My name is Rick & I live outside of Philly. I’m a huge beer fan & mostly enjoy the less bitter Belgian white, Saison, Hefe and similar style beers as well as sour Lambics My fiance’s sister’s husband started brewing his own beer a couple years ago. He does a couple batches a year and really enjoys it. I have decided that I’d like to get into it as well.
With that said, my friend purchased a home brew kit for her (now ex) boyfriend. It has been sitting unopened in her garage ever since. She said she paid $150 for it and will take $50 for it now. In my research I have found the kit new for $79.99. Here are photos:
$50 is pretty fair considering what the buckets run for these days. I’d try to get it for $40. Cash money - two 20’s. To her it is a big box that hasn’t been opened. To you it could be a new obsession leading to all sorts of fun an exciting adventures.
$80 for that kit is full price. I’ve seen it for on sale $65 with a $25 gift card included - or free with a kettle and ingredient kit purchase. Lots of online shops really want to get people into homebrewing.
Thanks for the info, Jimmy. I just told her I’d do $50 (She wouldn’t take $40). That’s fine with me I guess.
Now, if I am looking into making less bitter beers, would I need to buy more specific ingredients to keep the bitterness down? I’ve seen, for example, the Brewers Best Weizenbier kit which looks like it’d be less bitter than most.
There’s not specific ingredients per se, just find recipes or kits for styles you enjoy and they should have the right amount of bitterness. Hefeweizen and Witbier are good places to start if you like those styles. Dunkelweizen is another good beginner recipe.
For less bitter beer you can choose a style that is not bitter and then brew any recipe in that style or you can try to brew a some what hoppy brew with less hops. Hops are what makes beer bitter. I was in your shoes not to long ago and I gotta tell you that a good brew book will answer a lot of basic questions about this hobby and if you read enough of it enough times you will be amazed at what you know after a few batches. A good book can have you brewing delicious beer on the first batch. I recommend John Palmers How to brew but there are several great books out there. Welcome to the forum!
Looks like a good deal to me. It gets you most of the way there.
you will need some sort of brew-pot. My recommendation is a Turkey Fryer. It provides you with a brew pot, burner, and they are pretty cheap this time of year as you get closer to Thanksgiving. It also will allow you some amount of expandability.
+1 on the recommendation of How to Brew. You will get a huge amount of information out of that book, and I still use it regularly to refer to in the middle of a brewday.
If you want less bitter beer, my recommendation is Northern English Brown Ale. Newcastle brown is a pretty good example of the style, and it is one of my favorites for fall.
However, the best way to figure out what you want to brew is to go to a local homebrew store, and tell them what your favorite commercial beer is. They will be able to help you brew something close to that, and then you will be on your way.
Lastly, Welcome to the obsession, and grab your second kit when you grab your first, cause once you drink your first batch, you will hate to wait for your second to be finished.
Wow, thanks so much for all the great advice on reading material and gear. Much appreciated!
Favorite beers are hard to decide upon! If I had to choose:
-Allagash White
-Lindemans Frambroise
-Ommegan Witte
-Pennsylvania Brewing Penn Weizen
-Sierra Nevada Kellerwise
-Troegs Dream Weaver
Too many more to list. I’ll take this list with me to the local brew supply. Thanks!
I would suggest a wit kit or recipe as a good starting point. It’s clearly among your preferred styles and it is very forgiving towards fermentation temperatures, which you may not have a good way to control right now.
If you are just getting into brewing, as already recommended, I would pick up a copy of “How To Brew” by Palmer (give the cleaning and sanitizing sections a good reading!). Next…order yourself an extract kit. You will need a nice size pot as recommended and be prepared to spend around 5-6 hours of brew time for your first couple of tries. One word of advice…clean as you go and watch for boil overs (keep a spray bottle of cool water handy as the wort comes to a boil.)
Good luck and keep us up to date on your progress.
