What do i need to brew my own beer?
Brewing your own beer can be remarkably simple if you have the right equipment. Some basic equipment you’ll need are:
- A stainless steel brewkettle (preferably more than 4 ounces)
- Two large plastic buckets (one with a lid, with a hole drilled in it for the airlock)
- An airlock, which will allow carbon dioxide to escape from your fermenter
- A rigid plastic racking cane and 6 feet of vinyl hose to fit over the end of the cane)
- Clean, non-twist-off beer bottles
- A bottle capper and crown caps
- Chlorine bleach (to use as a sanitizer)
Ingredients you’ll need include:
- Unhopped liquid malt extract
- 2 ounces of hops
- Ale yeast
- 2/3 cup dextrose, or corn sugar
Source: Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine
You will need, first and foremost, a taste for good beer. If you enjoy bud light or coors or miller now, you probably won’t care much for homebrew. If, however, you’ve already aquired a taste for Bass Ale, Guinness, Sam Adams Boston Ale, etc, then you have the first “what do I need” conquered. As for equipment, you need to boil 3 gallons of water, ferment it in a 6.5 gallon glass jug, siphon to a 5-gallon glass jug, bottle and cap. Fermenting in plastic will give you questionable results, which will turn you off from brewing. So, for equipment, you have several options. I suggest finding good used equipment (less than $100) from someone who decided they didn’t like the time, energy, and space commitments. You can purchase a new starter kit in the same price range but I think it’s a waste of money because you won’t have quality stuff. Next, you need water, malt extract, hops, and yeast. You’ll spend about $30 for all the ingredients every time you want to make a 5-gallon batch of beer (
