Best Starter Kit for a Newbie

My equipment is an ala carte grouping of equipment that are pieced together around a turkey fryer, so my experience with that will not help answer your question about the Northern Brewer stuff. However, your question is one that is asked frequently in this forum, so I suggest that you do a search using 'starter' or 'equipment' as your key word, or just page back 6-8 pages (or more) for threads that will give you many opinions on starter equipment.

 

I would say you're on the right track with the northern brewer starter kit. It'll give you everything you need to start brewing good beer. My first set of equipment was a Brewer's Best starter kit, which is essentially the exact same thing. You can obviously build or expand upon your equipment from there if you're wanting to go AG, but it's a great starting point. Have fun, it's an addicting and 'obsessive' hobby!

 

My beloved newbie kit is all grain 1 gallon kit very nice introduction to homebrewing, better then any homebrewing book

 

That looks like a great start. I would suggest getting a 8 or 10gal kettle to start, and not the typical 40qt/5gal. This way you can do full volume boils, and eliminate the complication of adding water at the end of the boil, not to mention the element of possibly introducing off flavors or bugs that can infect your brew. If you enjoy brewing, you're going to take that step anyway. 8 gallon stainless kettles are pretty cheap on ebay.

Cheers!

 

That depends on what you're looking to brew. If you're a malt+hops+yeast kind of guy (or gal), you can do without one. If you are looking to brew anything involving fruit or other additions post-fermentation, sours, or big beers you intend to age before bottling, then you'll want one. FWIW I'd recommend saving the cash and sticking to more basic recipes at the start. There's no guarantee you'll love brewing, so it's probably best to wait until you know you need a secondary to actually buy one.

 

It's not worth the exposure to potentially oxidizing your beer just to transfer to a secondary. Normally the only reasons for using a secondary are to bulk age a high alcohol beer, or 'barrel-aging' your beer on wood chips/spirals or for aging on fruit. Dry-hopping can be done in the primary fermentor. Many instructions that come with recipe kits will tell you needlessly to transfer your beer to a secondary before bottling. It's your beer that is at risk if you add too much exposure to the new air/oxygen.

One more thing to be said: if you are considering carboys as part of your equipment purchase, and if you plan to brew 5-gallon batches, get a 6.5 gallon carboy. Later, if you need another carboy for a secondary fermentor, then you can get a 5-gallon one for that. But don't get a 5-gallon one now for use on 5-gallon batches or you'll create a messy problem for yourself without enough head space for krausen to expand.

 

The Northern Brewer Essential Starter Kit is comprised of:

Contains:

• 6.5 Gallon Fermenting Bucket, Grommeted Lid, Airlock
• 6.5 Gallon Bottling Bucket, Bottling Spigot, Bottle Filler, Bottling Tubing
• Auto-Siphon, Siphon Tubing
• Beer Bottle Brush, Bottle Capper, 60 Caps
• Instructional DVD, One Step Cleaner/Sanitizer

You may want to see if you could essentially (no pun intended) assemble your own kit but with a 7.9 gallon fermenting bucket, lid and airlock instead of the 6.5 gallon. The ‘extra’ 1.4 gallon of headspace is very helpful.

The other item which would be helpful is the book How to Brew by John Palmer.

Cheers!

 

It sounds like you are on the right track to enjoying some home brew. My first bit of advice for you is don't over research it and over complicate it. The first beers ever made were by accident. Some of the best beers made today were discovered by mistake. Relax, grab a beer, and think about what you want out of your home brew.

First I'd Strongly recommend you read The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. It helped me a lot.

Extract and partial extract are great ways of getting your brew area ready and practicing bottling and cleaning. (Cleaning is arguably 85% of brewing) (Also 74% of statistics are made up on the spot... a little brew humor) I started with kits using specialty grains and DME. The first time you brew you'll make mistakes. DON'T DUMP IT OUT! Go with it, have fun. The more you do the kit brewing the more you find what you might need, like timers, digital temperature thermometers, etc.

I can tell you what I think you need, and a brew starter kit isn't a bad way to go, but I found assembling my own kit was way better because I got all the stuff I wanted. I didn't pay money for stuff I only used once and then replace with something that actually works. (Bigger funnels, Better strainers, safer air locks, glass carboys and better bottling tubes.)

But it's different for every one I know who has started brewing. I have a friend who is perfectly happy in using LME brew kits and using an open fermentation method. And you know his beer isn't bad. I have friends who have started their own breweries. Everything in between.

Jump in, try it out, the beer is fine.
Prost!

 

I'd suggest finding a local homebrew store. You may wind up spending a few extra bucks but it is nice to have someone local that you can go to with questions.

 

I've been doing LME news for about two years. Sometimes I come up with my own recipes, sometimes I use one of his recipes. Sometimes we talk it over and he just makes suggestions. I keep thinking about moving to all grain but I've been pretty pleased using LME. Does your local guy only have kits or does he sell the LME separately? Does he also sell whole grains that you can use to make a "grain tea" prior to adding your LME?