Home brewing is rapidly gaining popularity as a great hobby that also results in substantial savings to the wallet. Making beer and wine at home is nothing new. History reveals that it has been practiced for over 7,000 years. In ancient times potable water was often hard to find and beer was often the only safe way to quench a thirst. While the availability of drinking water is no longer a problem, brewing ones own beer, for the fun of it, for the savings and for the unique taste that can be achieved is an expanding hobby and vocation all over the world.
A person can easily do brewing at home. It needs no special expertise and just some simple home brewing equipment. This hardware is available from specialized shops and if there are none near you, you can find and order home brewing equipment online. There are two basic options when buying home brewing equipment – buying a full ready to use kit or buying individual components and setting up the brewery to your own specifications. It is suggested for a beginner to get a complete home brewing equipment kit because the components in them are matched and work well with each other. Those with experience in home brewing could opt for buying individual parts to set up a home brewery that is tailored to produce the specific types of beer they are looking for. But this is a complex exercise and should only be undertaken by those with some experience in the field.
The Basic Home Brewing Equipment Configuration
It is important to by good quality home beer brewing equipment since once you get started, you will be using the equipment regularly and you don’t want things that will give you trouble in a few months.
The heart of the home brewing equipment configuration is the fermenter. This is a large plastic container with a lid that holds the beers as it ferments. The minimum size should be not less than 6 gallons since brewing in smaller volumes is not really viable. The rest of the home brewing equipment consists of a brew pot, thermometer to check the temperature of the brew, a hydro meter for checking the density (or alcohol content) of the brew, a sediment reducer, an airlock for letting carbon dioxide escape while preventing air from entering and a large plastic spoon. This is the home brewing equipment you need to make the beer.
But once you make it, you need to store it and this needs some additional home brewing equipment in the form of bottles, caps, a bottle capper (for sealing the bottles) and a bottle tube for filling the bottles without overflows and wastage.
That takes care of your home brewing equipment hardware. The preparation of beer involves some ingredients. These are available individually or in sets. Once again, beginners should opt for the ready to use sets until such time as they are ready to experiment by using different materials. At the end it is necessary to have a good book or DVD on home brewing and the care of home brewing equipment.
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Brewing your own beer at home is a great hobby that can give you a great deal of pleasure both in the process of brewing and in the types and varieties of tastes and flavors you can achieve. And of course, it can cut down on your bar bills! While many people are interested in trying out the home brewing option, a lot of them are put off by the seemingly high cost of buying the home beer brewing equipment. The actual investment is not really very high and if you do not get taken in by the advertisement that include a lot of fancy home beer brewing equipment that you do not really need, setting up a home brewery can be quite economical. Let’s look at the essential home beer brewing equipment that you really need.
The Essential Home Beer Brewing Equipment Checklist
What follows is a list of home beer brewing equipment that you must have to start off your brewing efforts. Once you gain in experience and confidence, you can add more home beer brewing equipment to your brewery to create different brews and flavors. It’s safer for beginners to by a ready to use sets. While these sets often contain items that are not really needed, at least everything that is essential is included.
It is necessary to have a brew pot in every homemade brewing equipment. This should be made of either stainless steel, plastic or enamel coated with a capacity of at least 4 gallons which is the minimum brewing quantity. It is suggested to avoid aluminum brew pots since they give the beer a metallic taste.
The fermenter is a tub that holds the wort and yeast during the fermentation process. The most common type, and one that is included in all good home beer brewing equipment kits is made of plastic with an airtight lid which has a hole into which the airlock can be fitted. A tap at the base of it is required for filling the beer into bottles.
The airlock is a device that allows carbon dioxide to escape from the fermenter while preventing air from entering the container. This comes with a rubber stopper with a hole for the airlock to be tightly plugged in to the lid of the fermenter.
The brew spoon should be either stainless steel or plastic. Do not buy wooden ones as they are difficult to clean properly. The minimum size should be not less than 18 inches long.
You will need a long stem thermometer to allow you to check the temperature of the wort during the brewing.
A hydrometer is needed to check the brew’s density which will tell you of its alcohol content.
With the above you have all the basic home beer brewing equipment you will need to make your own beer.
What you need next is home beer brewing equipment that allows you to store the beer you have made. These are available with bottles, bottle washers, a bottle filler, caps and a bottle capper.
You can buy lots more in the way of home beer brewing equipment, but with the above in place, you are all set to start doing your own brewing.
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