Home Beer Kit

tred

Reading a lot of the threads, it looks to me like most of the info is for some relativley experienced brewers!. Are there any brew kits out there that you buy everything together in one go. I see on buyandsell.ie there is a MrBeer shop. Anyone know what that kit is like?

guildofevil

I did up a quick FAQ about getting started brewing in Ireland a while back and juts remembered where I put it.

Hope it answers your questions:

Things you will need:

5Gallon/25Litre plastic brew bucket with lid.
This is just a large, food grade, plastic bucket. If you know a place that buys catering quantities of mayonnaise, or whatever, they might have one or two they might give you for free. Just make sure you wash it well. Two is better than one, if they are free. Otherwise, you can get a purpose made one in any home-brew shop.

Bottles, crown caper and crown caps, bottle brush.
If you plan to bottle your beer, you will need bottles. Standard pint bottles will do the trick, or even 33cl ones. Use only brown beer bottles, as green or clear bottles will allow beer damaging ultraviolet light in. Make sure you get enough of them to take all of your beer, and a few extra in case you can't get all of the crud out of one or two (e.g. 45 pint bottles).
You will also need a way to cap the bottles, that means a crown caper.

There are two basic types of crown caper: two handled and knock on. The knock on one is cheaper, but it is a false economy as it needs a mallet, can cause damage to bottles, and is generally just a pain to use. Don't forget to get caps too.
You will need a bottle brush for cleaning.

5 Gallon Barrel
If you would rather not bottle your beer, you could put it in a barrel. Most homebrew shops will supply a basic plastic barrel, with pressure release/injector valve cap and tap for about €40.

If you go this rout you should be aware that there are some potential problems.
The keg, is quite large, so it can be difficult to chill, as it does not fit in the fridge, unless you remove all the shelves. If the weather is cold, you might put it outside to chill, or you could put it in a large basin of ice.

Another problem is that, as you serve the beer, the pressure inside the keg drops, until it stops pouring. At this point you have to either loosen the cap, letting air into the keg or add more CO2. You should only loosen the cap if you plan on finishing the keg within 24 hours, as the beer will go flat and begin to go off. Alternatively you can get a Hambledon Bard co2 gas canister and use it to top up the gas pressure.

I know Barrels sound like more trouble than they are worth, but I still prefer them, as they are a lot handier to clean and sanitize than bottles.
You will need a demijohn brush for cleaning.

Hydrometer and Thermometer.
Essential bits of kit. You need an immersion thermometer, which can handle 0-100C, to check fermentation temperatures, steep speciality grains correctly, etc. You also need a hydrometer and trial jar to check that fermentation has finished, calculate percentage alcohol, etc.

Syphoning Tube
This is just a flexible vinyl tube and a rigid dip tube for syphoning beer from bucket to bucket or bucket to bottle.

Sanitizer.
It is essential that all buckets, bottles and equipment be disinfected before use. There are various home-brew sanitizers available, each with their own advantages and drawbacks. Milton fluid, available in your supermarket, can also be used. Just make sure you rinse everything afterwards.

Beer Kit.
At the very least you will need a beer kit, which is just a large can of malt extract with hop extract added to it. It comes with a sachet of dried yeast. I would advise against attempting lager or stout first time, as lager yeast is much less forgiving when it comes to environmental variations, while stout, in my experience, rarely turns out well from a malt extract kit. Ale is the most forgiving as it ferments comfortably at room temperature.
These kits come with instructions of their own, which are simple and do not require boiling but better instructions can be found here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/index.htm

Optional: Large pot.
If you decide to go with the more complex, but superior method from howtobrew.com you will need a large pot to boil the wort in. I have a 15 Litre stockpot, which did the job for me until I went over to all grain brewing. If I were doing it again I'd get a bigger pot.

Optional: Malt extract, hops, and yeast. (You need to have a large pot for this)
If you decide to get a little more complicated, you can get a much better beer out at the end. If, instead of a beer kit, you get some unhoped malt extract, some whole hops, and some Ale yeast, you can make a nicer beer. Adding some steeped speciality grains to this process can improve flavour complexity even more. If you want to steep speciality grains you will need to either buy a grain bag from the home-brew shop, or get a piece of muslin from a sewing shop.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/index.html has instructions.


How the optional stuff works:
A basic beer can be made with, for example, a Coopers pale ale kit, and a 1Kg bag of white sugar. The extract can simply be poured out of the tin into the fermentation bucket, with a measured amount of hot water, which can then be topped up with cold water, bringing it to the right temperature for you to sprinkle the dry yeast on top. This method is the simplest, but has many disadvantages. I would expect the results to be OK but not great. The alcohol content would probably end up around the 5.5% ABV mark.

Alternatively, if, for or example, you get a 1.6Kg can of John Bull malt extract syrup(light), 500g of Crystal Malt (crushed grain), 50g of Goldings Hops, 1Kg of Muscavado or Demerara sugar ( better yet, get two cans of malt extract syrup and forget the sugar) and a pack of ale yeast, you will make a much nicer beer, but would have to boil at least 10Litres of water, sugar, malt extract and hops, for over an hour, as well as steeping the grains at the right temperature for a while.

It sounds like a lot of trouble, but http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/index.html has detailed and easy to follow instructions, with pictures. The results are likely to be far superior to the previous example. The alcohol content would probably end up around the same; 5.5% ABV.

http://www.howtobrew.com is a free, on-line home-brewing book, by John Palmer. Many people swear by this site. I use it extensively myself.


Home-brew Suppliers.

There are various places that do on-line orders. The Irish places are more expensive but the others have shipping and currency considerations.

Ireland

http://www.grapengraindublin.com/index.html

http://www.thehomebrewcentre.com/

http://www.beersmugglers.com/

Outside Ireland

http://www.hopshopuk.com/ Good reliable UK supplier. I use this place to get the more exotic ingredients like special hops. They are very helpful and prompt. Shipping might be a bit much for heavy items, though. Currency is Sterling.

http://www.brouwland.com/http://www.brouwland.com/ http://www.brouwland.com/ http://www.brouwland.com/ Belgian website, with English language version. Never used it myself, but I have heard good things.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/http://www.northernbrewer.com/ http://www.northernbrewer.com/ http://www.northernbrewer.com/ US website. Very extensive. Shipping is not as bad as you might think. I have used them for special items you just can't get on this side of the Atlantic.

noby

tred, I wouldn't bother with Mr. Beer.

Grape'n'Grain do a similair kit for €90, but you get a quality all-malt kit, and a good brand (King Keg) Barrel. Added to that I would get a fermenting bin, and you're away.

These are the bare essentials to get brewing as cheaply as possible:

Fermenting bin €12
Sanatiser €5 or so.
Kit. Anything from about €8 and a bag of sugar to €30 all-malt, but you really do get what you pay for.
Hydrometer
Bottles. Collect all your empty brown ones. Free.
Caps & capper. Less than €20

You could really scrape through your first batch for less than €50, and only the caps and the beer kit have to be renewed. Other bits'n'bobs you'll pick up along the way.

oblivious

guildofevil wrote:

Alternatively, if, for or example, you get a 1.6Kg can of John Bull malt extract syrup(light), 500g of Crystal Malt (crushed grain), 50g of Goldings Hops, 1Kg of Muscavado or Demerara sugar ( better yet, get two cans of malt extract syrup and forget the sugar) and a pack of ale yeast, you will make a much nicer beer, but would have to boil at least 10Litres of water, sugar, malt extract and hops, for over an hour, as well as steeping the grains at the right temperature for a while.

That sound like a great way to start.

I would just make some changes to make it easer. Added 1 liter of 60 c water per pound of grain to a 3-5 liter pot, in this case added ½ a liter for 30-40 minutes and put the lid back on the pot. You won’t have to worry about the temperature to much as you are just extract non-fermentable sugars for the crystal malt. Strain the malt through a pasta strainer and gently pour over another ¾ liter of 60c water to wash the last of the sugars out of the grain. Don’t be tempted to wash to much as this will extract out some harsh flavors from the grain. Bring this up to boil and add your hops (500g of Demerara sugar would works nicely in beer) and boil for 45-60 minutes.

Take the pot off the boil; add you’re cans of malt extract and mix in the extract. This will sanitize the extract and is called late extract addition and has two positive effects 1) reduce the volume of water to be boiled and 2) will prevent scorching which can produce flavors and darken you’re beer. Added this to your fermentor bin and to up with a mix of hot/cold water to 19-20 liters and added your yeast.

Hope this is of some help

bigears

tred,

For what it's worth I think you're better off starting with a kit in a can for your first brew as it's so much easier and will introduce the concepts to you slowly. Once you've done one or two kits you'll be ready to explore more advanced techniques mentioned above. The equipment list above is more than adequate.

You're probably wondering what all these things are - hydrometer, airlock etc. When I was starting out I saw all these items listed but I had no idea what they were. I knew if I could just see it being done it would make so much more sense. This animation should give you a pretty good idea of how it all hangs together: http://www.brewersworld.co.nz/brewcraft.html

As pointed out already, while the kits advise to use sugar you will be better off using glucose (aka dextrose) instead. You can get it in any supermarket. In the animation you will see references to dextrose. Glucose is the same thing. Use the same quantity as the sugar advised on your kit. (Dried Malt Extract or 'Spraymalt' is better again)

Edit: Don't be afraid to ask any questions, even if you think they're stupid; I know I've asked them

beardybrewer

Lots of great info here. FWIW this is from the big thread when someone else asked.

newkie wrote:

Hey, I looked around at the various starter kits avaialble. And for the money, the most complete kit I saw was here for €55:
http://www.brouwland.com/shop/product.asp?cfid=4&id=1989&cat=86&dt=4

I'd also recommend (assumming you are going to use bottles):
Bottle washer
Bottle drainer
Bottle sanitizer - attaches to drainer
Non-rinse sanitizer solution - so concentrated it will last you for life

God you'd be off to a great start with all that. Broulands shipping to Ireland may seem exepensive but you can get up to 29.9kg (66lbs) shipped for €40. So while your at it this is a good time to order some Belgian kits that aren't that easy to find. Better start drinking to free up some bottles for your first brew.

Another US site is www.morebeer.com. Really shipping is pretty reasonable from the US (and Brouland by the looks of the pricing).

Oh, and I had to mention this deluxe kit from the US (they do ship, have used before) for €175 shipped. The best kit I've ever seen:
http://www.nexternal.com/hombre/Product328

Taverndweller

Looking for a bit of an update on home-brewing.

I fell out of home-brewing about 10 or so years ago, and through various house moves and culling of baggage by family I have no equipment left to get started again.

I saw however that Grape'n'Grain are selling a 'Microbrewery' system for about €90. This system however seems to both ferment the batch and age it in the King Keg - ie there is no fermenting in a bin and subsequent racking to the keg.

Could anyone tell me whether this is a desirable innovation or just a way of cutting corners? Would like to hear from anyone who has used it and how it compares to the traditional method of using a seperate bin to ferment.

Thanks, Taverndweller

bigears

I'm sure others will post on the merits of the King Keg itself. I haven't used it so I can't comment. You're still better off fermenting in a separate bin and then racking into the barrel with your priming sugar. From what I've read the kit is good value compared to buying the keg and the Woodforde's kit separately. I guess you need to decide if you think you'll like the beer that's included and whether you want to dispense your beer from a barrel. If the answer to both is yes then I'd say it's a good deal. You'll probably still want the fermenting bin though and this shouldn't be more than 10-15 euro.

noby

To me the lack of a fermenting bin is just cuting corners.
As I've said before, €90 isn't a bad deal for that keg and kit, but I would get a fermenting bin to go with it. I wouldn't like my beer sitting on trub for the length of time it takes to drink it.

There are basic barrels that go for cheaper (about €20 cheaper), and while there are cheaper kits, Woodfordes is real top of the range in the kit world. I currently have a Wherry conditioning in a basic barrel, as it so happens.

oconn

I am using a mr beer as the primary fermentor. I wouldnt bother getting one really. I had a 5 gal bucket and barrel ( brewmaker starter kit approx 50 euro from Bob Tansey in glengarrif) but my girlfriend / space considerations prevented me from using it so i picked up a mr beer for about 20euro's all in while in usa..You can use 5 gal kits split which work out way less..so the only thing in favour is they are handy size.

oblivious

I though these kits maybe of interest to extract brewers

http://www.easybrew.co.uk/product_results.php?PHPSESSID=03a7e6d87b75a0149966a6ad428473bf&category=150&kit=4&PHPSESSID=03a7e6d87b75a0149966a6ad428473bf

bigears

My first two extract brews were done using these Brupaks kits. They're a good introduction to the idea of steeping etc. and they work well.