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Essential Beer Brewing Equipment

Home-brewing covers many different kinds of drinks. However, as with many hobbies, while you can spend a medium-sized fortune on equipment, but you only need a few essential home brewing items when you start.

The principle behind beer brewing is to extract the sugar and flavour from a source and let the yeast work. 

Before starting, consider that you will need a bit of room to brew in, so make sure you have given that some thought. The kitchen is the most obvious choice, so think about your worktop and hob space. Especially when you brew beer, where recipes and kits are often for 20 litres at a time, ensure you can work safely with large volumes of potentially hot, sticky liquid.

The good news is that you can quickly scale down most recipes. 

Beer-making kits 

Beer Kits

You can obtain beer kits at very reasonable prices. Brew Mart is a great high street and online store to choose a beer kit. 

For this first brew, the  esssential home brewing equipment  you will need is

6 Gal Bucket

6 gallon bucket

King Keg Barrel

King Keg Barrel

Bubbler Airlock

Demijohn  Airlock

Beer Bottle

Flip Top Beer Bottle

Thermometer

Thermometer

Hydrometer

Hydrometer

Brewing Sugar

Brewing Sugar

VWP Steriliser

VWP Steriliser

Syphon

Syphon

Stainless steel paddle

Stainless Steel paddle

This essential homebrew equipment  can all be purchased separately for about £35. For any other brews, you would be able to reuse all of the equipment; thus, depending on your beer kit, it would cost you about 50p a pint. If you get into the hobby of all-grain brewing, it tends to be cheaper and allows you to experiment with the recipe however you fancy. 

Buying a fermenting bucket

To ferment your beer kit, you’ll need a fermenting bucket. The 25-litre capacity is the most commonly used, giving you some headspace for a 20-litre beer kit.

Purchase one with a lid, as leaving your wort open to the air is not advisable and covering it with clingfilm or a tea towel is not a suitable way to look after and keep your brew safe.

You can also purchase carboys or demijohns. Traditionally these are made of glass or plastic and are available in various sizes. Glass is more pleasing to the eye than a plastic bucket but is heavier.

Is an airlock essential?

An airlock is not essential on a bucket and lid but is an excellent improvement on leaving the cover cracked open slightly to let CO2 escape. With a carboy, they are crucial.

Choosing your paddle for stirring

You will need a sanitised long-handled stirrer – you may already have something suitable in your kitchen, ideally in stainless steel. 

A long-handled stirrer is used to mix the malt extract with the hot water before fermentation and possibly when priming the beer. 

Do not use wooden implements as they may harbour microbes that could spoil your beer.

That is it in a nutshell, is all the essential homebrew eqipment you need to make a 20-litre brew of beer with the minimum amount of equipment. Once you have the equipment, every brew can reuse the equipment reducing the cost. 

If you feel like progressing to the next stage, you can make your recipes rather than use beer kits, and if you move beyond malt extract to using grain, the possibilities are gratifying.

Check out all brew Mart's home brew hints & tips

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