My buddy and I are planning on getting a home brewing set up soon, anyone have links to good kits? We don't want to go super cheap and get $60 ones you see, we're more wanting the $150-$200 set ups. We just don't know which ones are good and what you need. I plan on doing alot of reading on it, but I kind of want the kit first. I need help!

The good news here is that you actually don&#039;t need to spend a lot of money. <br /><br />Now the first decision you want to make is where you are going to brew. Indoors or outside. If you have the opportunity to brew outside i&#039;d reccomend it as it reduces cleanup and will allow you to brew faster. <br /><br />If you brew outside pick up a burner at homedepot or similar store:<br /><br /><br />http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&amp;langId=-1&amp;catalogId=10053&amp;productId=100387834<br /><br />A large burner like this will allow you to bring your wort to boil much faster. If you can&#039;t brew outside your kitchen stove will work fine, the time to get to boil will just be a bit longer. <br /><br />At this point you&#039;ve chosen your heat source so now the remaining equipment<br /><br />Equipment list:<br />1. 5 gallon stainless steel pot. You can use aluminum if you must, but stainless is worth the extra money<br />2. 6.5 Gallon primary fermentor with lock and lid. <br />3. Bottling bucket w/spigot<br />4. bottlefiller<br />5. Rack and Fill Kit<br />6. Hydrometer<br />7. Capper<br />8. Santizer<br /><br />These items can be found in this kit<br />http://www.beer-wine.com/product_info.asp?productID=751&amp;sectionID=1<br /><br />Now that&#039;s the basics, i recommend getting a kit like this as you can later convert it for all grain brewing, we&#039;ll be doing a how to article on that soon. <br /><br />Additional items that will make brewing easier:<br />1. Auto Siphon http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryID=8&amp;sectionID=1 trust me you want one<br />2. 5 gallon glass carboy http://www.beer-wine.com/product_info.asp?productID=201&amp;sectionID=1<br />3. #6.5 bored stopper for carboy http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryID=11&amp;sectionID=1<br /><br />I posted links here just in case you don&#039;t have a local homebrew shop. I recommend using a kit to make your first beer, but don&#039;t use the yeast it comes with, do yourself a big favor and pick up some white labs yeast. it&#039;ll make your beer much better. Please let me know if you need more info or clarification as well.&nbsp; <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

Thanks Devon. I just have no idea where to get started.

no worries, we&#039;re working on a full &quot;how to brew&quot; article that we&#039;ll hopefully have done in a week or so. if you get a basic brew kit, burner and pot that really is enough to get your started, you can get the other stuff as you need it. its VERY easy to brew so once you are ready just let us know and if our article isn&#039;t done we&#039;d be happy to so a quick writeup of the process.

That&#039;s good advice thus far given.&nbsp; The biggest thing is just to do your first batch.&nbsp; Once complete, a whole new world opens up.<br /><br />You don&#039;t necessarily need to get the expensive starter kit offered at most places.&nbsp; All they really do is just add some items you don&#039;t necessarily need for your first few extract batches.&nbsp; I started with one of the $50 started kits and over time have just added to my gear list as needed.&nbsp; Besides, if you decide brewing is not for you, you haven&#039;t dropped a few hundred on gear that will do nothing but collect dust.&nbsp; <br /><br />Also, make sure to pick up some good homebrewing books.&nbsp; The net and forums are good, but homebrewing books will go into the detail you should be aware of when actually doing the brewing.&nbsp; There are hundreds of ways to actually brew but it is good to get the basics down and learn why it&#039;s done before you start.

snowman makes a really good point in not needing an expensive kit. the funny thing is the more expensive kits just come with more stuff...not better stuff and the majority of the stuff you need is very basic. we def look forward to hearing how your first batch came out. I&#039;m going to post a couple of our successful malt extract recipes tomorrow. we made some decent stuff using extract and its recipes we came up with, so i figure why not share them w/ you guys.

I&#039;m also a new homebrewer and I got my kit from thehomebrewery.com for around sixty bucks.It worked perfectly fine and they threw in 144 free bottle caps (don&#039;t forget you need around 50 12oz.non screw top bottles,I bought from them for around 50 cents a piece).The only thing you may want to upgrade is the bottle filler.The one that came with my kit wasn&#039;t spring loaded and occasionally didn&#039;t stop flowing,spiiling precious beer all over my kitchen floor.

Hey,I forgot to add that after my first batch I immediately made myself&nbsp; a wort chiller.It took me close to two hours toget it where I could pitch my yeast(approx. 70deg.F).The whole week of fermentation I was worried the wort had gotten contaminated during that wait(luckily it didnt).You can by one of those copper spiral chillers from any place that would sell you a kit,for around forty bucks.Or you can make one from a roll of 1/4 inch copper pipe from home depot.Even with all of the fittings to attach it to my garden hose(you have to get a little clever for that,or find a Knowledgeable worker in the plumbing department like I did) it coct me around twenty five bucks.Another note is that after a week your airlock may get stuck in the rubber stopper,be gentle and maybe use water to get it out,I already broke mine(luckily they&#039;re real cheap).

Yeah, I want to buy (or make) a chiller myself. I&#039;m just too damn impatient to let chilling take its normal course in a bathtub full of ice water.

Yeah I was actually meaning to talk to Jeff about this, we should really get or make a wort chiller. Ice costs about $9 a brew session so it&#039;ll pay for itself after a few batches.<br /><br /><br />Oh an as to bottling, I guess we&#039;ve just always stuck with no screw tops just becuase you KNOW it sealed. no need to buy bottles either just sanitize the bottles of beer you drink during normal beer purchases, that&#039;s what we do.

I added a wort chiller to my recent all grain kit purchase.&nbsp; I figured it was time.&nbsp; My last batch was the first where I actually used an ice bath.&nbsp; Rather than buy ice, I just kept filling up ziplock bags and tupperware with water for about 3 days and filled my freezer to the brim with ziplock and tupperware ice blocks.&nbsp; Seemed to work well.&nbsp; Frankly, before that all I ever did was add my hot wort to the fermenter with ice cold water and would come out to about 68-70 deg.&nbsp; One time it was 85 and one time it was 65, but after a few batches I got the combo down to a science.&nbsp; With two gallons of boiling wort, I would have two gallons of spring water in the freezer for about an hour before starting so they would just start to freeze by the time the boil was done.&nbsp; I would then have one gallon in the fridge and one room temperature.&nbsp; I would add the two ice cold gallons to the fermenter, then the hot wort.&nbsp; Depending on the temp then, I would top off with either the room temp or fridge temp water to bring it within range.<br /><br />In my reading I&#039;ve learned that 1) cold breaking the hot wort causes unwanted cloudiness in the beer and 2) boiling a concentrated wort like I was tends to cause a harsher sometimes burned flavor in the beer.&nbsp; I never experienced either.&nbsp; As I progress, I try to pick up small notes to improve the beer, but in reality it&#039;s not that complicated and there are a hundred ways to brew a beer, all work fine and all are correct.

I have to agree with that snowman, there really are a lot of way to accomplish the brewing process, yes some are technically better, but in the end you are getting some tasty beer even with an imperfect process.

Hey,speaking of hundreds of ways to brew,my grandfather&#039;s been brewing for a long time,and he says it&#039;s fine to use reg. white sugar for priming and its a lot cheaper than either dry extract or dextrose.

Chuck, I can back that up, we&#039;ve forgotten to buy priming sugar a couple times and reg white sugar did the exact same thing for us.

Just to get a little technical for a second, table sugar will ferment to alcohol 100%, so won&#039;t leave any excess flavors. On top of that, you use so little, it doesn&#039;t matter even if it did. Table sugar it up!

just to add here, i just went through all our pictures from out brewing over the weekend to prep our how to brew article. we&#039;re hoping to have a full how to up this weekend.<br /><br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Devon

True! Pretty much you want something that's pretty highly fermentable. But any sugar will work.

Or even DME works fine too. Just takes longer to carbonate.