Homebrewing equipment may seem like an expensive investment compared to just buying commercial beer. Especially in this times of crisis, buying these things may seem too indulgent. However, once you’ve set up and have gotten some brews behind you, you will discover that your home brew beer actually costs just around 0.28 dollars. This is way cheaper than buying from stores. If you are a beer enthusiast, this is the best way to continue treating yourself with this drink during these times of economic low.
Aside from saving, you can even develop your homebrew recipes and improve on your commercial favourite flavours. And if this is good enough, you might even start to commercialize your own products.
Homebrewing equipment can be bought in kits from specialty shops. These kits are limited but have all that you need. Some kits offer can allow you to brew English ales or even stouts or other specialty mixes. Normally, in a kit you will be provided with hopped malt concentrate and yeast. You will be instructed to add other ingredients that are bought separately along the way but these ingredients are just minimal – sugar and sometimes dry malt extract or liquid malt extract. Other times, innovative starter recipes would want you to experience a brew with rice syrup. You can also maximize these kits by checking online home brewing communities. As home brewing has been a part of America’s history, there are many beer enthusiasts who are all too willing to share a trick or two or their new discovered recipe.
The basic equipment you would need are 1) the brewing bin which will hold the beer, 2) the fermenter, 3) the stopper, 4) plastic hose – this would be used in transferring the beer to the bottles, 5) the bottling bucket – this is if you will opt to bottle your beer instead of use a keg to hold it, 6) bottles – or keg, for that matter, 7) stick-on thermometer – although some brew experts can already estimate the temperature by just looking at it, 
funnel, and a 9) strainer . If you will you will be using bottles, you will need the additional bottle brush and caps and capper.
You will also be needing a bowl, a saucepan, rubber spatula, mittens – if you like, and a mixing spoon. But you don’t have to buy these materials as these can be readily found in your kitchen.
However, if you really want to concentrate on the beer brewing trade, there are specialty equipments that would help you through your endeavours – they could either make your brew taste better or you could go through the procedures more easily or efficiently.
Because of the trend of people wanting to try home brewing, some businesses have opened to give an option to those who are interested but are reluctant in cleaning up afterwards. This could also be your option – instead of worrying over finding your own homebrewing equipment, you can always run to the brew-it-yourself establishments.
Home brewing supplies should not be looked down albeit this is the case for people who believe that only beer bought at the supermart is the true thing. As they say, great things start from small beginnings. And this had been proven countless of times by home breweries becoming large corporations to cater to soaring demands.
Back when the beer, wine, cider and other fermented drinks were discovered, there were no huge breweries. People of the ancient times did not by accident discover a lake of fermented sugars. They discovered the drink in small quantities that they believe they could easily replicate. And replicate they did. And improvised too. Still, the technology that had been passed from one civilization to another had not been massive as the commercial breweries today. But they were as satisfying, and as time went by, their brews have become priceless nowadays.
Modern day brewing started from humble beginnings. The ingredients that were used before are more or less still the same with those being used now. Some techniques and new flavours may have been discovered but everything still goes back to the basics. And when an alteration is made on the basics, small amounts have be tested.
Surely, operations as huge as commercial breweries could not predict the taste of their brews by using their large-scale machineries in taste tests. They have to make sure that the ratios of their ingredients are right by trying these out in small amounts. So if you think of it another way, it would seem that even the big machines would have to rely on the output of the modest small-scale equipments. Big machines cannot afford to go wrong. It would also be very hard to keep changing the mix to achieve a new taste, better than the previous. It would be very costly to keep on experimenting. However, as the market changes, demand for new flavours would require big companies to venture into new mixtures. Sometimes they have to get ideas from homebrew recipes. Although the conversion of mixtures from small-scale production to large-scale is a bit tricky, home brewing supplies allow for a sampling of some sort.
There are some techniques that might be applicable to home made beer alone – or rather, are best for the home brews only. An example would be the chilli beer which may be a bit hard to replicate in a large-scale basis. The right hotness of a chilled beer commercially made may not be easy to achieve as when you are brewing only a small amount.
Large-scale manufacturing, however, have some advantages. It could be economical in as much as it produces more with a particular amount of ingredients. Manufacturing could also be more efficient as machines do the job and the margin of error in formulating the brew is way below that of processes with too many human interventions. But perhaps, other than that, there is not much a large company can do that the home brewing supplies can’t.
Skeptics of home brewing equipment might argue that not all home brewers use the all grain method of creating their beer. Indeed, the all grain method may be a long way for those who are just beginning. But this method can be learned and employed even without the contraptions of the huge breweries. Outputs may not be as massive as that of the humongous machineries but the taste is the same and may even be better.
There are processes done in huge breweries that could be replicated by home brewing equipment. You can even achieve specialty effects such as the haziness of some beers with home brews. Still, the basic procedures are the same – mashing, sparging, boiling, cooling, fermentation, and finishing. These can be done in your kitchen with the right beer making supplies. Ingredients are still the basic malt, hops and yeast.
Of course, the process might be tedious as in the place of the synchronized movements of the machine you have yourself – and perhaps an assistant or two – and your improvised beer making equipment. It will not be easy but if you have reached the level of producing beer through the all-grain method, then you wouldn’t mind the difficulty. By then you would be adept at making your materials work the way you want them to, and by then you would have loved the hours you wait for your mixture to attain the right temperatures, the right colors, the right aroma, and other things you have impatiently gone through when you were still starting.
Equipments for home brews need not be complicated as the machines in huge breweries. They are simple contraptions you can easily navigate through. Some experts in home brews have even come up with blogs that give tips to make home brewing even more convenient with just simple materials. Simple mess from spill-overs from boiling, for example, can be avoided by placing foils around your stove. Towels or wet shirts can be used to keep the buckets cool down and maintain the right temperature during summer.
Other equipment may also be added to make brewing more convenient. A hydrometer can be used to determine exact alcohol content instead of having to calculate it from the gravity readings. You can also invest in a steriliser machine which is a lot more convenient to sterilising each bottle separately. The same can be said for the bottle rinser. Some use brew heaters but others don’t see the need for it as brewing can just be timed properly.
If you plan to go into a home brewery in the future, it might be good to invest in equipments that would be convenient for a relatively large scale production. It would be different if you would only be producing for your consumption as you can prolong the production period. However, with commercial intentions, production has to be systematized to be able to produce regularly. Your home brewing equipment can always be varied according to your purposes and target production.
Home brew UK focused not so much on beer as they did on wine even as some good beers come from the British Isles. Although winemaking’s history went through difficult times, its story is as rich as the aged-old drink is.
Early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China have already appreciated a good brew. The Egyptians transferred their knowledge to the Greeks who in turn taught the Romans the goodness of fermented liquor. The Romans introduced the use of cork stoppers which effectively – more than the original clay plugs – holds “the spirit”of the wine for centuries.
When the Roman Empire fell and foreign armies repeatedly attacked the region, the vines dwindled. This was surprisingly restored with the help of Christianity, where wine is used in one of the religion’s important rituals. Previous beer drinking countries changed to wine lovers. This included Spain, France, and of course, the Celts.
Wine was exulted not only for its rich taste but also for its importance in medicine. It was used as a solvent in some pharmaceutical products. Only when a stronger alcohol was discovered for the cure of the Black Death which spread throughout Europe in the 1300s tempered the use of wine for medicines. Wine for social drinking, however, continued to impress personalities and even Shakespeare patronized the “canary sack” which was made in the Azores and Medeira.
The mass production of wine, which began in 1700s, however, made its production more efficient and its mixture more precise that some people have thought it better and safer to buy the commercial beer instead of making their own. The United Kingdom for its part had taxation systems and prohibitions against home brewing. It is not so much as paranoia that a poisonous concoction might be brewed but more of wanting to guard against brews with very high alcohol content. Some countries around the world are allowing home brews but are limiting alcohol content to 1%.
However, in April 1963, home brew UK took another turn when the need for a brewing license was removed by Reggie Maudling, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. This made home brewing supplies more accessible. Because of this, UK produced pioneer winemakers including C.J.J. Berry, founder of wine brewing circles, who started with a home brewery. It has become traditional for old English families to welcome their guests with the classic cup of tea or a glass of their home made wine.
Wine making can be easily done by fermenting fruits available in the market. It can even be cheaper if you choose to make wine from the fruits that are in season and are thus abundant.
Home brewing wine has become an interesting activity for some UK residents. However, homebrew specialists are not common which presents a problem in the continuous supply for their brews.
Today, as a craft, the art of home brew UK, although with less restrictions than before, is still being regulated – those intending to sell must also register with HMRC and should pay alcohol duty.
Brewing kits are like micro versions of the large scale manufacturing of commercial breweries. Brewed beverages may be alcoholic or non-alcoholic. The common characteristic of these drinks is that they all went through a fermentation process.
Wine brewing process mainly involves the mixing of wine yeast – not the beer yeast which ferments faster, the sugars, and the different flavours – usually from fruits that are in season.
Commercial beers generally follow a common process whatever the brewery may be. First step would be the grounding of the malt. It would then be placed in a mash tub where water would be added. A cereal mash is cooked and is added to the mixture. The starch in the cereal mash would be converted into sugars by the malt. The blend is then poured into a brewing container and hops are added at intervals. It is then filtered and the remaining liquid is stored in a vat where yeast is added for fermentation.
These large scale processes can be replicated in smaller amounts through either commercially sold brewing kits or assembling a kit of your own.
Assembling your own kit for brewing wine, however, may be a bit more tricky than home brewing beer. It is best, for example, for a fermenter to be made of glass because you will be fermenting your mixture for a longer time than you will need for your beer. Plastic containers normally pass on its smell to its contents and you don’t want that to happen. It is also best that the brewing container has an airlock so it is best to buy one instead of looking for a substitute from the kitchen. But aside from these, wine brew kits can normally be put together from materials around the house.
Although kits for beer are more abundant than kits for wine, there are a lot of online resources for the latter. The lack of kits may be because the processing of wine is just like cooking. You peel your fruit, remove cores, mash it, and generally just extract its juices. In beer making this could be the grains or the malt. Your yeasts can be prepared beforehand. These are fed with sugar and are kept at certain temperatures to have their very beneficial community thrive. The juice extracts are then mixed with the yeasts and the mixture is allowed to ferment for some days. The pulp is then strained out to leave the “wine”. If for beer, refermenting is very much avoided – in fact this is why filtering and pasteurization processes happen after the fermentation and before storage, for wine making, it may be the opposite. Thus, to buy a bottle of wine made centuries ago by people long dead is a lot more expensive than buying a bottle made just a year ago.
It is very simple to create your own wine. Chemicals are even unnecessary in wine making procedures. Except for the pectic enzyme, most are useless and will only make your mixture unnatural. You don’t have to buy brewing kits – you can just assemble your own.
Instead of having to buy from a convenient store, you can make your own beer from several choices of brew kits. It is very easy and convenient even for first timers. All you would need is the kit, sugars – to feed the yeast needed in beer making as these live organisms cause the fermentation and create the beer, and water.
When still not so sold out to home brewing, you could just use the pre-measured stuff found in brew kits instead of using the raw ingredients. But you would end up getting the same taste again and again if you limit yourself to these.
The first step in home beer brewing is the sterilization of your materials. This is important because other organisms that would thrive during the fermentation process aside from the yeast would cause the drink to taste foul. The concentrate that comes with the kit is then put into the vat together with lukewarm water. You then have to get the right temperature for the yeast to be added. If the temperature is too cool, the yeast would remain dormant and if it is too hot, it would die so it should be just right. The yeast is then stirred in and the mixture is bottled – airlocked – and is left to ferment for a week or so. After fermenting, your home made beer is ready for bottling. You will know that you are ready to do so when the bubbles in your mixture have stopped. This indicates that the fermentation process is already done.
Once bottled – bottles and caps usually come with brew kits – you can leave your drink to subside for some time or you can consume it right away. If you plan to shelve it for a long time, make sure that your mixture does not referment. In big breweries, they do this – prolong the lifespan of their beer – by pasteurizing the mixture or by filtering out the yeast.
Interestingly, some beer enthusiasts even suggest that brewing beer is good to motivate students. If the hobby gets them interested enough, slacking students might begin to formulate ambitions – of forming their own breweries perhaps, or even just spending hours of working hard to get a taste of fine brew instead of just bumming around. Aspiring beer connoisseurs like acting the part by tasting the best brews they could afford and then replicating these at home.
However, replication of gourmet beer is not possible for starter brewing kits. The equipment included in these packages are normally inflexible, designed only for the mixture that came along with them. Their sizes may be too small to experiment on ingredient proportions. However, the good thing is there are other brew kits that are more flexible. Also, you can assemble your own. Home brew shops certainly have what you want. Moreover, you can find alternatives in your market that may be cheaper than those sold at specialty shops. You don’t have to be confined to the packaged brew kits in the market.
Before going into the beer business, you must first learn the twin component of sales – the availability of your beer making supplies. Obviously, if the cost of your supplies is higher than your estimated sales, you might as well look for another form of investment.
For those who are interested in going into the beer brewing business but have not the least idea on how to brew from home, kits for starters already include home brewing supplies but then again, these are not for commercial purposes. Some kits, however, are a step higher than the starter sets and they give you ideas what ingredients do to improve the taste. You could learn these step by step from all-extract to partial mash and vary your ingredients accordingly and eventually move on to the peak of beer brewing, the all grain technique which is employed by huge commercial breweries.
To improve expenses, you can even scout for suppliers that may be far from your place but sell bulks cheaper. Transportation costs might be cheaper than having to buy from local stores that are selling the ingredients at high prices.
The beer making industry has lots of accessories that would seem to hasten your brewing or make it easier. However, some home brew enthusiasts advise against it. One example of this “accessory” is the fermentation modifier such as the amalyse, the chill haze enzyme, and the low-calorie enzyme. Although the last enzyme might seem tempting to get off some of the potbelly, others argue that using these enzymes are not natural and there are other ways to go achieve the same effect naturally. Once into the commercial business though, you’d want to look into the economics of it – which process would cost cheaper. However, never sacrifice the safety of your customers. In the end, your cost cutting might be dangerous and would eventually lead to the closure of your business. And all of it would be for nothing.
Some add –ons to your brew may also make it better but are not necessary. Finings, for example, will make your beer clear. Although this does not alter the taste of your brew, it could improve its shelf life. So you might opt for it if you plan to produce huge quantities that might not be consumed immediately. However, as this is an additional cost, you might want to compute for the gains versus the losses you might incur.
There are also beer making supplies that may be stretched for more than its usual use. You can, for example, culture your own yeasts and starters can be bought cheap. Kept at the right temperature, they can be stored dormant for a long time. You could also check other homebrew recipes for tips and alternatives to some ingredients in your brew that could be cheaper than the standard supplies you use.
So next time you check the markets, be on the lookout not only for the prices or the demands of the bee. Be alert for possible beer making supplies that could be cheap alternatives to standard ingredients.
Beer making equipment may look like complicated gadgets, some you’ve never encountered since your last chemistry lab.
However, as they say, looks could be deceiving as after all, your equipment surely comes with a set of instructions of what to do and what not to do with it. As long as you are sure it came from a trusty company and the package comes with information printed in a language you can understand , as long as you follow the instructions religiously, it would be very easy to make it yield to your convenience.
Beer making equipment may be purchased as part of brewing kits or they may be purchased individually. Those in the kits come with a set of instructions and these normally have been fashioned to suit the procedure stated. In other words, it may not be that flexible enough to accommodate the experiments you plan to do with your brew. For example, if you want to up the ratio of your ingredients, the containers in the kits may not be huge enough to allow the increase of its contents. In this case, you would want to purchase brewing materials beyond the kit.
Kits also normally have a standard ratio of ingredients. So again, if you would want to do more, you should consider buying other home brewing supplies. This should not be very hard as there are home brew specialty shops and many owners would personally give you tips on what to do especially if you are a newbie.
There are just a few pieces very necessary in beer making – the boiler, the fermenter, the bottles – or some would prefer the keg, the caps, the capper, the bottle brush and steriliser that – because it is very necessary to keep your materials very clean to avoid other bacterial growth, spoon, funnel and priming measure. If beer brewing is more than just a leisure or relaxing activity for you – you have perhaps begun collecting all manners of implements in beer brewing invented since the time of the Egyptians – or you are very meticulous and you want your procedure to look like a guide books’ illustrations, then the expensive materials at the specialty shops are the ones for you. However, if the equipments you would use really don’t bother you and you believe that the end justifies the means, some materials could be improvised. Paint buckets with HPDE 2 guarantee for example can be used in making your beer. These are a lot cheaper than the buckets sold at the brew specialty shops.
You would also want your brewing equipment to last long so you have to keep them in good shape all the time. If not in use, they should be cleaned from time to time to avoid unwanted growth or other unknowns that come with storage and dirt. Also, the dos and don’ts that come with your package must be respected. You cannot expect overheated materials to perform its expected lifespan. With proper care, you can maximize your beer making equipment either for profit or for personal consumption.
Once you see your friends once too often at your door, for the excuse of borrowing a hammer, a needle, a thread, or even your great grandmother’s chamber pot, and linger too long to be invited for that cold mug of home made beer, it’s time for you to think of investing in a commercial home brewery.
Most commonly, home brewing beer is thought of as a production for personal consumption activity. However, this may not necessarily be the case always. Even if you started as a hobby, once you know your commercial value, you can go into business. Some people would even patronize you knowing that the production is personally looked over by the owner and not by a multitude of layers of administration staff.
It is not enough, however, to know how appreciated your homebrew recipes are. You should also first look into the economics of commercially brewing your beer. First, will you be able to get beer making supplies at a relatively low cost to be able to price your product competitively? When you brew beer for your personal consumption, you don’t normally mind the costs too much because in the end you would want to satisfy yourself with what you are drinking. Like the food connoisseurs, they don’t mind the cost of what they’re eating as long as their palates are happy. This should no longer be the case if you make a commercial home brewery.
Costs must be kept low. Obviously, you would want to open a home brewery to get some profits. If you are just selling to make other people appreciate your discovered beer recipe, save yourself the bother of going into business. Just hold a party and keep the beer flowing.
When you have calculated your possible cash flows, next to ask should be, would you be able to maintain your excellent brew if costs are lowered? Possible patrons might stop drinking your product if you sacrifice its taste to pull down production costs. If you do so, the whole point of selling your brew because of the demand for it would be lost. It is good to scout for other suppliers other than your trusty just-around-the-corner home brew shop. Other suppliers might be able to offer you better costs than the one you originally go to. Sometimes, it might be more economic for you to get supplies from far areas than be at the mercy of suppliers near you.
There are other things you would need to consider like hiring other people to be able to produce more, registering your business, and other processes necessary. You have to get a patent so that in case another person discovers your outstanding recipe, he or she will not be able to produce it for market. Also, most often than not, your country would have alcohol duties imposed on commercial distilleries. Once you’ve got these intricacies down to pat, you are ready to open your home brewery.
Home brewing beer is always personalized. The more effort you put into it, the better you savor your labor’s output. Plus, nothing beats the assurance that you know exactly what you are drinking. You know that if you cheated through the process you would only be fooling yourself so you make it as perfect as possible to liking.
Home brewing would allow you to think creatively. First, you decide what ingredients you would use – whether you stick to a kit’s directions, follow a friend’s advise or develop a recipe entirely your own is your call. But most likely, it is the last option which would allow you to get the most satisfaction of pouring yourself a mug beer produced by you and you alone.
However, some people are too lazy to want to go through the bother of worrying the beer making supplies, going through beer making kits, and learning the entire process of a home made beer. It is perhaps difficult to convert these people who want instant gratifications for their money. Home brewing beer after all is a labor of love, something you would do for the process as much as for the end product. As what a homebrew blogger stated, brewing is a relaxing process. It can be compared to enjoying fishing for the scenery and tranquility of the environment than for actually catching a fish.
Contrary to the idea that making your own brew is too taxing on your time, you can actually space it around your daily routines. If you have the luxury, you could spend an entire day concocting your brew. Of course, since it would require fermentation you couldn’t expect a mug of beer ready in just a couple of hours. However, some would brew their beers for several weeks or so. Those who do extract brewing, for example, may allot only a few hours in a week for their beer preparation. The idea that you have something to distract yourself with other than office work and other economic matters is quite comforting. Taking a minute or so to check on your beer is always a welcome distraction to a tiresome day of pure work. Some people would even go to the extent of doing age old ways of fermentation processes than resorting to the convenience of buying a fermenter.
This gets you out of the house for an exercise around shops, talking to the shop owners and learning more of the craft along the way, going home excited that you could create a perfect brew. It is much more interesting than going to the nearest grocery store to grab a pack of cans you would feed yourself while glued to the football on TV. Although it is quicker, you won’t get as much satisfaction as brewing your own. Home brewing beer might even be a good therapy to the worst couch potatoes if only they could begin to understand and appreciate it.
