First home brew set up help please

murphyebass

After many ....many years of drinking and enjoying great beer, myself and a friend have decided to start brewing.

We want to get this as right a possible first time if possible so as not to buy a small kit and end up having to "upgrade" later.

For equipment we have a budget of around €300 - €400 to do this.

I was looking at a few sites including www.thehomebrewcompany.ie which see s to have a lot of the equipment needed from the fermenting bin to the DME etc..

I'm tempted to pull the trigger on a few things but I don't want to miss obvious problems etc..

If someone could give a few hints or suggestions they'd be much appreciated.

Thanks a mil.

BeerNut

Home brewing is quite modular: you can start with the very basic set-up and add it as you go along without wasting anything you've already bought. So it really depends on where you want to start. Kits will teach you the basics of hygiene and fermenting; with extract you can learn more about recipe formulation and customising your beer to what you want it to be; and then all-grain gives you all the power, but all the responsibility too. Any of the brew shops will have starter sets for any of these.

I started on extract and have stayed with it. The beer is miles better than what most kits produce. If you're starting there I'd recommend getting a boiler and chiller straight away rather than going the stockpot route.

gothictwilight

I started Home Brewing with Kits, then hacking Kits and finally made the jump to All Grain BIAB brewing in febuary.

I did a quick glance at the Homebrewcompany site and see that they are offering a BIAB starter kit for €90 and that includes a free all grain mash kit.
I would recommend going with this as its quite simple way to start all grain brewing.
https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/biab-starter-kit-peco-boiler-chiller-mashing-bag-mash-kit-p-2805.html

dukeellington

With that budget I'd recommend going for this:

www dot thehomebrewcompany dot ie / all-grain-starter-pack-for-5-gallon-batches-p-2755 dot html

I'm not a fan of boil in the bag and if you want to not have to upgrade to get a "full" set-up this will give you that.

As a general set-up guide this would be my opinion for what it's worth:

Mash
Whole Hog: Full on stainless jacketed vessel with false bottom, but a converted cooler box is more realistic.
Shortcut: Boil in the bag in a kettle, or skip all together with DME or LME

Boil
Whole Hog: Big ass kettle
Cheaper: Big ass stock pot on your hob

Ferment
Whole Hog: SS vessel with temp control, but a better bottle is the homebrew whole hog I guess
Cheaper: Plastic buckets

Bottling
Whole Hog: Buy brown swing top bottles and a cleaning and draining set up, or with a keg system
Cheaper: Bottles and capper

I just enjoyed writing whole hog a lot of times there, but I hope thats of help. Again it's only my two cents but if I was setting up I'd spend first on mash equipment. I also think better bottles are 100% worth what small amount they are over plastic, and are better and cheaper than glass carboys. Swing top are worth the money because you never have to worry about bottle bombs and they hold the flavour in better than anything else. I haven't used a proper kettle and wort chiller but reading this has made me want one for convenience.

FlipperThePriest

I've been doing this 3 or 4 years (maybe more) and I still haven't spent your budget on equipment. I'm still not the most experienced but I'm up to partial mash brewing at this stage and some of the beers I'm now making are great.

Don't be afraid to start small, as BeerNut says, no part of your setup will go redundant if you decide to go to the next level, it's simply a matter of adding on to your existing setup. I'm sure some of the more expensive equipment makes life a little easier but don't think that simply throwing money at this will make better beer. I don't think that's the case. The more practice you get the better your process gets and you will find you'll refine your methods to suit yourself. For example, instead of a wort chiller I use a combo of sterile frozen bottles and ice bath, gets the job done in under 10 mins. I think a wort chiller is unnecessary money spent and a waste of water! Instead of a boiler or mash tun I just use a 5 gallon stock pot, mash under a duvet, doesn't lose a single degree of heat. It can be done well for cheap. Don't overlook the more important but cheaper tools, such as hydrometer, thermometer, airlock, bottling wand, sterilising stuff etc.

I think you should read as much as you can, find out the difference between all the different brewing methods (kit brewing, extract, partial, biab, all-grain etc) and get onto the John Palmer website. Also you could Youtube the different methods of brewing and see which level you fancy.

finatron

I started off with BIAB and I'm currently upgrading to an all grain system I'm building myself.
I'm a toolmaker by trade so it's cheaper for me to build I've spent around €300 or so.
I found BIAB a great way learn and I've made some pretty good all grain beers the only negative is the volume of beer you can make.

murphyebass

https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/extract-brewers-starter-kit-includes-free-full-extract-kit-p-1097.html

Thinking of going with this. But stupid question first.

One of the fermentation buckets seems to have be used to to boil etc instead of using a big pot on a stove. Is that right?

The only thing that isn't from scratch here then is the mash part is using DME or LME instead if I'm not mistaken.

Anything else I'm missing here?

Seems like a good starter kit which I could add to.

Cheers.

RasTa

Yeah it's an electric boiler, like a big kettle. You can also do full all grain brew in a bag with that setup.

murphyebass

RasTa wrote: »

Yeah it's an electric boiler, like a big kettle. You can also do full all grain brew in a bag with that setup.

Thanks a mil. I was 99% sure but just wanted to be 100% before ordering.

Cheers for all the help so far lads. I'm sure I'll be back to ye in regards to the first brew in the coming weeks.

FlipperThePriest

What do people mash in with this setup? Still need some sort of pot/cooler to mash in? This isn't done in the plastic boiler is it?

BeerNut

zippy84 wrote: »

What do people mash in with this setup? Still need some sort of pot/cooler to mash in?

It's an extract set-up, so no mashing happens. A stockpot would be useful for steeping, but it wouldn't be rocket science to adapt the boiler for steeping in it.

murphyebass

BeerNut wrote: »

It's an extract set-up, so no mashing happens. A stockpot would be useful for steeping, but it wouldn't be rocket science to adapt the boiler for steeping in it.

Yup extract set up for now and will add in mash set up down the line when we've got a feel for the process. No need to jump in just yet but definately will happen.

What adapting will I need for adapting the boiler for steeping? I thought it'd be just grains in a bag and into the boiler no?

Is there a concern over them burning at the bottom of boiler maybe?

I thought that was more a concern if using a kettle over gas hob.

I know you can get a steel grid that sits at the bottom
To prevent this though. Would I need it for this setup then or what are you suggesting isn't rocket science to adapt?

Thanks a mil. First set up here remember so go easy on me. :-)

RasTa

You'll have to do brew in a bag for full mash. Cover the heating element with one of these so the bag doesn't burn

http://www.geterbrewed.ie/stainless-steel-false-bottom-for-peco-boiler/

Which I spotted in Ikea the other day, exact same thing...

http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/10112530/

neoanto

Well if you're steeping grains, first off you need to do it in a small amount of water.
John Palmer suggests roughly 1ltr of water per 120g of grains. Also dont go above 80C.

So you could do that in your boiler and keep the grains in a bag (suspend them from the bottom so they dont get burned).
Once your steeping is done reomve the bag and add in the rest of the water for the boil.
Do a late addition of most of your extract during the boil to prevent caramlisation and then your set.

BeerNut

murphyebass wrote: »

Would I need it for this setup then or what are you suggesting isn't rocket science to adapt?

You don't need it. You don't need to steep grains at all. And either a grid or a way of suspending the bag above the element would work for adapting a boiler for steeping. But TBH I'd just get a cheap stockpot and steep on the hob in that.

murphyebass

BeerNut wrote: »

You don't need it. You don't need to steep grains at all. And either a grid or a way of suspending the bag above the element would work for adapting a boiler for steeping. But TBH I'd just get a cheap stockpot and steep on the hob in that.

Trying to get away from the kitchen altogether.
We'll be brewing in a very large shed. It has power but no hob.
Considered getting a gas cyclinder and burner on top but went with the boiler as I thought it could bypass that.
Sure we'll see it's all ordered now so just use what we have and if we need to expand the set up so be it.
Will try with what we have first. Might try cover the element with the mesh ideas mentioned