Do you want to start brewing your own beer but you’re not sure where to start? Before you can brew your first batch of beer you’ll need equipment. The equipment you need to become a homebrewer can be expensive to start but necessary and worthwhile in the long run. Purchasing the proper equipment at the beginning of your homebrew venture will save you from many headaches, frustrations, and wasted ingredients.
Here’s the Equipment You Need for Brewing
- A Big Stockpot ($40-$75): A 12-quart (3-gallon) stockpot is perfect for making 1-gallon batches of beer. If you need to buy a new stockpot, this is the size I recommend (it’s also handy for making big batches of stock and boiling lobsters!). But if your current stockpot holds at least 2 gallons, that will be fine for now — start with that and upgrade later.
- Long-Handled Spoon ($5): You’ll need a spoon that can reach all the way to the bottom of your pot without putting your hand at risk of getting submerged in boiling liquid. I like ones that have a fairly large, paddle-like head.
- 10-inch Fine Mesh Strainer or 5-quart Colander ($15-$30): You’ll use this when you separate the grains from the sugary liquid you create during brewing. You want one that’s big enough to hold a few pounds of wet grains and that fits easily inside the top of both your stockpot and your fermentation bucket (described below). If you use a colander, the more holes it has, the better.
- Electric Kitchen Scale ($15): Precision is key when brewing, so if you’ve been hemming and hawing about buying an electric scale, now is the time. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just something that can easily toggle between grams and ounces and can accurately measure down to 1 gram.
- Instant-Read Thermometer ($15): A thermometer is another must-have piece of equipment for accurate brewing, and I recommend getting a digital one. A candy thermometer that clips to the side of the pot would also be fine, but meat thermometers aren’t really precise enough and take too long to measure the temperature.
- Digital Timer ($10): This also doesn’t have to be anything fancy — you can use your iPhone, the timer on your oven, or anything else that will beep at you when time is up.
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SRC: Learn more the equipment you need to brew beer at: www.thekitchn.com/the-equipment-you-need-to-brew-beer-and-where-to-get-it-the-kitchns-beer-school-2015-217248