Brewing noob |Birthday beers

[Maputo_Brew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maputo_Brew]

Take the urn from me (but work on 20l), buy a grain bag, spoon, hydrometer, thermometer, capper and build your own fermenter using a 25l white food grade bucket, an airlock and a regular plastic tap at the bottom. Buy some hose and a bottling wand and you're done. The lot should cost you under R1k.

Buy a meat probe thermometer to use during brew day for a few bucks more and you're good to go.

Thanks a million. already have the meat probe. I use it to check my smoked meats.

Any stores i can walk in and get all this stuff from in an around Sandton? I'll do 2 fermenters, gives me the option to brew 2 batches at a time.

[hopingmadinZam Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hopingmadinZam]

Take the urn from me (but work on 20l), buy a grain bag, spoon, hydrometer, thermometer, capper and build your own fermenter using a 25l white food grade bucket, an airlock and a regular plastic tap at the bottom. Buy some hose and a bottling wand and you're done. The lot should cost you under R1k.

Buy a meat probe thermometer to use during brew day for a few bucks more and you're good to go.

I'd get 2 grain bags, one for grains and then you can use the second for hops, I just clamp it to the side with 1/4 of the bag in the wort. It's a pain to have to empty and clean your grain bag just to add hops.
it sounds like you'll get the ball rolling with all that for a great deal.
Next on the shopping list after this would be a grain mill ~R2000+ so you can buy malt in bulk and do a finer crush. Saves a lot of cash but mostly beneficial to have lots of malt in storage when your closest homebrew shop is a few thousand kms away

Also download the brew father app (or beer smith or another) free trial lets you do 10 recipes and is great for keeping track of things on the brew day. Also expect pretty low efficiency when you start out 65-70% should be about right.

[Harhm Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Harhm]

Great advice all round. You wont get easier all grain brewing than BIAB and no-chill to start with.

Heres a link to a vid that explains BIAB and no-chill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHV0k0pdtgc

[BeerHolic Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BeerHolic]

To sum up the basics.

Mash tun (converted cooler box, keg or any big pot)
Brew kettle
----- Note you could use one vessel form mashing and boiling wort) ------
If doing BIAB you will need a big grain bag (I use voile)
Bag for hops for dry hopping, alternatively just throw hops into fermenter.
Big spoon for stirring mash.
Fermenter
if doing no-chill, Cube / container for cooling of wort
Airlock for fermenter
Hydrometer
Thermometer


A fermenetation chamber with tempreture control is a plus but not a must.
Old fridge / deep freeze is often used for this.

You could also purchase an all in one brewing system like the Grainfather.
It is quite pricy, but many swear by them, myself not included, each to his own, it is a personnal choice

[AlexBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close AlexBrew]

Sheesh, I cant drop 10-15k on a brewing system. Might be able at the end of the year.

Going for a brew kit and adding the urn would that not be an option? My thinking is the kit comes with hydrometer, bottling wand, capper, fermenter, grain bag, spoon. then adding the urn, ball lock, thermostat like you mentioned. All this should come in under R3k right? Beer bottles i can get a case of 12x500ml for R30 each case. so 4 cases do a 20l batch.

There is a 25l urn in pretoria I can get for free. Thanks to Toxycc.

Whats your oppinion? Am i day dreaming?

My issue with 'all in one' kit is that it usually caters for smaller batches .. like 15litres, Then the pot, bags and fermenters are too small. You'll be upgrading size-wise for sure after a few batches then these pots, fermenters become redundant in a way. Suppose you could still use it do brew experimental beers..
Of course the hydrometer etc you can use .

[Maputo_Brew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maputo_Brew]

Take the urn from me (but work on 20l), buy a grain bag, spoon, hydrometer, thermometer, capper and build your own fermenter using a 25l white food grade bucket, an airlock and a regular plastic tap at the bottom. Buy some hose and a bottling wand and you're done. The lot should cost you under R1k.

Buy a meat probe thermometer to use during brew day for a few bucks more and you're good to go.

Toxxyc Thanks a million for the urn and the help putting together the rest of the kit plus the recipe.

All the stuff are on the way to Mozambique and should arrive around 6pm. Tuesday is scheduled as brewing day. Will be a 30+ degree day, so hoping to bottle on saturday night. That Lutra seems to work very fast....

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Toxxyc Thanks a million for the urn and the help putting together the rest of the kit plus the recipe.

All the stuff are on the way to Mozambique and should arrive around 6pm. Tuesday is scheduled as brewing day. Will be a 30+ degree day, so hoping to bottle on saturday night. That Lutra seems to work very fast....

I'll send you some information on the brew day, what I'd suggest on that equipment, etc. but one thing I have to say here, bottling on Saturday evening is too early. Lutra is fast, yes, but that's just fermentation, you want it to clean up as well. Give it 7 days at least. I give my Lutra brews 2 weeks.