If you are a new Brewer trying to enter the home brewing hobby, you’ll need a few pieces of equipment before you can get started. This guide will walk you through some of the most cost effective pieces of equipment that you can buy.
Brew-in-a-bag Approach
There are a few different methods you can use to brew beer but the simplest and most popular these days is called brew in a bag (BIAB) which involves brewing all the steps of the brew process in a single brew kettle and using a mesh bag to separate the mash from the wort. This is the cheapest way to start brewing because it has the least pieces of equipment. All you need is a way to heat liquid in a large kettle and a bag.
Heating methods and brew kettle size
The main piece of equipment you will need first is the kettle. While this might seem like a simple purchase, there are several different sizes and widths available along with other special features, like ports, temperature, gauges, and valves. When starting out, you’ll want one that is simple and cost effective. You’ll also want to take into account how you will heat the water.
The very cheapest option is to use your stove. Although most brewers eventually move away from the stove because the kitchen tends to get very messy during the brewing process and the heating element limits the volume of water/wort you can boil. For stovetop brewing, a 5-7 gallon kettles are ideal. Anything larger will be difficult to bring to a boil. Be sure to check the BTUs of your stove and check if it can handle boiling 3-5 gallons of liquid.
Propane is usually the next option brewers try. Propane is great because it’s fairly portable and can be used outside where making a mess isn’t as big of a deal. It’s also able to heat water/wort very quickly. The downside is that it’s a bit pricey to purchase a propane burner, refill propane tanks and backup tanks. Nothing is worse than running out of propane mid-way through the boil and having to run to the store to pick up a refill, so it’s best to have backups. For propane, kettles can range from 5 gallons up to 15+ gallons. A 15 gallon kettle will generally ensure that you can produce 5 gallons of wort of any OG beer, even using a BIAB approach
Last but not least, electric is becoming more and more popular for heating during the brewing process. Electric has several advantages, one of which is that it’s cheaper and doesn’t require you to buy propane tank refills and you can do it inside since there’s no open flame. The downside is that in the US many of the outlets are 120 volt which take longer to heat up the water and to bring the kettle to boil. If you have access to a 220 volt outlet then do yourself a favor and go straight to electric as it will have comparable through times to propane. We recommend the Digiboil from Morebeer or similar depending on what market you’re in. This is a simple electric boiling kettle with nine gallons capacity. This will let you brew beers up to 1070 OG with a BIAB full-volume mash. Throw in a mesh bag to hold your grain and now you should be able to get brewing.
Fermenter
The second piece of equipment you will need is a fermenter. You can’t go wrong with a simple six gallon plastic PET carboy. These will usually come with a lid, a stopper and an airlock but if not you can buy them separately. This setup will hold your typical five gallon batch with space for expansion during fermentation.
Chiller
The third piece of equipment that you’ll need is a chiller. When you have five gallons of boiling hot liquid, you’ll want to get it to room down to room temperature before you pitch the yeast. Not only is this a safety issue, but also important to remove proteins from the liquid. It’s what’s called the “cold break”. This will make your beer clearer and generally tastes better. The most common type of chiller is an immersion chiller. Many homebrewing starter kits will come with a simple immersion chiller made of copper or stainless steel. These are designed to connect to your faucet or hose to run cold water through your hot wort exchanging the heat and exiting hot water on the other side. If you’re brewing an apartment, you’ll want to get an adapter for your sink or find the indoor hose outlet that you can use. You can also do this in your bathtub or any suitable place with a hose bib. For outdoor, simply connect to your hose.
Even the least expensive immersion chillers can be very efficient and can cool most five gallon batches within 15 minutes. The key is to stir the words while you’re chilling in order to increase the surface area exposed to the water. The main downside is that you will not be able to chill wort below the temperature of your water. So for lager and hybrid styles, you will need to refrigerate the wort a bit before pitching the yeast.
Packaging
So now we have a way to mash and boil, chill and ferment the wort. The last main step is to actually package your beer so you can drink it. The easiest solution is to bottle your beer. For this approach you’ll need at minimum some clear vinyl ⅝” tubing and an auto-siphon (link to kit) plus bottles, bottle caps and a capper. A bottling bucket will help with transferring the beer off of the yeast and mixing in the priming sugar, which is just regular table sugar.
Miscellaneous Equipment
You’ll probably also want a few other quality of life tools to make things easier on brew day. The first is a large spoon or mash paddle. You might have one laying around at home but if not then pick up a mash paddle or large stainless steel spoon. You’ll want a hydrometer to measure the gravity of the starting and ending points of your beer which will tell you the approximate abv. A sanitizer is required to make sure that everything your beer touches is sanitized. We recommend Star San because it doesn’t require any rinsing and can be sprayed onto your equipment with a spray bottle.
The last piece of equipment you may want to invest in is a basic form of temperature control. If you are brewing in the winter in a cold environment, you might want to get a heating wrap. These can be fairly inexpensive and will keep your beer at the right temperature. If you’re brewing in a hot environment, refrigeration is a bit more tricky. A simple solution is to find a cheap mini-fridge on craigslist and modify it to regulate your fermentation temperature using an Inkbird temperature controller. There are many guides online on how to do this.
Starter Kits
A great way to make sure you have all the right stuff to get started is to buy a pre-made kit. These will come with all the required equipment, a recipe box and a step-by-step guide to getting started. Buying a kit directly can help save on costs by bundling all the equipment together, which gets you a discount vs buying everything separately. It also ensures you won’t forget something important by containing everything necessary to complete your first brew.
Here are a few kits from Morebeer that we would recommend:
Electric Starter Kit - Perfect for jumping straight to electric all-grain brewing
Deluxe Starter Kit - Low cost option great for getting started with extract brewing
Premium Starter Kit - All-grain BIAB kit that comes with a larger kettle and a chiller
Conclusion
To summarize, you will need the following equipment to get started with homebrewing:
- Kettle
- Brew bag
- Fermenter with airlock
- Chiller
- Bottles, caps and a capper
- Auto-siphon and tubing
- Bottling bucket
- Mash paddle
- Hydrometer
- Star San
- Thermometer
- Recipe kit or ingredients
Whether you go with a kit or buy everything separately, you’ll be on your way to making great beer at home!
Cheers!