GLTHFJ60 said:
If you wouldn't mind giving me a rundown of what's in the kit and what I'd need to pick up ( aside from consumables of course ) then I'd love to give it a shot!
Here is a link to Bull City Homebrew with their basic kit:
http://www.bullcityhomebrew.com/products.aspx?sku=K1&search=0
Basic needs consists of:
- Primary, can be a glass "carboy" or food grade bucket with lid that seals
- air lock
- bottling bucket but you can get away from using it if you put a spigot on your primary
- bottle capper w/caps
- big friggen spoon
- hydrometer for measuring specific gravity
- thermometer
- "racking kit", basically some tubing to fill bottles
- sanitizer (Star-san is the stuff, no-rinse, no after taste)
- way to heat 5 gal of water to a boil. I bought a cheap turkey fryer that burns propane
- vessel to heat the 5 gal of water in, where the turkey fryer came into play also
- I made a immersion wort chiller, you have to cool down the wort (beer) before you put it in the primary to ferment, before adding the yeast.
- patience
Basically, you need to heat 5 gal of water to a boil, add the extract (if its a partial grain recipe, more time up front to steep the grain) and boil for "x" amount of time (30-90 minutes, depending on the recipe), cool it down (ice bath or wort chiller) and put it in the bucket with the air lock to ferment for 7-21 days, again, depending on the recipe. It needs to ferment at a stable temp, depending on the yeast type, typically between 60-75f. Once its done fermenting, "rack" it into bottles with the "carbing sugar", cap and let sit another week.
Check out Bull City Homebrew's website and look through some of the "extract" recipes, it will give you an idea of whats involved. Took me 2-3 hours the first time, just bottled up the first brew today. Most of the work is in sanitation of everything that touches the wort, otherwise, its boiling, timing (when to add hops if the recipe calls for them) and clean up. Hope this rambling post makes some sense.
And, because we did bottle the first batch, here's a pic to start the smack talk...
R
