Extract brewing with out spending money

[Nullsleep]

Well i have been looking in to extract brewing but dont want to spend the money on the stuff needed and then not use it agen, cant i use pots and pans from the kitching and do it that way? ok i know i will not got the 23L brew but some thing like a 10L brew would be ok, i just want to do an extract brew and see what is needed to be done and how its done, if all goes well i might get all the stuff needed to do a full one.

[MightyMouth]

No reason why you couldn't but a 5 gallon fermenter from Wilkos cost just £7.49 and other than that you don't really need much in the way of equipment if you use bottled water and use the bottles the water came in to put the beer in after fermentation.

[Nullsleep]

i was under the impretion for extract brewing you needed a boiler of some sorts or am i getting confused agen

[MightyMouth]

You will need to boil but you could conceivably use 3 or 4 pots for this. I wouldn't want to do it that way for long but for one or 2 it might get you by. I considered extract brewing but to do it right you need as much equipment as an all grain brew which will give better results so I am bypassing it and going straight to all grain. If you just want to make something a little better than the standard kits you might consider dry hopping a kit and see how that goes.

[johnh]

...cant i use pots and pans from the kitching and do it that way?

You can, I took exactly this route before getting the bug and going the whole hog. It's an excellent way of getting to know how the boil works without the extra (not inconsiderable) complication of the mash. Also you can easily do it in an evening and the results, as I recall, were very respectable. One tin of extract will give you about 10 litres of wort. I was even able to do two separate beers from one tin using 2 large saucepans (a standard aluminium pressure cooker will hold about 5 litres) and fermented in demijohns. If you have a jam pan or a large stockpot then even better. Certain grains (crystal, chocolate, black malt, etc.) can be steeped in hot water in the pan before adding the extract to create different styles from pale ale to porter to stout. Boil for at least an hour if you can and top up with water if too much boils off. Once the boil has finished cool the wort down to pitching temperature. You can do this by putting the saucepan in a cold water bath. From then on the procedure for fermenting is exactly the same as a kit.
I recommend using the Brupaks unhopped pale malt extract as it's the one I always used and it seems to be very high quality. FWIW, here's one of my very first extract recipe for 4.5 litres:

75g Crystal malt (steeped)

0.75kg Pale liquid malt extract

12g East Kent Goldings (40 min.)
15g East Kent Goldings (25 min.)
(hadn't got my head around AA% back then!)

½ packet ‘Nottingham’ yeast

This is a very simple light ale which came out clean and tasty but since you're in control you can use any recipe you want. There are many extract recipes on the net. Have fun!

[Nullsleep]

thank you johnh and even more for some thing to start with as well , well i do have a big old soup making thing, the ones you can see in small to big kitchens, it can hold about 10L, well at lest i know you can with smaller beaches and its some thing new to try