Home Brew Without Starter Kit

duckmusic

Hi All,

I am just wondering if it is possible to make home brew without buying a starter kit? If I was to just buy a large bucket and some siphoning tube from a DIY shop and then and airlock, bottle filler and caper from ebay would it work?

Is there any reason I wouldn't get good beer from this? It seems like the kits are pretty expensive for what is essentially a bucket with a few extras.

BeerNut

Yes it can be done but you must have food-grade equipment: any old bucket from the hardware shop will not do. If you can get hold of the big catering buckets used for mayonnaise, they're ideal. Look out for glass carboys and demijohns on the freecycle sites too.

You don't need an airlock, but a hydrometer, thermometer and sample jar are very useful.

Mashtun

BeerNut wrote: »

If you can get hold of the big catering buckets used for mayonnaise, they're ideal.

I put an airlock in a large one of these and i'm fermeting 20L of Dunkel i brewed at the weekend and everything is going fine. The kits are great to start you off but if you wanna skip that stage and go straight to makin your own gear more power to ya!

BeerNut

These guys do some pretty cheap food-grade buckets.