Home brewing can cover a lot of drinks yet for beer there is a range of specific equipment you will need. It does not have to be super-expensive yet some items are more essential than others and you can always reuse them after.
The method of extracting sugar and flavor from a specific source remains yet you will need to find a space to create your delicious beer and all that equipment. For all your home brewing needs, visit the homebrewing beer website.
The beer kit itself will have a lot of equipment that you may need to start you off. That can include the fermenting bucket, bottling valve, tap, hydrometer, digital thermometer, bottles, caps, long stirrer, and even some brewer yeast.
These can be specific to the beer brand or a specific bottled beer that you may want to replicate.
For a five-gallon yield, you will need a six-and-a-half-gallon fermenting bucket that comes with a lid. The lid for this plastic bucket will also need to have a hole already drilled so you can fit it in the airlock.
The hydrometer is considered to be a vital piece of equipment as it can read the potential for alcohol content, gravity, and the brix.
You will need a waterproof, floating thermometer for your homebrewing, simply to keep control of the mashing temperature. Real-time readings will be essential so the mash is kept on track.
The bottling bucket can be the same volume as the fermenting bucket, which would make sense. This is for sanitizing as it comes with a spigot, as well as bottling.
Just three or four nylon bags as these will be used to add the hops to the boil.
You may also need a stock pot, like a lobster pot, which has a volume in excess of four gallons.
Once you do begin to siphon out your beer from the fermentor, you will need a racking cane. Ideally, an auto-siphon version to help with sanitation.
The airlock is not entirely essential for your bucket and lid yet it may prove vital. You do not want to allow the CO2 to escape via a tiny gap so having that airlock is a good failsafe. Also, if you are having a carboy then the airlock with a stopper becomes a must-have item.
The tap/auto-siphon is a great piece of kit for moving beverages from one vessel to another.
To save a bit of time during the bottling process, a polycarbonate bottling stick can come in very handy. These come with a valve at the end which will automatically shut once taken up from the bottom of the bottle. Ideal to prevent any spillages.
The long stirrer should have a long handle and it should be sanitized. As long as it is made from stainless steel, you may already have one in your kitchen.
This piece of equipment is used simply to combine the hot water with the malt extract prior to fermentation. You may also need the long stirrer for priming the beer yet remember that a wooden spoon may have microbes that can leave your beer spoiled.
Find a beverage line that is five feet long and around three-eighths of an inch wide. This is used to transfer the beer and its filling bottles.
Of course, when you have finished your brewing process, you will have to bottle up the beer. That should mean several empty glass beer bottles, a funnel to pour the beer into them, and caps to finish it off. The actual bottling process is a little more complicated than that.
A funnel really becomes valuable when you are priming each bottle. That’s with a tiny amount of sugar for each bottle, 1.7g for 330ml bottles and 2.5g for 500ml bottles. Once primed, you can fill the bottles up with your homebrewed beer and fix a cap on using a bottle capper.
As you may anticipate, there is plenty of equipment that is essential for your first-time homebrewing. Thankfully, if homebrewing becomes an enjoyable hobby then you may find yourself using the same equipment over and over again.
As you become better at the process, you may begin to invest in some further equipment to make the process even easier. If the beer kit comes with plastic bottles, then it may be time to advance to glass bottles with caps and a bottle capper.
