There are some really awful home brewing starter kits available these days, they look like plastic toys, you end up with a bad tasting beer or wine and they are pretty expensive. I do however understand the need for starter kits as an introduction to beer brewing and wine making. But it should be something a whole lot better then what I saw in the home brew shop the last time I visited. Are there good home brewing starter kits for beer and wine and what should be in it?
Why do we need home brewing starter kits?
What do cooking and science have to do with each other you would say. Well they are both something that can naturally lead to buying home brewing equipment en start brewing your own beer or wine. In cooking it can be just an extension of your culinary skills. And for those who love science, brewing with home brewing starter kits can fulfill your need to experiment with chemical reactions and formulas. Brewing with home brewing starter kits can also be a perfect start to a hobby that you can perfect over the years. You can do it alone, with your partner or with your friends. You create something together and after the rewarding brewing, you can share the end result together and make a great evening from the tasting.
Home brewing starter kits give people who have never brewed before the opportunity to see if they enjoy doing this as a hobby for a small amount of money. If they like it they can expend with bigger and better equipment but they should be able to keep using the stuff from the starter kit. You can buy everything you need from scratch, but it’s much easier if you are just starting out to get a home brewing starter kit that provide all the equipment, instructions, and ingredients to get started with beer brewing or wine making right away.
A Good Beer Brewing Starter Kit Should Include:
- A plastic 30 liter fermenter with lid, that will make 6 Gallons (23 liters) of beer, it is usually made of lightweight, shatter-resistant food grade polyvinyl chloride. (Most of those awful play starter kits will only be sufficient to brew two gallons of beer at a time.) Two gallons?? That is nothing.
- A Hydrometer and a Thermometer
- at least one long big plastic spoon
- a sediment reducer, a bottler tube and bottling valve and a tap
- a proper airlock
- Lightweight, reusable bottles and bottle caps. Many home brewers recycle carbonated soda beverage bottles to use in addition to the bottles that come in these kits for bottling their home brewed beer.
- a instruction book or/and DVD
- A premium quality “brew pack” that takes the guesswork out of brewing beer at home. These premixed brew packs contains all the yeast, beer mix, and sanitizer you’ll need to make your beer. There are many good beer kits and packs available with a great diversity in flavors form dark brown ale to a light lager.
A Good Wine Making Starter Kit Should Include at least:
- One glass carboy, for fermenting the liquid.
- A fermenting bucket, drilled for a spigot.
- Bottle filler and tubing.
- A siphon tube.
- A small drilled stopper.
- A thermometer.
- An airlock.
- A sanitizer.
Using home brewing starter kits to see if this is a great new hobby for you alone, as a couple or with friends is the smartest thing you can do, but make sure to buy a good one. I personally like the “build your own starter kit” system from High Gravity that contains everything you need and if you absolutely must buy something that also looks like fun and gives a decent beer then you should take a look at The BeerMachine.
As you can see you can buy proper home brewing starter kits but you need to watch out for some of the garbage that smart marketing people are selling online and in the shop these days.
