Absolute Beginner

[Jonathan Briggs]

Hi there,

A friend and I are looking to invest in a home brewing kit. We have around £2000 to spend and have no idea where to start and what the best equipment/places to buy are. We are looking at going All Grain with possibly 4-5 fermenters, depending on costs. Ideally we want something in the 100L ball park.

Please be gentle as we are new to this and are learning quickly as we go along.

Thanks.

[hazelbrew]

Big budget.

I would question the wisdom of jumping in with both feet in that way.

You might not like it.
You might not get the time to use it properly.
You might not have the space. Five fermenter for 100l boiler takes up a lot of space... Not to mention makes a lot of beer...
Brewing large volume takes more time to do everything... Eg bottling, heating water, cooling...

Seems a bit like deciding you want to go rallying and jumping straight to a full works Audi Quattro rather than a privateer ford escort or mini...

[hazelbrew]

For a tenth of that money...

Consider smaller batch and perhaps extract first?

Or look at one of the training days or shared kit? If you are near London there is ubrew where you can brew on shared kit. Do the learning and invest time first?

[Brewedout]

What volume of beer do you want to produce each time and how often do you want to brew?

[BenB]

100L means pumping (IE more complication) and if you're a complete Newbie I'd also recommend starting small with the traditional 5 gallon batches starting with kits, then extracts etc etc. By the time you're up to 100L all-grain batches you're investing a lot of time and money (yeast, malt, hops etc) to muck it up with rookie errors. Make those errors on small batches with less time and money invested.

A 5G (21L) AG batch can be happily done in about 6 hours with a single 13A plug and a domestic water supply. 100L means much longer, bigger equipment, pumps (even if it's just to pump the spoiled beer down the drain!) etc etc. Everything takes longer and more difficult (not to mention expensive) due to the sheer quantities involved.

Hooking up with a local brewing group or local homebrewer and going on an AG 1-day course are both worth considering.

By the time you're ready to brew 100 litre all grain batches you'll know what to buy Or to put it another way, I'm still learning the ropes can reckon I can mostly knock out a good AG beer and there's no way I'd consider putting together 100L brews yet.

Enthusiasm is great but if you jump in too far into the deep end you'll make mistakes upon mistake and end up giving up. Better to start simple and work up, creating drinkable beer along the way.

[Jonathan Briggs]

Cheers for the feed back peps.

Deffo want to go All Grain as years ago I tried Extract and didn't get on with it (so not strictly a absolute beginner).

Quanities we're intending would be 2 x firkins plus there'd be enough for 12ish 500ml bottles.

The intention is to eventually go commercial with this. We both have sizeable garages, one of which can be used for storage and the other for brewing.

There is a Big Brew day event in Leicester in a couple of months which we both intend to attend.

[Brewedout]

You seem to know where want to go, but I'd agree with Ben on this one. Big scale will potentially lead to expensive mistakes. Why not buy a grain father or braumeister. Get the process nailed and you can always sell them on at minimal loses to buy your big kit.

[Jocky]

If you're intending to go commercial then I'd go as cheap as possible and brew with really basic kit 19-23 litre batches now. Get your eye in and when you can make good, fault free beer (get it critiqued by someone independent, or better still, win stuff at a homebrew competition), and then you can move up to a commercial scale (which for two of you is likely to be 5 bbl absolute minimum), and have the spare money to mess up until you get it right (and sell it) on the scale without having to resort to eating cat food.

[Secla]

I'd tend to agree with the 5gal to start, my first ag was horrible, pouring 20l down the drain is bad enough, 100l is quite an expense, you will want to test brews out on a smaller scale.
Also commercially speaking 100l isn't a lot, I'm assuming you wouldn't be expecting to make a wage from it

I'm only beginning myself and have gone a bit mad with kit, but your welcome to come and take a look at it if your local, it can easily be scaled up

[Jonathan Briggs]

[quote="Secla"]I'd tend to agree with the 5gal to start, my first ag was horrible, pouring 20l down the drain is bad enough, 100l is quite an expense, you will want to test brews out on a smaller scale.
Also commercially speaking 100l isn't a lot, I'm assuming you wouldn't be expecting to make a wage from it

I'm only beginning myself and have gone a bit mad with kit, but your welcome to come and take a look at it if your local, it can easily be scaled up[/quote]

If Leicester is local then I'd love to take you up on the offer.

With regard to the all in one pot machine that other's mentioned, I don't really see them as a way of learning how to brew. When we scale up, I believe that Grainmasters only go to 30L so would have to change or process to go on to 100L or 200L.

Thanks for the feedback, think that we will scale back initially, get our eye in and then upgrade later.

[Brewedout]

The one pot machines come in industrial sizes too. So if you make something well on the small version scaling it up should be straightforward. The advantage is that you get consistent temperature control.

However, if you're diy savvy you could easily make a large plastic boiler with electric elements, an insulated mash tun and immersion cooler for £200 or less.

[nicksonic]

Having set up a 65L rig last year I can attest to a larger scale operation being a challenge, and that's with 6 years of brewing experience. I would definitely start off at 5 gal, you'll learn a lot in a short time and save yourself a lot of hassle if/when you come to a grander set-up.

[Matt12398]

Enthusiasm is great but all of the advice here is golden. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of deciding you want to be an airline pilot and going out and buying a Boeing 747 before you've even had a flying lesson.

Learn how to brew, save your pennies and then go big when you know you enjoy it and can actually do it.Brewing beer isn't that hard but it takes a lot of average beer to get to the point where people will enjoy it enough that they want to buy it. There's a lot of different chemical and biological processes that happen when making beer and to be any good at it you need to have a fairly good understanding of all of them.

Good luck to you and I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of this great hobby.

[bigchris]

Go for it, if you have that kind of capital available, and suitable space, then get straight stuck in with 100L kit. You don't have to brew 100L at a time initially. A 100L kettle can still boil a 25 litre batch.

There are several places you can look for kit. You can gert probably all you need from Rob at the Malt Miller. Could probably get set up with a 3 vessel 100L brewing system for well under £1000, then once you've done a few batches and are still convinced, then add extra fermenters, perhaps a conditioning tank, etc.

[Secla]

If Leicester is local then I'd love to take you up on the offer.
.

Near Kettering so not a million miles away, il be doing my second ag on Sunday, your more than welcome to pop along