Home Brewing Hardware and Software
November 30, 2007I mentioned in my previous feature that it was easy to make beer at home with just a few specialized pieces of equipment. This article will detail what you will need and where to find it. In addition, I’ll help you choose and purchase your first recipe kit.
Some of this stuff might be hard to locate unless you call a homebrew shop – either local or on-line. Every homebrew shop also sells some kind of starter kit that will have most of the equipment on the list. They are great places to get advice, too. The American Homebrewers Association maintains a list of shops at www.beertown.org.
HARDWARE
What You Must Have
A large pot – Most people will not have anything bigger than an 8 quart spaghetti pot, so you will probably need to buy a big one especially for brewing. I would consider 16 quarts to be the absolute minimum size. If you are buying a new one, bigger is always better. Twenty-two quarts is a great size for brewing on the stove top. Stainless is ideal, but can be expensive. Aluminum is fine, so if you happen to have a 30 quart aluminum turkey fryer pot, it will work great. The most economical choice will be an enameled steel canning pot. They are the black, blue, or green pots with the white flecks in which Grandma canned jelly. They are much less durable than stainless, but cheap. The Mart of Wal has a great 22 quart stainless pot for around $40 and an enameled one around $20.
Fermenting Bucket – A 6-7 gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a lid to seal the ferment. The lid should have a hole and grommet for attaching an airlock.
Bottling Bucket – The same bucket as above, but with a hole in the side near the bottom and a valve. Used for bottling finished beer.
Airlock – S-type or 3-piece designs let CO2 out during fermentation while keeping dirty air from getting in. Go ahead and buy two; they’re cheap.
Siphon Tubing – Usually 3/8” vinyl tubing. Three feet is a good place to start.
Racking Cane –Hard plastic cane that goes down into fermented beer so you can siphon it easily.
Bottle Brush – A special brush that makes it easier to clean beer bottles.
Bottle Capper – Crimps bottle caps to seal bottles. Most kits come with a wing capper, but floor models are also available.
Sanitizer – One of the most crucial tools. A kit will always come with sanitizer. Old-timers may still use bleach, but there is no reason not to use the new no-rinse sanitizers. My favorite brand for novices is called Iodophor, but look for StarSan or OneStep as well. Any of the three will do the job.
Bottles and Caps – You’ll need 54 bottles for 5 gallons of beer.
What You Want if Possible
Hydrometer – Looks like a large thermometer and is used for measuring the strength of beer. It’s the only way to truly know the alcohol content or to judge when the beer is finished fermenting.
Thermometer – At this point in your brewing career, a cheap candy thermometer is just fine. It will be used when steeping grains and to help judge when the pot is close to boiling.
Bottle Filler – A hard plastic tube with a valve on the bottom that makes filling bottles much easier.
Auto Siphon – A brewing-specific device that makes it much easier to start a siphon. Replaces the racking cane. It works sort of like a bicycle pump and is definitely worth its cost.
Beer (or Wine) Thief – Used for taking sanitary samples of fermented beer to determine when it is safe to bottle.
What You Do NOT Want
Glass Carboys – These traditional glass fermenters are included in many brewing store kits, and most brewers have a few. Don’t make the same mistake made by so may others. Stay away from them! They are more expensive than buckets, heavy, slippery, and downright dangerous. Almost every brewer who has used carboys has broken at least one – often with precious beer inside. I know of one prominent home brewer who broke three of them (15 gallons of beer!) in a single day. Usually these accidents result in injury - cuts and broken toes are typical. Occasionally an unlucky brewer will suffer a disabling or even life-threatening cut, as well. Finally glass carboys will not work with the techniques I will describe in future articles. Stick with buckets. They are light and cheap, they come with a handle, and they will never cause you to get stitches.
SOFTWARE
These are your ingredients. Almost everyone starts brewing with extract. That means that most of the fermentables will come from concentrated barley extract that is either a syrup or a dried powder. To this, we will add water, hops for bitterness and maybe a few grains for a fresher taste. My instructions will be for extract brewing, so choose a good extract kit.
Extract kits come in two basic forms: canned kits and store kits. Canned kits are usually manufactured overseas by companies like Coopers, John Bull, or Munton’s. They are almost always pre-hopped and are intended to be mixed with water and table sugar, minimally boiled or just heated and fermented. They make beer, but it’s usually not the greatest beer. In future articles, I’ll help you make the best of these kits, but try to avoid them at first.
Much better are kits that are put together by homebrew stores. The bigger, better stores will have their own well-tested recipes and will turn over ingredients quickly to ensure freshness. Even the smallest shops should carry the Brewer’s Best line, which makes pretty good beer. Store kits will have unhopped extract, separate hops, bottling sugar, and usually bottle caps and steeping grains. These kits will be all-barley (or wheat) and will make much better beer than the canned kits. Choose a store kit if possible, and try to get the newest date you can find. If your kit comes with any grains, be sure to have the store crush or crack them for you.
Choosing the First Recipe Kit
So what styles of beer make good first tries? Most of them, actually: American pale ale, amber ale, IPA, brown ale, English bitter, or special bitter, Irish ale, dry stout, Scottish 60 shilling ale. You can make an American hefeweizen now, but do not try an authentic Bavarian heffe yet; it needs special liquid yeast. The same is for anything Belgian. Basically, you can choose any ale that can be made with dried yeast and is not too extreme.
What to Avoid
Lagers – Lagers take significantly more advanced techniques than ales. Save lagers for later and make your first brews ales.
Very light colored beer – darker beers have more flavor to hide any imperfections while you get the techniques down.
Extremely hoppy or strong beers – average beers are easier at first.
Liquid Yeast – You might get some resistance on this one. Brewing stores almost always recommend a liquid yeast. Liquid offers many more variety choices, and is required for a few styles but it has added complications. Dried yeast quality has come a long way in recent years and dried yeast is perfectly adequate for most everyday-drinking beers. Dried is much easier to use and several times cheaper as well. Ask the stores to substitute one of the dried yeasts from Danstar or Fermentis (they’ll know which variety is best) for the liquid yeast that normally comes in their kits.
Basic brewing hardware and software should cost around $100. After the first batch, recipe kits cost about $25 – around fifty cents per beer. Hit the AHA website and find a local shop near you, or visit one of the big on-line stores: Northern Brewer, Homebrew Adventures, or Beer, Beer & More Beer. Once you get everything, resist the temptation to follow the directions that came with the kit. I have some special instructions that will help make better beer from the first try. I will save that for next time.
George Schmidt
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