Home brewing beer kits: Good for beginners?

Yes

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by Todd Raubenolt

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You crack open the bottle, tilt the glass and slowly poor in the chilled ale until the head just creeps over the lip. Your friend remarks: "This is great! Where did you get it?". Puffing our your chest, you proclaim:"Made it myself."

Everyone who enjoys beer owes it to themselves to give home brewing a try. It's easy, fun, and, if you already drink craft brews, relatively inexpensive. Best of all, you end up with a quality beer far fresher than any store bought bottle and guaranteed to be free of preservatives.

The easiest way to try out brewing for the first time is to use a kit. Some argue that using a kit is not real brewing as all the ingredients are measured out, there is usually no mashing involved, and there is little abilility for the brewer to make adjustments. I would argue this is why kits are ideal for the beginner. If you want to find out if you like brewing, start easy and move up to more complicated methods. I guarantee the first cake you baked was from a mix, right? If you liked making the cake mix and had fun baking, then you moved on to baking from scratch. Brewing should be no different.

Brewing beer has been done for thousands of years and in it's purest form is a fairly simple combination of 4 ingredients: barley, water, hops and yeast. In years past, there was a lot of luck and artistry involved in making a passable beer. In ancient times, the malt was cooked in an open kettle over uneven heat. It was then allowed to sit open, exposing it to whatever yeast strains were floating in the wind before being moved into caves for fermenting. You can bet there were more bad batches than good ones! With today's advances in equipment and ingredients you certainly don't need any luck to create a quality beer. If you can boil water and follow directions, you will be a brewer in no time. If you find yourself hooked on home brewing, the artistry is still needed to modify recipes or create your very own.

Most beginner come with a 5-6 gallon fermenter made of either glass (carboy) or food grade plastic. They will also usually have a bubble style airlock, a priming bucket with a release valve on the bottom, some transfer tubing, a hydrometer, a capper with some caps, and a book or DVD on brewing. If you have never done this before, you would be better off starting with a plastic kit.You can always add the glass fermenter later. You will usually need to get your own bottles which can be bought or recycled. You are going to spend some money here, but remember this kit will get you through dozens of brewing sessions.

Manufacture rs of starter kits also usually sell ingredients in kit form as well. These kits will give you all the ingredients you need to create a batch of beer in your own home - just supply the water! Brewing with a kit could not be easier. To cook it, just boil the water, add the malt syrup, add your hops at predetermined times and you are done. The cooking takes about an hour and will give the beer lover a better appreciation for what each ingredient adds to their beer. Once your mixture has cooled, you transfer to the fermenter, add the yeast and seal it up until the fermenting is complete. Your hydrometer will tell you when it is done. All that's left is the bottling.

The only real risk during the home brewing process is contamination. Most kits also come with a chemical sanitizing agent, but when this is gone household bleach works just fine. If you can keep your equipment and bottles sanitized, your risk of turning out a bad batch is really very small. Of course the reward comes when you crack that first beer and sample your handiwork.

There is no doubt that brewing takes some work, but starting out with a kit means you are virtually ensured success. The cost to brew (if you recycle bottles) works out to be about the same as purchasing an equal volume of craft brew. Once you have a few batches under your belt, you can still use the kit equipment to brew your own recipe instead of buying another kit. Beer recipes are everywhere on the Internet, so you can experiment with different styles in your own home and better yet, learn what makes each beer taste different. So go ahead, give home brewing a try. You will never look at beer the same!

Learn more about this author, Todd Raubenolt.
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