I know yesterday’s post discussed a starter brewing kit and did imply that I would write about the different items in the kit, but I think I want to stop myself before I get waaaaaaaaay ahead.   There is  a very important piece of equipment all beginning homebrewers need to have: A brew pot. 

Every brewer, not matter the experience level, needs a brew pot.  You need a pot to boil your malts and hops to make your beer. 

You could buy a brew pot from a homebrewing supply store right off the bat, but it’s not a requirement…like the kit is.  Most people have a large stock pot in their kitchens that can be used for homebrewing.  If you are just starting out, my opinion is that you shouldn’t have to invest any more than is absolutely necessary.  Believe me,  it can get expensive.

Most beginner homebrew recipes only require you to boil an amount of 1 to 2 gallons at the most.  When I started, I was only brewing a gallon and a half of wort so I only needed an 8 quart pot.  If you have a larger one, that’s fine.  The picture below depicts a 22 quart pot.

I don’t think you need one this big to start, but do whatever you want. It’s your money.
I would stick with stainless steel and one with handles that makes it easy to move.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk fermenting buckets!

Since we started this blog, Mike and I have been publishing posts around subjects that are familiar to us and our experience levels.  Mike’s certainly pretty advanced and I know just enough to be dangerous, but I think I need to put up some posts that speak to the beginner and would-like-to-be-a-beginner-but-I-don’t-know-where-to-start readers.

The next series of posts will be for the people who have an appreciation for homebrewed beer but haven’t taken the time to learn about how to brew at home.

In my opinion, the first step you need to take before becoming a homebrewer is to buy a beginner’s homebrewing kit.  The photo below depicts what said kit looks like:

 I got this photo from NorthernBrewer.com, a homebrew shop based in St. Paul, MN.  You can see that there are a couple of buckets, some tubing, bottle caps, and some things that you may have never seen before…which might be kinda scary…but they aren’t.

Starting tomorrow and over the next few days, I will go into detail what each of these items are and what they are used for.

If you want to get a head start, visit these sites where you can purchase a kit right away.

You can get the kit pictured above by visiting the Northern Brewer Starter Kits page.

When I got started, I bought my kit by ordering from selecting this kit from
Beer-Wine.com page.

There’s a new brewing supply store in MA and you can buy a kit by visiting DIY Brewing.