Home Brew Equipment For The Homebrewer

Everybody loves beer and would like to make their own, but they're not sure how to get started. The biggest question is usually what type of equipment do I need to start home brewing? A lot of people think that it's very pricey and difficult to obtain all of the home brewing equipment they need to get started, but it's cheaper and much easier than you think. This is a discussion about what primary pieces of brewing equipment you'll need to get started with malt extract brewing.

You'll need a big pot to boil at least two gallons of water, and closer to three gallons is much better for brewing five gallon batches. Make certain your brew kettle has insulated handles so you can readily transport the hot water during brewing. You'll also need a thermometer for taking temperature readings of your boiling liquid. Just before you add your yeast to your brew you need to make certain that the temperature is not too hot or too cold. Yeast is often very fickle and is easily killed if the temperature is too hot, and will be inactive if the temperature is too cold.

Make sure you have a good steel spoon to stir your brew, as a wooden spoon can become filled with bacteria and is not ideal to use. Once you have finished brewing the beer you will need to transfer it to a fermentation vessel. Plastic bucket fermenters are the most common for beginners, but other styles are available. You will also need a hydrometer, a device that measures the specific gravity of your beer and helps figure out how much alcohol is produced during fermentation.

Once fermentation is complete, you need to transfer your beer to a bottling bucket. To ensure your equipment will not spoil your beer, you need to use a sanitizing solution. Transferring the beer is done by using a plastic hose in conjunction with a siphon. To move the beer from the bottling bucket into the individual bottles, you will need to use a plastic hose in conjunction with a bottle filler. I recommend using a bottle filler because the mechanism inside makes bottling much easier than merely using a plain old hose.

Your home brew needs a place to go, so you also need bottle caps and glass bottles. You need roughly 50 twelve ounce. bottles for a conventional five-gallon batch of home brew. Keep in mind, each bottle must be cleaned out and sanitized before bottling your beer. The final step in finishing your bottling process is to connect the bottle caps to the bottles. For this you will need to buy a bottle capper, and I suggest you buy a standing or counter-top model instead of the hand held model. Remember to sanitize the bottle caps as well!

To help filter out debris from your brewing process you will probably want to obtain a strainer as well. If you are using a carboy (glass or plastic) to ferment you may also want to get your hands on a funnel. To remove easy sample readings of your beer during fermentation, a wine or beer thief is a helpful tool to have as well.

Anyone can become a homebrewer and brewing your own beer at home is easy! Build a home microbrewery with this home brew setup as a guide!