Santa bringing some home brewing equipment

[Puddy]

Rovers -

I'm reading the Palmer book right now as suggested and you guys are right...it's very good. I think what I'm learning is that I want to make sure I actually enjoy brewing before investing in better more expensive equipment. I can't argue with the price you are offering them, they seem like a great deal but I'm going to wait until I brew a couple of batches before spending that kind of cash on a fermenter. I'll probably regret it but I want to make sure this is a hobby that I will stick with first.

 

Thanks for the offer. I'm sure you won't have an issue selling them. If for some reason you still have one at the time, I'll reach out to you again.

 

I appreciate the knowledge you bring to the discussion and look forward to picking your brain as I go through this.

[Rovers]

I think you will find that bottling is the one thing that is a pita, at least if you use 12oz bottles. Kegging is far easier, but you need the space to get it cold. Lots of people find an old fridge for that. A good compromise is to get 5 one gallon growlers. A lot less cleaning and "racking" that way.

 

If you do decide to do partial boils on your stove (full boils make better beer) just be sure to cover the stove with two layers of aluminum foil, the enite top. You WILL have a boil over. I guarantee it. Like I said, turkey friers are pretty cheap and a lot easier to boil wort in. Boil outside, full boils, no mess.

[Rovers]

BTW, while 2 liter growlers like this one:

 

http://www.homebrew.com/shopping/index.mv?...T-beer-growlers

 

are a bit pricy, they are far easier to use than 12 oz bottles, and you don't need a capper or caps. Cleaning, racking and capping 12oz bottles will get old VERY fast. Figure 52-54 12oz bottles for a five gallon batch. You can get new bottles for about $14 plus shipping per case. Now you have to measure the priming sugar VERY carefull for each bottle, fill each one, and cap it. Then you'll have to rinse and soak them overnight with a cleaner like PBW, then rinse them in a seperate sanitizer bath before you use them again. Then, you don't want to store them upright collecting dust inside. Now you need some bottle trees to store them upside down.

 

With 10 half gallon growlers, that run about $17 each, you begin to see why people like to keg instead. In addition, if you keg you can get the beer carbonated in one day without the headache of priming sugar in each bottle.

 

Too much priming sugar in a botle= exploding bottles. And it takes about two weeks to get carbonated, the small amount of yeast left in the beer needs time to eat the priming sugar. It's the yeast that will create CO2 as it eats the new sugar. With a CO2 takn and a korny keg, you just force carbonate it at 7 lbs of pressure for a day and it's ready to drink. Now you only have to clean one vessel, the korny keg.

 

People who do get into brewing as a long term hobby waste a boatload of money as they start with low end equipment and keep spending $$$ on upgrades. The beginner equipment is hard to resell too. The high end stuff is much easier to resell, which keeps the risk lower in the long run.

 

Puddy, if you think about it... any $ you spend on low end stuff that money is gone. You won't be able to resell it. Buy high end stuff.... no doubt you could get almost all of your investment back if you go high end first. SS stuff holds it's value. So, buying high end isn't very risky. Homebrewers are always upgrading. They get tired of bottling. They get tired of racking to a secondary carboy or plastic fermenter. Just something to think about.