In the beginning it seems a daunting task to understand all of the tools and techniques involved with brewing beer. The goal of this section is to guide new home brewers toward making a better product.
An equipment list should include at least:
6 Gallon Boil Kettle
Airlocks
Bottles
Capper
Fermenter Bucket/Carboy
Hydrometer
Sanitizer
And should have:
Auto Siphon
Bottling Wand
Cleaning Brushes
Funnel/Screen
Propane Burner
Secondary Bucket/Carboy
Spoon
Wort Chiller
With these items, you can perform the boil, chill, and fermentation of extract or partial mash brewing kits/recipes.
Understanding why each tool is necessary is largely overlooked. So I will do my best to explain why each one is a good investment and will make brewing much easier.
6 Gallon Boil Kettle: A large kettle is necessary to achieve a full boil, which is advantageous in many ways. It increases efficiency of hop utilization, increases potential to get a proper hot-break.
Airlocks: An airlock in essential to brewing, it keeps air and other contaminants out of the wort and the environment it is fermenting in.
Bottles: Bottles is the final product! Unless you have or desire a keg system bottles are the only means of storing the beer we make!
Capper: A Capper allows you to seal the bottles
Fermenter: Bucket/Carboy: a vessel for the wort to ferment into beer.
Hydrometer: A hydrometer is a tool that measures the specific gravity of a liquid, which allows you to measure how much sugar is in the wort and therefore can calculate the alcohol percentage.
Sanitizer: Sanitizer is not to be confused with cleaner. A clean fermenter or bottle can be unsanitary, the use of a sanitizer on all surfaces to be in contact with the wort/beer is proper procedure.
The items above are the minimum needed to accomplish a batch, but a few more tools will make the process easier.
Auto Siphon: The auto siphon is a tool used to transfer wort/beer from fermenter to fermenter, it uses a racking cane and is very simple to use.
Bottling Wand: A bottling wand allows you to fill sterile bottles with the finished beer easily
Cleaning Brushes: Designated brushes help you stay on track of cleaning buckets and especially carboys.
Funnel/Screen: A funnel will allow you to pour things neatly into carboys, or jars. Useful tool all around.
Propane Burner: A strong propane burner is an important thing to consider. A good full boil is always needed.
Secondary Bucket/Carboy: A secondary fermenter is a great way to improve clarity as well as very important for conditioning, to allow beers to finish to its final gravity.
Spoon: A good spoon helps to stir the wort while boiling to insure no scorching when adding sugars or anything likely to lead to scalding.
Wort Chiller: A wort chiller is the best way to bring the wort to a proper temperature for pitching yeast.
