Custom Starter Brewing Kit

[emeelio]

Hey guys,

I have been looking around for kits but I am not satisfied with any I see 100%. I am a complete newbie but I want to use the best I can afford. I sort of like this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/...er-kits/1-gallon-small-batch-starter-kit.html but I would like to see if I can find better tubes, airlock, etc. I like that the fermenter is made of glass, which I want (and I want to start small too, 1 gallon will be perfect for me).

Could you help me find quality, within-budget parts that are better than what I see on that website? If those kits cost $50, I am willing to add $50 - $75 more to get better equipment. Regarding a recipe, I am looking for to make a good IPA but I believe I will be going to my local supplier for that.

Thanks!

 

[moparx12]

it looks like that kit comes with a "recipe" although i am not sure what it is. If you are worried about the quality of the components there, i would advise you not to be. Reason being because a glass vessel is a glass vessel, an airlock is an airlock. I would not worry about cutting corners on equipment quality with this kit.

What you need to worry about is the process that you use to make the beer. This kit looks like it includes an extract recipe. You are best off starting with an extract recipe, but you could also add more flexibility with this kit later by getting into partial mash or mini Brew In A Bag type brewing. with brew in a bag, you will have much more control over every aspect of your beer, but with that comes added complexity and more ways to mess up a batch.

A couple of things you will surely want to add to this kit though, are a thermometer (i like the digital ones with a probe), a hydrometer, and a 1.5-2 gallon plastic bucket for mixing your priming sugar at bottling. thermometer can be had at walmart or something like that and the hydrometer from your local homebrew store or direct from northern brewer. The bucket can be found at your homebrew store as well.

For recipe design i would invest in one of the available brewing programs. I prefer Beersmith. It will allow you to take recipes that you find on this site and easily scale them down to your size batch, and includes lots of tools for carbonation levels, hydrometer adjusting, and much more for when you get into all-grain brewing.

Good Luck!

 

[StompingClover]

As far as the quality of the kit, that one is good. Northern Brewer is going to give you a quality product. Some of the things like the airlock, i'm not sure how you're looking to upgrade it. Those are the same airlocks that most of us use. If one gallon batches are what you are looking at doing, i'd go with that kit. Pick up the caribou slobber ingredients with it too. Its not an ipa but its really good. If you do want a good ipa kit, Northern Brewer offers their Dead Ringer IPA in a 1 gal kit. Its not one that can come with the equipment, but is very is very good, it is their version of Bell's Two-Hearted.

 

[chickypad]

Yeah tubing and airlocks are not something you need to worry about splurging on - cheap is fine. The one thing IMO that you might want to consider replacing is the capper. I have heard it is not as sturdy as the red baron winged capper (which I have had for years and works fine but I mostly keg now). Or if you want to go real high quality look into a bench capper.
One other note, the siphon there is the mini-siphon which you will want for 1 gallon batches but will be too small for bigger carboys.

 

[emeelio]

it looks like that kit comes with a "recipe" although i am not sure what it is. If you are worried about the quality of the components there, i would advise you not to be. Reason being because a glass vessel is a glass vessel, an airlock is an airlock. I would not worry about cutting corners on equipment quality with this kit.

Thanks! Makes it all better friend.

A couple of things you will surely want to add to this kit though, are a thermometer (i like the digital ones with a probe), a hydrometer, and a 1.5-2 gallon plastic bucket for mixing your priming sugar at bottling. thermometer can be had at walmart or something like that and the hydrometer from your local homebrew store or direct from northern brewer. The bucket can be found at your homebrew store as well.

What kind of thermometer are we talking about, the ones uses in the kitchen? Just trying to get the right kind!

For recipe design i would invest in one of the available brewing programs. I prefer Beersmith. It will allow you to take recipes that you find on this site and easily scale them down to your size batch, and includes lots of tools for carbonation levels, hydrometer adjusting, and much more for when you get into all-grain brewing.

Gotta give it a try!

 

[emeelio]

If you do want a good ipa kit, Northern Brewer offers their Dead Ringer IPA in a 1 gal kit. Its not one that can come with the equipment, but is very is very good, it is their version of Bell's Two-Hearted.

I have never had that beer, but I sure want to now. This is a darn good recommendation anyway! Thanks.

 

[emeelio]

The one thing IMO that you might want to consider replacing is the capper. I have heard it is not as sturdy as the red baron winged capper (which I have had for years and works fine but I mostly keg now). Or if you want to go real high quality look into a bench capper.

What about these bottles instead?

One other note, the siphon there is the mini-siphon which you will want for 1 gallon batches but will be too small for bigger carboys.

Yup. I can totally see that! I think I want to buy an extra 1 gallon carboy so I can do 2 batches. Small is good right now as I don't have any experience and I don't feel like making so much beer at once (yet).

 

[moparx12]

What kind of thermometer are we talking about, the ones uses in the kitchen? Just trying to get the right kind!

Well, ideally you would want one that has a long reach, but i find any digital thermometer with a probe usually about 6" long to work ok for me. I like digital because i can quickly read the temperature. reason for the long reach would be so you don't need to get your hand so close to hot wort. just get a cheap digital thermometer, doesn't need to be anything in particular.

Another thing i just thought of that you can pick up at your brewstore is one of those sticky thermometer stickers to stick to the side of that fermenter. that will be useful because as you will read, temperature of fermentation plays a huge role in the taste of your finished beer. once again, this does not need to be some special brand, just make sure it reads in the temperature range you plan to ferment in... maybe 60-75 for ales. something like this: http://morebeer.com/products/fermometer.html

 

[rodwha]

Check out More Beer's stuff. They offer free shipping (orders over $59), which is what tipped the scale for me.

Ooops! Posted before I knew specifically what you wanted. They don't offer small batch brewing supplies.

What I have done for small batch brewing is bought some Mr Beer fermentors as well as gone to the local grocery store and picked up a couple of free ~2 gal food grade buckets.

If you can drill a 1/2" hole in the lid of any container (food grade) you can put a grommet and air lock on it.

 

[unionrdr]

I read the review on those bottles. The cap/stopper is plastic instead of ceramic like the good ones. And you have to assemble them yourself. And the seals are glued onto the stoppers. They should be replaceable. not a very good deal at all. The Grolsh style is way better.

 

[woozy]

My opinion. A 1-gallon kit is pretty easy and cheap to put together. What you are getting with with that first kit is primarily the ingredients for your first beer, and the peace of mind of all your equipment in one place.

The expensive parts of the kit are the ingredients (for a gallon should be about fifteen bucks) and the capper ($12- 25) . The rest is pretty much gravy. It's a good deal but not a great deal but then there really aren't any great deals.

Tubing's tubing. You buy it at the hardware store for .65/ft and you just keep replacing it when it gets grungy. Airlocks are cheap. $1.50 each. And so on... 5-gallon carboys are expensive and hard to find but a 1-gallon glass carboy will be at most 5 dollars (but if you are lucky you can by a cheap gallon of wine or apple juice for less). The *important* stuff, hydrometers, thermometers, etc. don't come with the kit anyway. Then again the mini-auto siphon (10 to 15 bucks) and bottle wand (4 or 5 bucks) is a nice touch.

Actually it *does* seem like a good deal. For me it would all come down to whether I like the bottle capper (the most expensive item) or not. Otherwise I'd go to my local brew shop and see what they could hook me up. (But with ingredients- 15 bucks, bottle capper- 20 bucks, auto-siphon- 8, wand- 5, carboy- 5, tubing and airlock 3) I'm not sure whether they will or not.

----edit------

I guess what I meant to say was this: Equipment is pretty standard. You'd pretty much have to to throttle a shop owner to give you any equipment that was any different than this. That *is* the tubing, carboy, airlock, stopper that *every* one-gallon kit will have. In any case you'll probably add on and replace piece by piece over time.

 

[woozy]

What you need to worry about is the process that you use to make the beer. This kit looks like it includes an extract recipe. You are best off starting with an extract recipe, but you could also add more flexibility with this kit later by getting into partial mash or mini Brew In A Bag type brewing.

But that's brewing. That doesn't have anything to do with fermenting and bottling which is what this equipment is for.
====
Type of thermometer? Yes, your standard kitchen thermometer. But bear in mind for some reason the manufacturers of probe meat thermometers think ten and fifteen degree inaccuracies are acceptable. (Taylor, I'm talking about *YOU*) Read reviews.

 

[emeelio]

I read the review on those bottles. Th cap/stopper is plastic instead of ceramic like the good ones. And you have to assemble them yourself. And the seals are glued onto the stoppers. They should be replaceable. not a very good deal at all. The Grolsh style is way better.

What bottles are you referring about unionrdr?

 

[emeelio]

But that's brewing. That doesn't have anything to do with fermenting and bottling which is what this equipment is for.
====
Type of thermometer? Yes, your standard kitchen thermometer. But bear in mind for some reason the manufacturers of probe meat thermometers think ten and fifteen degree inaccuracies are acceptable. (Taylor, I'm talking about *YOU*) Read reviews.

Thank you for your input. I think what I want to do is buy this small kit, glass carboy, and give it a try. It is my first time and I should ideally get better equipment as I brew more and more.

Do you think caps are better than those stay-on, Grolsch-style bottles?

 

[unionrdr]

What bottles are you referring about unionrdr?

The ezy cap bottles in the link you provided. They aren't a very good buy,as the caps are plastic instead of ceramic,& the seals are glued on,rather than replaceable. Cheap imitation of the grolsh style bottles.

 

[woozy]

The ezy cap bottles in the link you provided. They aren't a very good buy,as the caps are plastic instead of ceramic,& the seals are glued on,rather than replaceable. Cheap imitation of the grolsh style bottles.

But you can replace just the caps.

There are also these which are a little cheaper. Also use plastic lids but I don't know if they are the same or replaceable with the EZ cap lids.

I wouldn't say standard capped bottles are "better" than these snap tops (Actual Grolsch are highly coveted) but because they are universal they do seem easier to deal with. And they seem significantly cheaper.

I don't mind giving a friend a bottle or a six pack and not worrying about getting the bottle back, but if they were flip-tops I'd be on him like a hawk.

====edit====

Replacement Grolsch gaskets all claim to replace the gasket on the EZ caps as well. Perhaps the EZ cap gaskets are not glued on after all.

I don't know if these bottles 20 - 25 bucks for 12 and 14 bucks for 100 replacement gaskets is or is not a good buy or not. I kind of think not because regular bottles are a third the price and you can always reuse commercial beer bottles.

But then you can always do both.

 

[chickypad]

If I were you, OP, I'd go ahead and invest in a decent capper or get one in a kit. Commercial bottles are easy to get for free and caps are cheap. Someone gifted me a case of 16 oz bottles that I think are the same ones woozy linked. The caps are hard plastic and the washers are removable, but after multiple issues with them sealing I don't carb in them anymore. I haven't noticed similar issues with the few commercial bottles I have with ceramic caps as long as I keep the washers in good shape.

 

[woozy]

Just got a feed-back on those "grolsch-type" bottles. Although the caps are made made of plastic rather than poercelin. The gaskets are *not* glued on and are replaceable.

So I guess it'd be fine to have some. But I'd take chickypad's advice. if s/he had trouble with sealing you and I probably will too. Plus with a capper you can scrounge old bottles and ask friends for old bottles. It's okay to want to use special grolsch style bottles as much as you can but standard bottles and cappers are just to darn convenient to dismiss. I had to bottle this week and I was eight bottles short so I asked friends. If I only had Grolsch style bottles I'd have to spend another 25 bucks. I have about 96 bottles bottled so I'd have had to have bought eight dozen for 200 bucks. In actuality I've bought 48 for 26 bucks and, although I have no memory of *how* I must have somehow scrounged 48 used empties.

 

[unionrdr]

Kinda strange how the add on the site said they were glued on. didn't think that made much sense. but 144 count bag of crown caps being only a couple bucks,I'll stick with those.

 

[woozy]

well, we're getting off topic but, why not, we've answered the OP.

I think what maybe happened was: after many uses the washers get wedged in pretty tight. (You ever fix a faucet? It happens.) So the reviewer simply assumed they were glued on. He also claimed the caps weren't replaceable which they are (although rather expensive).

Grolsch bottles are beloved. I'm not entirely sure why. Before I started brewing a bottle capper and bottle caps were not a standard item in my kitchen. In that case having a half dozen Grolsch bottles are a fantastic but not necessary thing in case I want to take individual servings of fruit juice on a picnic say. I woke up one day and got struck with a whim that I wanted to make my own ginger beer and Grolsch bottles would have been nice but I didn't have any so I bought a 24 pack of bottled water and used those and it was fine. I bought a Mr. Beer kit and I used drinking water bottles and it was fine for the first batch. Then I made an amber ale and they never carbonated. (Maybe I didn't wait long enough; maybe they had leaks; it doesn't matter because at that time I did research and learned that drinking water bottles were utterly inadequate.) So I bought a capper which cost a teeny bit more than a can opener.

My point being: capping bottles is a luxury and unnescessary item to a typical *non*brewing kitchen and so Grolsch-bottles can be a wonder. But to a brewing kitchen bottling is a basic function and a capper is as essential as a can-opener. Grolsch bottles are a nice indulgence item but an *all* grolsch and grolsch type operation will just grind you to the ground. You'd need *hundreds* of them and even a bench press capper for 50 bucks will pay for itself within 36 bottles compared to 48 grolsch-type bottles.

Keep a dozen, two dozen, grolsch-type bottles around if you like them but using them solely to avoid paying $25 for a capper is ... not well-thought out.

[16-oz grolsch type bottles are $25/dozen, regular bottles 12 oz are $13 for 24. 48 grolsch type bottles are $100 and 64 regular bottles are $35 so the difference is $65 which is ... a lot and you haven't even bottled your second batch of beer yet!]

 

[emeelio]

Hey guys,

It has been a while since I posted this but I wanted to let you all know that I decided to buy a kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop which came with an IPA recipe: http://brooklynbrewshop.com/1-gallon-beer-mixes/everyday-ipa-mix. The kit is missing a few things like a capper (caps is the other thing I decided to go for instead of Grolsch-style bottles).

Bottling is coming up next week and so far brewing has been great!

Cheers!