
Sounds like your start is similar to mine. I was gifted almost a complete setup from someone getting out of the hobby. He boiled on the stove top so I bought an 8 gallon brew kettle, cooling coil, and propane burner. I started with extract, but after my third brew I switched to all grain and wont go back. I only had one stuck sparge and oddly that was the one I used rice hulls which are supposed to prevent stuck sparges.

Don't forget to share a picture of the final product. Cheeers!
 

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