How to start homebrewing, kits?

[ercousin]

Hi Guys,

I have some spare time over the next 2 weeks and has hoping to spend a day or more making my first homebrew. I figure that a kit is probably the most economical way to start, but I'm open to other suggestions.

So far I've found two kit makers I'm interested in so far:

http://brewerspantry.com/index.php?rout ... ry&path=70
- This one seems to be only ingredients, no equipment...

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/beer-making ... -1-gal-kit
- 1 gallon kit, with jug, and other equipment. Seems to be the easiest way to go...

Available from chapters: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/gifts/Bee ... kwsec=Home

I would like my first brew to be an IPA, preferably with some west coast style hop/malt flavours.

[lister]

I'm using the Brooklyn Kits and they've been a good introduction to brewing. I plan to eventually stop buying the kits and do my own recipes later this year. I haven't brewed their IPA yet but that's up next.

[ercousin]

I'm using the Brooklyn Kits and they've been a good introduction to brewing. I plan to eventually stop buying the kits and do my own recipes later this year. I haven't brewed their IPA yet but that's up next.

Cool, it good to see the kit I'm leaning towards is okay. Are you doing the 1 gallon or the 5 gallon kits?

Did you have to guy any additional equipment? Fine mesh metal strainer for example?

Thanks for answering!

[grub]

kits can mean two things: ingredient kits (either all-grain or extract/partial mash) or starter equipment kits. you mention both, but it sounds like you need the gear plus ingredients.

i mostly buy from randy's homebrew supply shop, which is online plus a brick-and-mortar store in brampton. when buying sensitive things like hops and yeast, i always prefer in-person to having it shipped. likewise, it's sometimes nice to see the gear in your hands before purchasing. there's a few starter options here: http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... ory_id=192 and all sorts of ingredient kits on the site too.

several other shops around that are likely as good (i've heard great things about http://www.torontobrewing.ca/ in the past), but this is the only one i've shopped at personally.

[lister]

Cool, it good to see the kit I'm leaning towards is okay. Are you doing the 1 gallon or the 5 gallon kits?

One gallon. I live in a condo and don't have the space for five. I also only have a regular stove so five gallon is out (height issues and it can't get everything to boil.)

Did you have to guy any additional equipment? Fine mesh metal strainer for example?

Bottle capper and bottle caps. Fine mesh metal strainer. I have a fancy and expensive peristaltic pump at home so I use that for pumping but an auto-siphon will do fine (a lot cheaper too!) Star San sanitizer, it's no-rinse so makes sanitizing easier than what's including in the Brooklyn kits.

I've bought additional kits that were on sale to get extra carboys so I could have more brews on the go but they can be bought separately online from various sites. Brewers Pantry has them I think. I also bought a mini fridge for lagering.

[ercousin]

kits can mean two things: ingredient kits (either all-grain or extract/partial mash) or starter equipment kits. you mention both, but it sounds like you need the gear plus ingredients.

i mostly buy from randy's homebrew supply shop, which is online plus a brick-and-mortar store in brampton. when buying sensitive things like hops and yeast, i always prefer in-person to having it shipped. likewise, it's sometimes nice to see the gear in your hands before purchasing. there's a few starter options here: http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... ory_id=192 and all sorts of ingredient kits on the site too.

several other shops around that are likely as good (i've heard great things about http://www.torontobrewing.ca/ in the past), but this is the only one i've shopped at personally.

If I wanted to go to more semi-custom route I found these:

equipment kit:
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... em_id=1374

ingredient kit:
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... em_id=1029

I noticed that the equipment kit doesn't contain a kettle to boil in, which seems fair but runs counter to their claim: "Includes everything to get you started in the wine or beer making hobby except the ingredients".

Is there anything else missing from the equipment kit (from items listed)?


I'm still leaning towards the Brooklyn kit for my first time since it seems to have less room for deviation (in terms of equipment and process to be followed). That might be good for my first brew, unless the brewer's best comes with boil times, etc?

The Brooklyn kit lays out every step quite clearly:
http://brooklynbrewshop.com/directions/ ... ctions.pdf

I imagine most of the equipment they include isn't scalable up from 1 gallon batches though....

Thoughts?

[ercousin]

Cool, it good to see the kit I'm leaning towards is okay. Are you doing the 1 gallon or the 5 gallon kits?

One gallon. I live in a condo and don't have the space for five. I also only have a regular stove so five gallon is out (height issues and it can't get everything to boil.)

Did you have to guy any additional equipment? Fine mesh metal strainer for example?

Bottle capper and bottle caps. Fine mesh metal strainer. I have a fancy and expensive peristaltic pump at home so I use that for pumping but an auto-siphon will do fine (a lot cheaper too!) Star San sanitizer, it's no-rinse so makes sanitizing easier than what's including in the Brooklyn kits.

I've bought additional kits that were on sale to get extra carboys so I could have more brews on the go but they can be bought separately online from various sites. Brewers Pantry has them I think. I also bought a mini fridge for lagering.

I also live in a condo, so 1 gallon is starting to sound good. Once I get comfortable with that I can scale up.

Are you just using a standard pot as a boil kettle?

[lister]

I noticed that the equipment kit doesn't contain a kettle to boil in, which seems fair but runs counter to their claim: "Includes everything to get you started in the wine or beer making hobby except the ingredients".

There's an assumption, especially for the one gallon kits, that you have big pots at home already. Same with spoons.

The Brooklyn kit lays out every step quite clearly:
http://brooklynbrewshop.com/directions/ ... ctions.pdf

The Brooklyn instructions are good, easy to follow.

[lister]

I also live in a condo, so 1 gallon is starting to sound good. Once I get comfortable with that I can scale up.

Make sure you research about doing five gallons. I attended a hosted brew day at Black Oak back in November and the fellow doing the seminar was doing five gallons. I wanted to see what a five gallon setup looked like and how different procedure-wise it was to a one gallon setup. He remarked that a regular stove can't heat up a five gallon pot. He was using a large propane powered open flame heater.

Are you just using a standard pot as a boil kettle?

Regular pots. Nothing fancy. We use them to cook pasta and whatever else as well.

[ercousin]

I also live in a condo, so 1 gallon is starting to sound good. Once I get comfortable with that I can scale up.

Make sure you research about doing five gallons. I attended a hosted brew day at Black Oak back in November and the fellow doing the seminar was doing five gallons. I wanted to see what a five gallon setup looked like and how different procedure-wise it was to a one gallon setup. He remarked that a regular stove can't heat up a five gallon pot. He was using a large propane powered open flame heater.

Are you just using a standard pot as a boil kettle?

Regular pots. Nothing fancy. We use them to cook pasta and whatever else as well.

Ohh, 1 gallon it is then, I was just planning on doing it on my stove in my condo.

Do people really buy massive propane stoves for home brewing?

[markaberrant]

Ohh, 1 gallon it is then, I was just planning on doing it on my stove in my condo.

Do people really buy massive propane stoves for home brewing?

I used to live in an apartment condo as well. Started out making 3 gallon batches on my electric stove (they can't bring 5 gallons to a boil).

Then I switched to a propane burner on my 2nd floor patio and made 5 gallon batches. Easy peasy.

[icemachine]

I noticed that the equipment kit doesn't contain a kettle to boil in, which seems fair but runs counter to their claim: "Includes everything to get you started in the wine or beer making hobby except the ingredients".

Is there anything else missing from the equipment kit (from items listed)?


I'm still leaning towards the Brooklyn kit for my first time since it seems to have less room for deviation (in terms of equipment and process to be followed). That might be good for my first brew, unless the brewer's best comes with boil times, etc?

The Brooklyn kit lays out every step quite clearly:
http://brooklynbrewshop.com/directions/ ... ctions.pdf

I imagine most of the equipment they include isn't scalable up from 1 gallon batches though....

Thoughts?

Many of the ingredients kits require you to do little more than boil a few litres of water, and add a certain amount of cold water to dissolve some sugar and pre-hopped lme syrup and pitch the yeast in when it has reached the appropriate temperature.

In the above terms, the 2-bucket kit from CHBS is all that you need to do your fermentation and conditioning (this how I got my homebrewing start while saving beer money in college). If you wish to start hacking kits with steeped grains and extra hops you will need a pot.

Tap Phong and Honest Ed's can quite often have good deals on larger pots.

[Kekumba]

I really like Toronto Brewing. They have appear to have some 1 gallon kits available now. http://www.torontobrewing.ca/servlet/th ... tch/Detail - you'll just need a pot and bottles.

[zaireeka]

If you are starting with 1g batches I'd just get a 1g jug at the grocery store and add a hydrometer to your beer ingredient order.

For 5g batches I'd suggest just making your own kit and picking it up at the store. You'll need:

6.5 gallon bucket, lid, autolock and bung
5 gallon glass carboy (Better to secondary in glass)
decent thermometer for boiling
grain bag for mashing
Auto siphon and hose
bottling wand
hydrometer and jar
hand capper and caps
three cases of bottles
starsan for sanitizing
large pot

That's about the minimum of stuff you need to start. If you progress from there you'll need a grain mill, mash tun, propane burner and a huge pot. Those all get expensive!

[ercousin]

Thanks for all the tips everyone, I bought the Brooklyn Brew Shop kit for my first brew and am already planning on how I can expand to 3 or 5 gallon batches with a bit more investment.

My kit didn't come with a hydrometer, but I'm wondering if I should really worry about that for a 1 gallon batch. I'm reading "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" by Charlie Papazian and he says you need to extract a good amount of liquid from the carboy every time you measure, and then toss it (or at least not put it back in). I'm imagining my 1 gallon batch ended up as 0.8 gallons with only a few measurements. How does everyone else use their hydrometer, do you put the liquid back in (assuming you sterilized the hydrometer and container)?

Also does anyone use bleach for sterilization? Or does pretty much everyone use the specialized sanitizers like StarSan?