Thinking about trying homebrewing.

I just bottled my first batch, and was just in your shoes a few months ago. Obviously, I'm not the best person to answer this, but everything has gone smoothly so far, so I'll try to give some advice:

1) Starter kits are a good value, but I'd buy everything individually. Amazon.com is your friend!

2) Yes, I did that. Just took a while to get the boil started.

3) Have never heard of this, so I'm assuming no.

4) Any of the homebrew books by Charlie Papazian. Easy to read and understand, and he has a great sense of humor.

Good luck and have fun!

 

excellent advice. I was waiting for years to get the money and the nerve to do it. Once I decided to it, I figured I would buy or make the right gear the first time. Still many are happy with making 1 gal batches. I am lucky enough to be skilled in making things with metal, at least now its for the hobby and not to make a living.

 

I might start with step 4 first, then head to a home brew club.

I brew on an electric coil stove (the worst?) and boil roughly 3.5 gallon wort batches. My beer turns out well using plastic or glass. I have better bottles too. For my glass carboy I treat with great respect, I keep it in a sturdy milk crate all the time. I have bounced around cleaning but with only the milk crate bouncing. Glass is slippery when wet too. Now pretty much doing more AG batches using a partigyle method.

 

Yoda: There is only do or not do
Nike: Just do it
T Roos't: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are
Larry teh Cable guy: Get er duuuuuun
Need I quote more?

 

Sinatra: do be do be do.

 

if you can find a brew kettle with a wide enough base to fit on 2 burners it will help get 5 gallons to a boil...
Also, you can figure it out with reading material and a few youtube videos, I've brewed 20 or 30 batches over the past year or two since I started and have never seen anyone else brew in person. If anything, the learning curve will help you find out a method that works best for you instead of trying to learn someone else's. However, it does help to have a friend to help you brew, brewing is a great two person hobby and some of the tasks (dumping giant kettles of water for example) are pretty difficult to do solo.

On a side note about starting out, consider kegging instead of bottling if you can afford a cornelius keg and either have room in your fridge or a minifridge laying around that you don't mind turning into a kegerator. We didn't bottle a beer until months into brewing, I find it messy and tedious and not as satisfying as tapping a draft in your own home.

 

Texas sounds like a pretty rough place to brew...
If you're brewing in a cold climate in the winter (I live in wisconsin) you can even get away with doing lagers in a basement. If your budget doesn't include money for a wort chiller you can pour the wort into the fermentor hot, close the lid, leave it out in the snow for a few hours, and then add the yeast.

 

Well IF you have the freezer/controller setup, the rough part of brewing in texas isn't the fermentation temperature control, it's the HEAT (and occasionally the bugs). I gotta admit my motivation to brew is a lot lower when it's 104 outside and I remember that (at least for the moment) brewing is an outdoor activity.

Today it's absolutely beautiful and I think I may have to go try and sneak in a batch, along with dry hopping the one that's in there now.

 

I didn't read the whole thread, so I don't know if it has been mentioned but you can get a turkey fryer set up. Propane burner and aluminum pot (7 1/2 gallons I think) for $40-50. Just be sure to "season" the aluminum pot. By this I mean filling it with water and boil until the shine is gone from the aluminum. Most have a 15 minute timer to keep you close by, but that can be bypassed easily.

 

You don't have to fill it. A couple inches of water will do.