Best Home-Brewing Equipment

If you use a better bottle or big bucket, which are both solid choices, the kettle/burner will prob be your biggest startup investment. Outdoor or indoor?, temp control fermentation?, batch size?

 

Have you got a chance to start pursuing John Palmer's How to Brew? It is cover to cover full of info. If you are more of a look before leaping guy, it will save you time and money to read up on it before hand.

 

Seconded. Such a great starting point.

 

... depends entirely on your home brewing goal(s) ... budget ... and dedicated brew space.

More info would produce more better answers.

 

I'd say a kettle for boiling 6-7 gallons of wort (to achieve a 5 gallon batch) will be your biggest expense. For fermentation carboys are relatively inexpensive, buckets are even cheaper.

 

Just so you know, 70 degrees ambient is too warm to ferment most beer styles. The liquid will end up 5-10 degrees warmer at the peak of fermentation, and that will give you off flavors in most cases. You could probably make saisons or some other Belgian beers, but do some research before brewing to be sure.

 

@UpstateBrewer28 , I second the advice to read Palmer's 'How to Brew' if you haven't yet.

I'll tell you the areas that you SHOULD spend the most on initially:

Fermentation chamber with external thermostat regulator (ie. chest freezer with Johnson controls thermostat regulator)

Stir plate with Erlenmeyer flask for making yeast starters

pH meter (if doing all grain)

Oxygen tank or aeration setup with stone


You can make world class beer in dilapidated (but clean and sanitary) brewing kettles and fermenters ... But you would have a hard time making good beer without the aforementioned.

 

Once you get to the all-grain point, quick disconnects on ball valves and silicon tubing with quick disconnects.

 

UpstateBrewer: I too am also brand new to homebrewing. I bought some gently used equipment from a homebrewer that is upgrading his stuff to kegging. Other than replacing some cheap parts like air bubblers and tubes, almost everything else is good for starting out: Stainless steel brew kettle. Spoon. Carboy or bucket for fermentation. Air locks. Racking cane and syphon. cleaning solution and sanitizer. thermometer, hydrometer. bottles, caps, capper. And definitely read How to Brew. I ordered a copy on Amazon that arrived in 4 days. Almost finished the extract brewing section. Yet to brew my first batch, but the forum here is a great resource.

 

I think another great resource is YouTube. Sometimes it's hard to visualize a new process, especially conducting a mash and sparging for the first time. Watching homebrew and brewing videos on YouTube helped me a lot when I was just starting out.

 

If you are just starting out then I assume you are going to brew with extracts (the syrupy stuff or the dried stuff that looks like finely ground brown sugar.) Google Northern Brewer or Midwest Suppliers (or a local store if you have one) and look at their starter kits. Just about everything you need to start making beer is there in the kits or already in your kitchen for brewing with extracts. As mentioned above, Youtube is a great resource for step by step instructions.

 

@UpstateBrewer28 - good advice has been provided, including educating yourself with "How to Brew". Old edition is free on line, by the way, and still valid.

Not to be argumentative, but YouTube (and any internet resource) can be a good or bad - apply the common sense filter. If something looks or sounds stupid, then it most likely is stupid.

I think the answer lies with you a little bit - are you a "go big or go home" type and want to dive into the deep end, or do you want to stick a toe in and see what the water is like (and it really is just fine )? Basically, you can spend all you want - sky is literally the limit. But if you want to start modestly and find out if you enjoy the sport, maybe you don't need the equivalent of the $500 sneakers.

Just a thought, but you can extract brew with a minimal outlay of cash - under $100 (without the boil kettle). Visit Northern Brewer (or MoreBeer, or almost any on-line brew shop) and check out the basic kits. You can also look at what else is available for down the road.

Learn to love two words - cleaning and sanitizing. And learn the difference between the two. You can recover from a lot of mistakes, but bad cleaning and poor sanitation are not among them.

I'm nowhere near as experienced as some folks here, but I have brewed batches with the basic kit (pretty much as listed by @boothbeer ) and it all works just fine. Two buckets and the assorted widgets. The one thing I have that didn't come with the kit that I find worthy - the bottle filler gizmo. I am an engineer in the food business and I love to tinker with things, so the urge to splurge and build a slick system is really hard to resist, but I am also a cheap-assed Yankee boy who doesn't want enjoyment and work to overlap too much. My boil kettle doubles as my canner during the vegetable season - just an old-fashioned blue enamel pan on the high output burner on my gas stove. Yeah it takes a few minutes to come to full boil, but it works fine. I have upgraded to an immersion chiller for the wort. Other than that, still pretty basic - extracts and extracts with specialty grains.

Point is there are tons of options, and you can get into things very reasonably before taking the bigger plunge. I'd hate to think you went nuts and shelled out a bunch of hard-earned cash on gear to find out brewing isn't your thing (while I don't understand that statement, I guess it could happen). Upgrading is one thing - that is evolution as your skill and desire grow. Just don't think that you have to start at the top with all the bells and whistles - reasonable methods and appropriate precautions can be achieved without breaking the bank right out the gate, IMHO.

If you have a local home brew shop (LHBS) stop in and hang with other brewers if they are cool with that - mine is like a club where you can't even tell who the staff is - everybody just helps each other out except for the cash register... Maybe there is a local home brew club where you could help out on a brew day or two to gauge your level of interest.

Good luck!

 

I don't think anyone here has ever had a problem with plasticy-tasting beer due to using a bucket for fermentation. Buckets are cheap, plentiful, easy to use and easy to dry-hop with - definitely a good place to start. Just make sure you get one that's food-grade, which any good brew shop should be able to provide.

 

I've fermented most batches in glass carboys over the last 20 years, but recently used buckets for the first time with some wild ales. I was curious about difference in flavors myself but had noticed that never really comes up on forums, so it really must not be that big of a deal. After bottling some of the wild batches, I can attest that there aren't any plastic off flavors, and I may switch to buckets for convenience and safety for my non wild batches too.

My biggest suggestion is if you have the space and possibly a leftover fridge or freezer available, go ahead and get into kegging. Bottling isn't really that bad, but since I stated kegging, I brew more and enjoy my beer a whole lot more. You can start with 1 or 2 kegs (I'd go 2 because you'll eventually regret it if you don't) in an old fridge/freezer for minimal cost. I still don't have taps on my set up, just cheaper faucets on hoses, but my beer fridge with 4 kegs and enough room to hold all of the multiple pounds of hops, yeast, grains, etc I need, is a game changer!

Find your local homebrew store, check out their starter kits and invest there. I recommend checking out the American Homebrewers Association membership and the discounts it gives you nearby. I'm lucky to get 15% off at my LHBS with it and free pints/flights at spots I enjoy fairly often! It's paid for itself well over in the last year! Their website is immensely helpful for beginners too...check out the Let's Brew section for beginners for good info! www.homebrewersassociation.org