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So my last blog entry was rather optimistic and while I was and still am very much dedicated to the goal of being able to legitimately call myself a master brewer, I am unhappy to report that I let a few months of inaction seep into the overall plan. It was a great summer and I did get the chance to enjoy drinking some great beer but unfortunately none of it was made by me. However, I am happy to report that I did recently complete at least a couple of the first steps in the long journey to master brewer - I bought a brewing equipment kit - and I have brewed my first beer at home.
I must admit I was a bit nervous about buying brewing equipment. I wasn't necessarily nervous about knowing in general what to buy - there are plenty of lists out there and we have one on this very site in the Basic Brewing how-to - but I was worried about forgetting something small or buying something that was not ideal to what I was trying to achieve. I was unnecessarily nervous. To start out with extract and/or extract plus steeping of grain recipes, you really don't need any fancy equipment, and as this must be the way all homebrewers start out, the homebrew manufacturers and stores cater to this very well. I was encouraged by friends who brewed (BeerNard) to "just go buy a kit".
And so I decided that a couple weekends ago would be the weekend for assembling the necessary equipment. For some reason I assumed that it would be a much longer and more complicated process than it really was. We started out by visiting a local beer and homebrewing store that was having its grand opening at a new location. If any of you are from, or are ever fortunate enough to get to visit, Rochester, Beers of the World is a good place to spend some money on over 1500 different beers and a decent selection of homebrewing equipment and ingredients. However, as it was their first weekend in the new location, and it seems they put a priority on moving the finished, ready to drink beer over first, they had a very limited selection of brewing equipment and instead I looked at several empty shelves in the homebrewing section. I am sure that this has been remedied by this time - and I understand the desire to move what sells first - but it did mean that I had to look elsewhere to purchase a brewing kit since I was intent on buying everything that day.
I ended up going to a newer homebrew store, Hydroponics & Home Brewing that was a few miles away in Victor, NY. I had been to this store before, and had purchased ingredients there several times for beer brewed elsewhere. They seem to have a decent selection and more importantly, they had a single cashier running the store that actually brews, and was able to be very helpful in quickly identifying the equipment that would meet my needs. While looking at brewing kits, he recommended that I go with True Brew's Gold Kit K6. I believe there were lower K levels there but he recommended this one as it had almost everything I needed.
The K6 kit ran about $104 dollars (prior to tax) and had:
-7.8 gallon plastic brewing bucket (with spigot and hole for accepting a water lock)
-6 gallon glass carboy (for secondary fermentation)
-Airlock and stopper (for using it with the carboy as opposed to the bucket)
-Fast flow rack & fill kit (for both racking between fermenters and filling bottles - 5 ft of tubing
-Twin lever capper (seems pretty nice)
-Bottle brush
-Triple scale hydrometer
-Adhesive thermometer (the type that you stick to the side of the bucket for measuring fermentation temperature - only goes up to 78° and certainly does not meet the needs for monitoring mash temperature
-C-Brite cleanser packets (seems like great stuff so far)
After buying the kit, I unfortunately had not planned enough ahead, and when he asked what I planned on brewing, I had no good answer. It hadn't occurred to me to buy ingredients at the same time. Instead, he offered up the beer ingredient kits also from True Brew (see attached recipe True Brew Kit: Oktoberfest) and I figured I might as well give them a shot and it might make my first solo brew easier. I think it might have been the excitement of getting new equipment, but when I looked around at the options and he asked which one - I replied Oktoberfest without thinking about Oktoberfest being a lager beer and my not having the ability to lager due to lacking an extra refrigerator/freezer or even a place to put them (I am, at least for the time being, locked in an apartment). Luckily, it's more of a brown ale recipe really as they included a generic ale yeast, but more on the recipe and making it in my next entry.
After leaving the homebrew store, I knew there were a few more items I would need, primarily a large stock pot to do the boil in. From what I have heard, the larger the pot, the better which you have to balance against the prices some places charge for stainless steel buckets. In the homebrew store, I could have spent about $90 on a nice 16qt brew pot, but I had heard from BeerNard that a similar or larger size pot could be found elsewhere for cheaper. He seemed to believe he had bought his 16qt brew pot at Pottery Barn for $20 but after checking there I find it highly doubtful. I ended up checking out several stores but found the pot I would end up buying at Target. It was a 20qt pot (so I could technically do a 5 gallon boil if the "Hot Break" didn't exist) and seems to be nice and was only $45. I also got a strainer, a package of long handled stirring spoons, and a thermometer from Target. A note on the thermometer - I am not sure why I thought it had to be one that could handle up to 400° (it was a deep frying thermometer) as really the temperatures we need to measure in brewing are all below boiling and we don't even really need to measure the temperature of boiling as I am fairly certain that is a known temperature save variations due to elevation (or other pressure differences but I am assuming you aren't brewing in a pressure cooker or barometric chamber). So please don't make the same mistake I made - the one I got - even though it was supposedly good to a high temperature ended up breaking in its first boil (the glass of its outer case cracked). And the next thermometer I will buy will certainly have more graduations between 100 and 200 as its hard to be sure you are at 160° when there isn't a line to compare against.
Ok, enough about my thermometer issues. Aside from those purchases, the only other items I had to buy where a Brita filter and pitcher (I am content with drinking chlorinated water but I don't think the yeast and those who try my beer are going to want a chlorine flavor in it) and a floor mat (again it's an issue of this apartment - I have carpeting almost everywhere and am going to have to put the fermenters on the floor in such a room).
As I have only partially completed 1 brew with this equipment, I really can't make recommendations yet (other than my thoughts on thermometers), but know that this is the equipment I will be using going forward and I will try to make sure I put notes in entries if I acquire new toys. In the immediate future my only planned purchases are a second bucket (to hold sanitizer on brewing day) and, of course, a new thermometer.
