Beginner Kit Advice

I'm fairly new to the sport, only been homebrewing for a year, so here's my opinion with a year's worth of hindsight...

First: I'd go with the 89.99 kit but personally I'd get it with the glass carboy. People will make points about carboys being more difficult to clean, possible breakage etc but I just prefer the glass. I like that glass is inert to cleaning agents, it's damn hard to scratch and leave a gouge for bacteria to grow in when cleaning, and I like being able to see what's going on inside during fermentation.

Second: I'd put the brakes on the kegging for now. See how it goes for a batch or two and make sure this IS something you want to invest the money in. Don't get me wrong, I keg my homebrew now but it's only because I got a steal on the keggerator/draught system and a 5.1 gallon sankey keg basically for free. But before yo get into all that, make sure this is YOUR thing.

And while you're at it, get good at brewing decent batch's that people other than you will want to drink before you start kegging it. I'm speaking from personal experience here, my first batch sucked out loud. It was a kit and didn't ferment down past 1.022 and tasted like crap....you definitely wouldn't want to keg that and subject you're friends and family to it.
Get your basic technique and basic chops down, then start kegging it for all to enjoy.

Third: Let you're local homebrew shop help you put together a nice batch. Who knows how long the stuff in a prepackaged kit has been sitting around...personally I'd rather have my local guy or friends who brew help put together the ingredients using fresh stuff.

Just my two cents from someone who was in you're shoes around this time last year. Good luck!

 

Me thinks the OP is expecting way too much ... way too soon.

Just pays your money.
Relax and takes your chances
Home brew ... don't worry

|-|0MebR3uu hAikUi

 

One step at a time

As much as a lot of people pooh-pooh bottling, it's not really that bad, and it gives you a means to easily share with other people as well as see how it changes with time. The only thing I will add is to see if you can get a bench-capper rather than a hand-capper - definitely worth it!

 

It doesn't seem bad, but it's missing a few important things.

1. You're gonna need a thermometer to know when your wort has cooled enough for pitching (and if you want to steep specialty grains at the start). You'll also want to verify the water temperature if you're rehydrating your yeast.

2. The kit doesn't come with any sanitizer, so you'll need to get some. I've only used Star San, but I like it a lot.

3. The kit comes with a regular siphon, but I think an auto-siphon would be a worthwhile upgrade. Easier to use, less chance of infection, and they're pretty cheap to boot. Maybe if you go in person you could pay the difference to upgrade? Should only be a few bucks.

As someone who's still pretty new to brewing, bottling is a chore, but not a terribly painful one. I get the feeling that the move to kegging is most appreciated by people who've bottle enough batches to be well and truly sick of the process. I hope to make the switch myself eventually, but I'm happy to see how bottling is done and get a feel for how to use priming sugar while I wait.

 

Nothing wrong with that brand, but as soon as I used a bucket for fermenting I knew I didn't want to use it. I like a clear vessel so I quickly moved up to Better Bottles. I skipped the whole glass carboy thing.

I'm like you: I like to jump in with both feet and then get overwhelmed.

BTW, you keep fish. I used to as well so you've got my curiosity piqued. I never liked the African cichlids but I'd like to check out yours if you have pics online.

 

I'm at my one year mark as well for homebrewing. The Northern Brewer deluxe kit has everything you need to start brewing www.northernbrewer.com I highly recommend them. All of their kits are made to order so you are grunted fresh ingredients. I would start with the bottling route. It's not as difficult and labor intensive as you might think. It also gives you more interaction with your beer and the process of homebrewing. I'm the same way as you. I like to dive into projects head first but understanding the process first helps you personalize it in the future. I'm also a chef. Brewing beer is perfect for people who like to cook. Just wait until all grain. That's when the fun begins

 

I guess people who bottle large batches of more than 5 gallons could get sick of the process, but I've not found bottling to be that egregious. Having said that, kegging is pretty awesome. Just open your "fridge", grab a glass (I always drink from a glass), grab a cobra/picnic tap and you're good to go. Major downside for me was the necessary chest freezer purchase, but if you have a space to store a tall keg or three...

 

Oh yeah. Completely agree. Bottling has its place. Even I bottle from the keg for competition beers. But I much prefer the 5 large steps of kegging to the "death by a thousand steps" of bottling, not to mention the complete control of carbonation volumes vs. the educated guesstimate of adding priming sugar.

 

...and no where is it written in stone you have to use 12 oz bottles.

Package in pints / quarts / liters ... saves time.

 

Yeah, to be fair, I tend to bottle as much as I can in bombers and pint bottles, which cuts down on the manual labor. For my batch of tripel, I'm probably going to use more 355 mL bottles, since that's probably how I'll want to drink that beer most of the time. Maybe I'll change my tune after I'm done with that one.

 

Yep, bombers and at least 16oz (aka 500ml) bottles, for me EZ Caps. I'm going to drink more than 12 oz anyway, so why package your brew in multiple containers?

 

1-L PETs are my prefered package 'cept 500 ml for barleywines.
Reusable caps last for years and years.