Kit I need?

[Colsa]

Hi guys, will be buying my home brewing kit this week, please could you clarify what I need thanks.

Fermenting bucket with lid
Pressure barrell (with or without CO2 cannister)
Syphon tube
Sterilizer for cleaning
Stirrer
Coopers stout tin

Is this the basic stuff I need to get started guys?, Ive read lots of great beginners advice threads, but it would be great if somebody could clarify if this is the gear I need, would hate to start my first batch only to realise I have missed something, thankyou. :)

 

[Pawlo7671]

Hydrometer, thermometer.
Also about a kg of something to go with the kit i.e. sugar, dextrose, DME.
Why not get a starter kit from the likes of coopers, they come with every thing you need to get going but come with bottles tho.

 

[BigYin]

Hydrometer, trial jar and wine thief or turkey baster (for extracting beer to test) and a thermometer (and a wee stick on strip thermometer is great to stick onto the fermenter - saves you opening it up and risking introducing an infection every time you want to check the temperature)

Campden tablets (for treating the water)


Besides that, get a good quality beer kit - I always got the two can kits - they don't need any extras added to them - and find somewhere that stays around 20c or so most of the time where the fermenter can sit.


Once the beer is ready to be kegged/bottled you'll need to add some sugar (for carbonation).

For the keg, once you start drinking, as the level of beer drops, you'll eventually need a way to inject some CO2 - sparklet bulbs are an expensive way to do it - get a keg that takes a standard S30 valve, and get a hambleton bard cylinder (or a sodastream cylinder and an adaptor)

If you go with bottles, glass bottles are great, but you'll need caps and a capper (not expensive though), or go for the plastic 'PET' bottles - the kind that the supermarket supply fizzy drinks in - they obviously come with their own caps!

And finally, the one thing you can't buy - PATIENCE :thumb:

Good luck :drink:

 

[Colsa]

Ahh thanks so much guys, much appreciated advice.

Is the hydrometer to test the alcohol content? and when is this done, once it is syphoned into the keg?, might leave the thermometer, as im in a one bed flat and cant really control the temp of it, but will look into these campden tablets to treat the water, can you emphasize on these tablets please big fella, and thanks pawlo, gonna have a look at coopers starting kits, thanks again, this is my first brew in a long time, just want to get it right you know, all the best, Colsa.

 

[rich27500]

You don't NEED Camden tablets to treat the water that's a personal preference. Is it stout that you want or are you open to other styles of beer? Many people's first kit is a wherry. The popular consensus among kit brewers is that it's one of the best if not the best kit. There's starter kits from a variety of companies, wherry starter kits come with a standard pressure barrel. Other kits come with the more advanced king kegs.

 

[PD]

Watch a few Craigtube video's on kit beer making, he is easy to watch and gives good basic advice on the way to make these beers.

My wife says he has a lot to answer for ! and she would gleefully like to meet him in person :shock:

 

[anthonyUK]

The Woodfords Wherry starter kit contains the basics and includes a Wherry two can kit.
You can later add a 2nd FV etc as required.

It is available from most homebrew suppliers e.g.

http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/complete- ... t-set.html

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... s_Kit.html

 

[graysalchemy]

might leave the thermometer, as im in a one bed flat and cant really control the temp of it,

Temperature control is probably the most important part of fermenting. You need to keep you temp between 19-21c ideally any higher and you will develope off flavours and lower will increase fermentation time and perhaps a stuck ferment.

even if you don't think you can control your temp keeping an eye on it is a good idea, and in any case there are ways of controlling temp quite easily even finding the optimum room or part of a room may be all you need to do. :thumb:

 

[Dave1970]

Is the hydrometer to test the alcohol content? and when is this done, once it is syphoned into the keg?,

Indirectly yes. The hydrometer measures the sugar content, if you measure the sugar content right at the start (called the Original Gravity) and at the end (Final gravity) of fermentation you can calculate the alcohol content using the forum calculator.

 

[Windy]

Fermenting bucket with lid
Pressure barrell (with or without CO2 cannister)
Syphon tube
Sterilizer for cleaning
Stirrer
Coopers stout tin

Is this the basic stuff I need to get started guys?

I never use a fermenting bucket, it is just a plastic container same as the pressure barrel but a different shape - I use the pressure barrel as the fermenting vessel. Doing that means you don't need the syphon tube either and only half the amount of sterilizer! If you are truly going for basic kit then it maybe better to spend the money saved on getting a decent pressure barrel rather than a basic one plus a bucket.

The stirrer isn't essential either and while a hydrometer is useful it isn't really essential unless your are using bottles rather than a pressure barrel.

I do think a thermometer of some sort is necessary even if it is only the very cheapest room thermometer otherwise you are risking failure/poor taste for unknown reasons.

 

[anthonyUK]

[I never use a fermenting bucket, it is just a plastic container same as the pressure barrel but a different shape - I use the pressure barrel as the fermenting vessel.

How do you clean it?
Do you use more than one PB?

A bucket is only £5-10 or you can find used food safe containers used in restaurants for free sometimes.
I have quite a few 5l ones.

 

[fbsf]

I never use a fermenting bucket, it is just a plastic container same as the pressure barrel but a different shape - I use the pressure barrel as the fermenting vessel. Doing that means you don't need the syphon tube either and only half the amount of sterilizer! If you are truly going for basic kit then it maybe better to spend the money saved on getting a decent pressure barrel rather than a basic one plus a bucket.

The stirrer isn't essential either and while a hydrometer is useful it isn't really essential unless your are using bottles rather than a pressure barrel.

I'd have to disagree with you there - £10 for an FV and £5 for a hydrometer are money very well spent - the big advantage of the FV is ease of cleaning, and the hydrometer is very useful as a guide to when fermentation has finished, rather than just stuck.

Obviously you *can* do without those two, but you will be making life harder/more risky (with regards to infection in the barrel if it still has dead yeast in it) if you don't.

Just my 2p...

 

[Windy]

I'd have to disagree with you there - £10 for an FV and £5 for a hydrometer are money very well spent - the big advantage of the FV is ease of cleaning, and the hydrometer is very useful as a guide to when fermentation has finished, rather than just stuck.

Obviously you *can* do without those two, but you will be making life harder/more risky (with regards to infection in the barrel if it still has dead yeast in it) if you don't.

Just my 2p...

The question was about "basic" equipment, and while I agree that the hydrometer is money well spent I do not consider it essential for someone just starting out who wants to keep the initial investment to a minimum until they decide if they want to continue with future brewing, especialy if they are using a pressure barrel where it doesn't really matter if you pressurise it before primary fermentation is fully complete.

I don't understand the questions about cleaning; you can sterilise a barrel in with the same chemicals as as a fermenting bucket. Although as soon as my barrels are empty they get refilled before they have a chance to be infected anyway and as the beer never travels through hard to clean syphon tubing and taps the beer never really gets a chance to get infected either. "dead yeast" doesn't cause infection. Pressure barrels have very good seals to keep out infections.

 

[fbsf]

I think the hydrometer is best used to identify stuck brews for the beginner - you aren't going to know if a brew stalls at 1.020ish for instance without one, and you would be left with a sweet, understrength brew that you may have been able to "fix" simply by stirring it or agitating it, if you had known.

As you point out, sterilisation will follow the same process but with a smaller-necked barrel (I acknowledge that more expensive versions like the King Keg have larger openings) you aren't going to be able to get an arm into it to clean it, and it's not always possible to clean off all of the fermentation detritus purely by soaking. You are then relying on the sterilisation to kill everything, rather than providing it with a completely clean surface to sanitise in the first place.

My preference for minimum kit-count would be to brew in a bucket (maybe with a tap) then go straight into PET bottles, which can be collected for free on recycling-bin days etc.

But as always, there are many ways of doing things.

 

[graysalchemy]

I have to agree with Fbsf. How many times do new brewers post on the forum asking if their brew has finished or not or is it ok to bottle. The first question any seasoned brewer will ask is have you taken a gravity reading. A hydrometer and a thermometer are essential to brewing IMHO, unless you want to risk bottling an unfinished beer and run the gauntlet of the resulting bottle bombs.

 

[Windy]

My preference for minimum kit-count would be to brew in a bucket (maybe with a tap) then go straight into PET bottles, which can be collected for free on recycling-bin days etc.

In that case I agree that the hydometer should be used to avoid bombs, you wont be needing the pressure barrel in the original list and you will want some bottles and a bottle brush for cleaning your bottles. You may want a long handled bottle brush anyway if you have a pressure barrel with a narrow neck, although I have never known my barrels not to come clean by leaving a cleaning/sterilising solution to soak upside down for a few hours with an occasional good shaking. Maybe it depends on what the barrel is made of?

 

[Colsa]

Great advice guys, thankyou to everyone that has contributed.

No bottles for me though, kegs only, will buy a thermometer and hydrometer, gonna stick with the fermenting bucket and syphon into a keg idea, not sure about the hydrometer usage, but will ask how to go on a day or two before i make my first batch, as for the thermometer, thankyou, the fv should be kept at the correct temp, so prior to making my first batch, i will check out the best place to stand the fv, could even put a quilt over it if need be to keep it at a constant temp, thanks again guys, great community :thumb:

Oh yes, stouts, exports, real ales for me.

 

[rich27500]

Seriously then http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/complete-woodfordes-starter-equipment-set.html you can't go wrong with this. Other online shops are available this was the number one hit on google, you may find it cheaper or less p&p elsewhere

 

[Green Ninja]

That kit is a great one to start with.

As an added bonus it comes with a 33 litre FV which sounds slightly larger than normal, good if you get a brew going mad when the yeast multiplies quickly.

Saves having a yeasty sticky mess over the carpet / kitchen work top.

 

[fbsf]

I'd agree with that - a very good kit for the price. Also, having a way of injecting CO2 into the barrel (as that kit has) is not to be undervalued.

It means that when you get down to half a keg and the pressure drops a bit, you can inject gas back into it to pressure, and avoid drawing air back through the tap which would oxidise the brew.