Brewing kits

There is some basic equipment that all brewers need; this can be home made, store bought individually, or purchased as a complete kit. Before you buy your kit you need to consider several things. Some basic equipment can be used for for different types of brewing and can be utilized as you progress, others will not be suitable for the more advanced levels of brewing and/or may be delegated to other jobs.

availability of space
your budget
the type of brewing you want to do
whether or not you want to expand to different types of brewing

Few brewers begin with all-grain brewing but rather with extract kits. With a little bit of care you can make sure the kit you buy will grow with you rather than requiring an upgrade as you advance your brewing level.

1 Standard Kit
2 Extract
3 Partial Mash
4 All Grain
5 External Links

Standard Kit

A standard homebrew kit will contain several key items such as the following:

thermometer
hydrometer
A long handled spoon
A strainer or grain bag for steeping grains and hops
Airlock and blow-off tube.
Bottle capper
Bottles and caps

Extract

You can get away with a fermenter and just about nothing else if you use pre-hopped no boil kits with just a few items from the kitchen. You will get beer but there's not much fun in that. Lets say you want to follow recipes and add your own hops and maybe steep some specialty grains.

Budget

budget extract

2-3 gallon pot for the stove top
1 plastic pail fermenter

Standard

4-5 gallon pot for the stove top
1 plastic pail fermenter
1 carboy (glass or better bottle) secondary fermenter
1 plastic bottling bucket
Airlock
Hydrometer
Racking tube with tip
6ft siphon tube
Funnel
Bottle filler
Bottle caper