I have been considering home brewing lately. How much did you have to spend to get all set up?
I got a Mr. Beer kit as a gift, which works well as the intro kit.
If you are like me, you go all in right away. Which meant I ended up buying 2 more extra kegs, and another set of bottles with a coupon code.
That way you can brew your first one, and improve your skills right away, as it's a lengthy process.
If you use a "kit" their are canned malts that you add to boiling water, then you add yeast and ferment in the mr.beer keg.
the fermentation process is at least 2 if not 3 weeks, mr.beer claims no secondary racking is needed (i.e. you don't want your beer resting on its' own vomit for several weeks) so you could rack to a secondary so the beer has more time to age and clear.
then, you bottle, and that takes 2-3 weeks minimum as well for the beer to properly carbonate.
if you opted for a forced carb setup, i.e. kegging, the length of time would be shortened quite a bit.
The initial kit was $40 i think, which included the basics.
i bought a hydrometer to test the gravity of the beer, which means the more fermentables (malts/sugars) you add to water, the higher the gravity. $10
hydrometer sample tube $8
then 2 more kegs $8 apiece (plus shipping)
1 more set of bottles (thanks amazon prime!) only $14
i bought a small length of tube for racking to the secondary $2
then, any ingredients you buy for additional brews.
with some standard mr. beer kits, you get the basics, and you get 2 brew's, each brew makes 2 gallons of beer, which is nearly 1 case (24-12oz beers), so you get nearly 2 cases of beer out of the initial kit.
you can look on craigslist for "carboy's", or ask a family member, they may have one they don't use. a 5 or 6.5 gallon carboy is good to start, and a new one from a local homebrew shop should be between $30-$40. Used, $10-$20.
i've found that the ingredients are cheaper from local homebrew shops (if you have a local wine store, they probably have homebrewing equipment). online, the prices are decent, but they always get you on the shipping.
if you order mr.beer, when you get to bottling, buy "priming sugar" or corn sugar, which is not high fructose corn syrup, but a mixture of different sugars. table sugar as they suggest sucks, and takes forever to carbonate your beer.
go to: how to brew dot com
when you get to the site, click the word enter, it should be hyperlinked. you can read through most of the book (i bought and found out later it's free online), and learn how to brew.
