Home Brewing Equipment - Brewing Equipment You'll Need. - By: Juliet Wilson

The initial step you must take to make your own beer is simply selecting an acceptable area to brew it. Your kitchen is often a good location. You should plan on being there for several hours and quite possibly creating what may very well be deemed by non-home brewers as a huge mess. That being said, you may want to ask people who live in your home if it is okay. Once you've secured the kitchen you will need to get your home brewing equipment. For starters we will look at what sorts of equipment will be required to home brew using malt extract.

Basic home brewing equipment is usually not really very expensive. You should be able to get all the equipment that is necessary for somewhere within the range of $100 to $150. Most home brewing equipment suppliers have kits which have all the things you need to make your own beer at home aside from ingredients and bottles.

This is a list of the basic home brewing equipment you'll need to start brewing beer:

� Brew Kettle
� Thermometer
� Hydrometer
� Funnel and Strainer
� 6.5 Gallon Primary Fermenter
� Airlock and Rubber Stopper
� Racking Tube with Siphon Hose
� 6.5 Gallon Bottling Bucket with Spigot
� Bottles
� Bottle Brush
� Bottle Caps and Capper

Here are several more household items that can be useful:

�Small bowl
�Saucepan
�Rubber spatula
�Oven mitts/pot handlers
�Large mixing spoon (stainless steel or plastic)

So now let�s check out the home brewing equipment and provide you with a basic concept of what you will be doing with it.

Brew Kettle:
The brew kettle is a big pot that has a volume of at least 4.5 gallons. The ideal type is manufactured out of stainless steel. Also you can use one that is manufactured from ceramic-coated (enameled) steel or aluminum. If you use a brand new aluminum pot, don�t use it bright-and-shiny; you might get a metallic off-flavor. Boil some water in it first. Additionally chipped enamelized pots may also produce off-flavors. If you happen to have got a couple of smaller pots in your kitchen that hold at least 4.5 gallons together this also will work. The brew kettle is the very first piece of home brewing equipment you are going to be using. All your ingredients (accept for the yeast) will be added to the brew kettle and brought to a boil. This sweet mixture you will have made is called �wort�.

Thermometer:
A thermometer is used to check the temperature of your brew during various stages of the brewing process. A stick-on thermometer may be affixed on the outer surface of the primary fermenter to permit you to observe the temperature of the fermentation. This is an extremely important piece of home brewing equipment given that the temperature of the fermentation affects the flavor of the finished beer.

Hydrometer:
A hydrometer is a really useful instrument for calculating potential alcohol, or if the beer has fermented entirely. This is a piece of home brewing equipment that all brewers will need to own and understand how to use. Virtually all home brewing kits provide one.

Funnel and Strainer:
They are used to help transfer the contents of the brew kettle into your primary fermenter. The strainer will help filter out the hops that were put into the brew kettle.

Primary Fermenter:
The primary fermenter is the place where the wort goes once you�ve boiled and cooled it, this is where the beer starts to ferment and become that delightful stuff that causes you to become so humorous and delightful. The primary fermenter is a piece of home brewing equipment that might be a plastic bucket with a lid that seals tightly or a glass container (otherwise known as a carboy). Either one will need to have a minimum capacity of 6.5 gallons, and accommodates a rubber stopper plus the airlock. The fermenter needs to be completely clean and free from scratches.

Airlock and Rubber Stopper:
The airlock is a nifty piece of equipment that allows carbon dioxide to vent out of the primary fermenter during fermentation, and thus preventing it from exploding, but doesn�t make it possible for any of the air from outside to get in your beer�s clean environment. It fits into a rubber stopper with a hole drilled into it, and then the stopper goes on the top of the primary fermenter.

Racking Cane with Siphon Hose:
A racking cane is a rigid piece of clear plastic tubing which is connected to the siphon hose and reaches to the bottom of your fermenter. The siphon hose should be clear food-grade tubing. It is used to transfer the beer from one place to another.

Bottling Bucket with Spigot:
This is usually a 6.5 gallon, food-grade plastic bucket with a spigot at the bottom. It has to be at least as big as your primary fermenter, since you must transfer all your tasty beer from the primary fermenter into the bottling bucket prior to bottling it. It is also important to have a bottle filler attachment at the end of the tubing coming from the spigot. This is another important piece of home brewing equipment that allows you to fill your bottles by merely pushing the filler down on the bottom of the bottle until the beer reaches the top, and after taking out the filler, the ideal amount of head space is created.

Bottles:
After the primary fermentation is finished the beer is placed into bottles for secondary fermentation and storage. The best kind of bottles are brown glass ones with smooth tops (don't use the twist-off kind) that can accept a cap from your bottle capper. You must have a good amount of bottles to hold all of the beer you are planning to brew. Based on the bottle volume you have got to do a bit of math. A 5 gallon batch of beer will be 640 ounces; so if you are using 12 ounce bottles you will need approximately 54. Should you go with 16 ounce bottles you need 40 bottles.

Bottle Brush:
This is a thin, curvy brush that you can put in a bottle so that you can clean it out really well. We haven�t talked about just how clean all things have to be, but we are going to, and the bottle brush is a specific item of cleaning equipment you should have for home brewing.

Bottle Caps and Capper:
You will also need to have bottle caps, as you might expect, and you can purchase them from every home brewing equipment shop. The optimal type of bottle capper is one that can be attached to a surface and worked with a single hand as you grip the bottle with the other. You can also get less expensive ones which must have two hands on the capper, however these usually are a hassle. Go where your budget guides you.

A couple of other items you will need to get are chemicals to clean and sanitize your home brewing equipment. Perhaps you might want to know what is the difference between cleaning and sanitizing? What can make these two things so vital to making your own beer? 90% of all home brewing failures are connected to a breakdown in cleaning or sanitization and for certain, they're two distinct items.

�Cleaning chemicals get rid of apparent build up and residue from your home brewing equipment. Some good cleaners are B-Brite, One Step, and Easy Clean

�Sanitizing is actually treating your home brewing equipment with chemicals designed to wipe out, or inhibit the development of unwanted microorganisms. You cannot sanitize a single thing unless it's thoroughly clean. Some good quality sanitizers are IO Star and Star San. The brew kettle is one of the only pieces of equipment which only has to be cleaned and not sanitized. This is because you'll be boiling your wort in your kettle which will sanitize it along with the wort.

All of the home brewing equipment which touches the beer once it leaves your brew kettle needs to be clean, and properly sanitized, from the thermometer to the carboy, from the siphon hose to the rubber stopper and airlock. A single slip-up may potentially result in the entire batch coming out poorly. With that being said, there aren't any known human pathogens which can remain alive in beer, this means you do not need to be worried about harming yourself or your pals.

When you�ve gotten all these items, you�re almost equipped to make your own beer! Now you need to get your home brewing supplies and ingredients and you will be all set.

For anybody who is worried that brewing beer at home might be complicated and really hard, do not be. It's just a progression of easy steps. More detailed brewing instructions are going to come in a following post.

About the Author

So you are interested in home brewing? Click for more information regarding how to make your own beer. Find out more about the home brewing equipment that you'll need to brew tasty beer in your own home.

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