Starting it all off...

So recently I decided to start brewing my own beer. I am a novice at this, but I think it will be a good idea for me to keep track of the steps I go through and some tasting notes as I go through. Facebook is as good a place and any, and while most people won't be interested in it, some might. If you do find this interesting and have questions as to why I did anything I did, please ask. There's a good chance that question will help me to better understand it myself.

For my first entry, I'll briefly start with the equipment I chose to pick up and what caused me to do it. I bought most of this equipment about 6 weeks ago. It cost me in the range of $125-$150. The vast majority of it came from www.homebrewit.com. They didn't seem to have the best designed website, but the prices and shipping were the cheapest I found on the web for most of the stuff. They also happened to ship from Indianapolis so I got everything within 2 days. I would recommend them with some exceptions that you can PM me about if you want more information.

Brewing Equipment:
1x 20 quart Stainless Steel Pot with Lid (Overstock.com)
1x Stainless Steel Spoon (Meijer)
1x Digital Probe Thermometer (Meijer)
1x Mortar and Pestle (Meijer)
1x Hydrometer

Fermenting Equipment:
2x 7.5 Gallon Fermenting Buckets
2x Spigots for the buckets
2x Bucket Lids w/ Airlock Hole
2x Airlock

Bottling Equipment:
1x Bottle Filling Wand
1x 6' Tubing
1x Bottle Cleaning Brush
36x 22 oz bottles
24x 12 oz bottles
1x Red Manual Bottle Capper


In reading up on the subject, I discovered that the exact equipment you needed to brew beer varies. For one, some techniques are optional and not necessary for novice brewers. Additionally, there is different equipment that can be used to accomplish each stage.

So why did I choose what I did? The first was that I watched an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown used much the same equipment. There were a few differences, but for the most part it is the same stuff. While I am not really a huge fan of Alton Brown himself, his show usually has some pretty practical advice. He takes into account things that really matter to people like ease of use, cost, and similar.

Man love for Alton Brown aside, I'm not going to blindly go by something he says, especially when it isn't cheap. So I did some looking into the choices myself. He recommended a different type of bottle - a Grolsch style that caps which he said are easier to use. Those apparently don't work that well and actually can mess up batches of beer beyond your first one. There is a rubber washer that if not replaced every time can contaminate the bottles. This seemingly eliminated the ease of use argument that caused Alton to recommend them. There were a few things like that which caused me to go into a different direction. Through the few batches I did brew I learned a few things that would cause me to change a few things as well, but I will save those for later.