Hello everyone
Coach Chris with WolfMoon Brewing
Today we're going to go over the basic
equipment list required to get a
5 gallon batch of beer
brewed on your kitchen stove.
- sorry about that - 
This is going to come with a couple of caveats.
One, this is for somebody who is
most likely just starting out, wanting to
test their toes in the water and see if
home brewing is for them.
Or maybe they've been using something
like the Mr Beer kit, and they want to
step up to the...
they want to go up to the next
step and try out...
hey, what else is available and have a
little bit more control over the beer.
Also this is only for people that
do not want to do a full quantity boil.
If you want to do a full quantity boil,
you're going to need a much bigger
boil pot and you're going to need another
way to heat that pot.
Kitchen stoves are great, they'll get you
what you need to do
for these partial boils, but they really
don't have the power to do a full
boil, in a reasonable amount of time.
You can absolutely do it, it will just take a
long time.
Let's get started.
First thing you're going to need
is a pot.
In looking at a lot of ingredient
kits and a lot of
recipes out there that talk about
partial boils, most of them say
somewhere around...
the capacity of this pot needs to be
about three and a half gallons,
give or take.
Absolutely you can get away with
using a three and a half gallon pot.
You're going to have two - two and a half
gallons of water in here, plus your
extract and your hops and possibly your
specialty grains.
You could just squeeze by, but
I don't like playing the just squeeze by game.
I want to have a little bit of
headroom
on my pot above my liquid for the
possibility of a boil over
that I can catch it in time before it
does boil over.
Boil overs on the kitchen stove are not fun.
They're sticky nasty messes that
take forever to clean.
So, you want to make sure that you've got
a pot that's big enough to handle
the brew size that you want to do and
have enough head room
to make sure that you can catch for a
boil over.
Also, while you're working in the pot you
don't want to feel like you're right at
the top
and you can't mix anything in or stir it
or if it's gonna boil it's gonna
boil over again like I said.
I found that the nice pot size is
five gallons.
That's what this is.  I've had this for
years.  I've actually used this for
other things.
Other than brewing beer, I've made chili
in it, I've made soups in it, heck, I've
made a large pot roast in it.
This is a multi-function use.  It can be
used for other things other than just
home brewing beer.
A five gallon pot, for me, seems to be
the sweet spot for doing
partial boils.  The other thing you're
going to want to double check is
make sure that the dimensions of your
pot fit
on your stove.  Make sure that your stove
isn't set up in such a way that this pot...
Maybe the diameter won't fit on a burner,
or the height of this will be too tall
to fit on your stove and underneath your hood,
your microwave, or whatever is above your
stove. So double check that.
You want to make sure before you
purchase it, that you've got a pot that
you can actually use.  Nothing worse than
getting the pot home, putting it on the
kitchen stove, and realizing you got
about two inches of room to work with,
so it's just not gonna work.
OK. Let's move on.
After the boil you're going
to need to get this beer
transferred into a fermentator...
A fermenter.
Fermenters come in all different shapes
and sizes.
Different styles, but I've found,
just starting out,
one of the best things to have is just
a plastic bucket.
This is a six and a half gallon.
I believe it says it's somewhere on here,
but there are marks along the way to see
your five gallon.
This works great.  Does everything that
you need to do.
You need to get a fermenter that is a
solid bucket,
with a lid, and in the lid it has a hole
with a grommet in it.  That hole with the
grommet in it, is going to allow you to put
one of two different types of bubblers
in it.  What these bubblers do
is it allows CO2 to escape out while the
beer is fermenting,
but not allow anything back into your
beer
no nasties in your beer.
Two different styles,
I personally like this type of bubbler
A lot of people use this type.
Really doesn't matter whatever you
choose, but you do need to get one
or the other of these.
I briefly talked about it, while
you're boiling your beer, you need
something to stir it with.  Whether you're
going to be adding hops,
or adding some adjuncts to it.
A metal spool, plastic spoon,
a whisk - whatever your choice.  
I personally like using whisks.
Seems to work really well for me.
I've been using that for years.
Oh, real quick, the pot.  If you have
the finances to do it, do yourself a
favor and get stainless steel.
It'll last longer you'll have better
success with it.  Can you use aluminum?
Absolutely, but do yourself a favor,
if you can afford it,
get stainless steel.  If not, then go ahead
and get aluminum.
Don't go for some kind of no-stick
or don't get cast iron.  Aluminum,
or stainless are your two choices here.
A couple other things you're going to need.
You're going to need some kind
of straining basket.  Now I have two
different types here.
Either one will work.  Just want to make
sure that your straining basket
can sit on the edge of your fermenter
and not fall in.
When you're pouring
your beer into the fermenter
and you need to strain, 
say there's a lot of hop leaf or
whatever in there
you want to be able to strain it,
you don't want to have to have 14 people
working with you to get your beer into
your fermenter.
Use one with a handle like this, or you
can just use a round one with two handles.
As long as it doesn't fall in while
you're working.
A quick read thermometer.
There are going to be occasions where
you're going to need to take the
temperature
of your liquid, of your wort,
so quick read thermometer works great.
This one I've used on the barbecue grill
as well,  so again
a multi-purpose tool.
You're going to need a measuring cup
of some sort.
You probably already have one
in your kitchen, and some
measuring spoons.  If you already have
them, great.  No need to go out and get them
This is a Hyrdrometer.
This little piece of glass will measure the
amount of sugars
that are in your beer.  This is really
important.  Especially when you're
documenting all of your beers.
When you're making your beer, you want to
document numerous things.
Time you started, how long it boiled,
how much sugar is
in your wort before you put the yeast in.
This will tell you how much it is.
Get one of these. Notice on them,  they
will come with instructions, but most of
them are set or
tied into the temperature of the of the liquid
that you're measuring
has to be at 60 degrees.
If your liquid is warmer or colder than
that, you need to adjust the reading of this
The instructions that come with it
should give you all the information
about that.
Plus you can find out all kinds of
information about it online.
Be careful with these.  They are made out
of glass and they do break.
In my 13 years, I've probably gone
through five or six of these because
I haven't paid attention,
they roll off the counter, whatever.
They do break.  So be very careful with it.
Once you're done and your beer has been
fermented,  now you need
to bottle your beer.
To bottle your beer, you need to transfer
from this container
to a bottling bucket.
Now you'll notice
the bottling bucket
looks almost the same as your fermenting
bucket.  The only difference is this has a
spigot on the bottom.
And you don't need a lid.
You need to get a bottling bucket,
which will have a hole
and a spigot already in it.
To get the beer from here to here,
you need to transfer it.  Now,
you could just pick this up and pour it
into there.
Very bad idea. You're going to introduce
oxygen, you're going to mix
all the sediment that has settled out,
that you don't want in your bottle,
you're going to mix that in.
You want to use what's called
an auto siphon.
These tools are great.
Put this part in your fermenter
that is filled with your liquid.
- oops, sorry about that -
You pull up on this and push down.
As you push down, it creates the
siphon for you, 
and pumps the liquid from here into here.
Now as long as this pot -- this bucket
is higher than this bucket,
your liquid will drain into your
bottling bucket.
Once it's in the bottling bucket, 
you need to get it into your bottles.
Bottles.
48, or two cases of 12 ounce bottles
is the typical amount of
beer that you will get out of a
five gallon batch.
You can buy new bottles if you'd like.
I don't.
I do drink craft beer
and when I do drink craft beer,
I save their bottles.
I clean their labels off.
Clean them out,
rinse them, sanitize them...
or clean them, sanitize them.
Then I can refill these and use
these as my bottles.
Many different shapes and sizes.
Get whatever ones you like.
As long as they're not twist offs.
As long as the bottle has a pry off, and
you can see the difference on the top.
If you ever have a twist off bottle,
which I don't have.
In a normal pry bottle, you'll notice the
top is extremely different.
On the pry offs, it's got a solid
lip all the way around it.
That's what you need.
That is going to give you a good seal.
With the bottles you're also going to
need bottle caps.
Plain old bottle caps.
Those are not reusable, 
so you'll have to get those.
From the spigot, 
to get the beer into the bottle,
you need to use what's called a little
bottle filler.
It's just a plastic tube with this end
that has a plunger on it.
When you stick this into the bottle
and depress the plunger,
it will allow your beer to flow from here
into your bottle.
Once it fills up and
you release the plunger
and pull this out, 
the amount of space that is
removed or the amount of
liquid that's removed
that's still in this tube
will give you just the
perfect amount of
head space in your bottle.
You need some tubing.  Most likely will be
the same tubing from your auto siphon
that you use for this.
If not, just get another couple
feet of tubing for that.
The last thing you're going to need..
Pull a bottle cap out.
Is a capper.
Put that on your bottle
and that will
Seal your bottle.
OK.  Now your beer is
good and sealed
and it's ready to go on the shelf
to do its thing and get carbonated and
to age properly.
That's all the gear that you're going
to need to get a 5 gallon batch of beer
from the kit to the bottles.
Now where do you get all of this
equipment?
Yeah,  you could poke around on
the internet.
You could find some big box stores
and get some of this stuff.
I highly recommend you find
your local Home Brew Store
and visit them.
They most likely will have a kit
that will have all of this already
done for you
and give you a really good price on it.
If you're here in Las Vegas,
like I am,
the best home brew store,
and at this point in time,
I believe the only one that's open, 
is Vegas HomeBrew.
Steve is the owner.
He's a great guy.
I've been using...
I've been going to his store for as long
as I can remember.
He's been open *more* longer than I've
been home brewing and
he has an extensive amount of knowledge.
He's got a great store.
He's always got the ingredients that I need
If he doesn't, the occasional time that
he doesn't,
he can order them for you.
And I know for a fact
that he has a kit that will get you going.
And...most of this equipment that I'm
looking at, that I showed you,
I actually purchased from
Steve years ago.
I've replaced some of it.
These buckets I've replaced.
Because these will get scratched
and you'll need to replace them over time.
Check out your local home brew store,
and if you're here in Vegas
Go visit Steve at Vegas HomeBrew.
I'll actually put a link in the bottom
in the description below
so you can check out his site
and where he's located.
Again, Home Brewing is really fun,
but so is drinking responsibly.
Thanks for watching.
I'm Chris and we'll see you next brew!
