The kit designers also need to keep you safe from potential pitfalls. And there are dozens more at Northern Brewer and other homebrew shops that you can purchase separately. I have to imagine those who live in smaller spaces or people who like experimenting with different recipes would appreciate it, he said. For the 2022 update, we considered 21 different homebrewing kits before settling on our recommendations. Although lots of popular styles use other stuff, including lactose, spices, and other flavorings, the basics are all thats needed to brew some of the best beer in the world (just ask the Germans). Were happy to see these items included but not too bothered if theyre not. If you have an immersion chiller like the ones that come with several of our kits, you can build a recirculation system (video) that runs the same water through ice several times for quicker cooling. Brooklyn Brew Shop sells a wide variety of 1-gallon kits, both through its own site and via retailers like Amazon.com. The Northern Brewer Deluxe Homebrew Starter Kit doesnt come with a kettle and uses glass carboys for fermentation, which are a serious safety risk. You get your choice of one of three recipes with the Brew Share Enjoy kitan amber ale, a hefeweizen, and an IPA; this should cover the bases for most craft beer fans. Once the gravity hasnt dropped for a few days in a row, youre ready to bottle. Brewing is an endlessly deep rabbit holeno matter how good your beer is, it can always be better. To find kits that meet these standards, we looked at specialist sites like Northern Brewer, MoreBeer, Williams Brewing, Great Fermentations, Adventures in Homebrewing, and Austin Homebrew Supply. Beer quality is just way too subjectiveand there are too many variables involved in the brewing processto definitively claim one kit is going to produce a better beer than another. Marshall Schott, for one, told us he loves the idea of starting with a 1-gallon kit. Once we had all our kits in one room, we unpacked them and looked at each individual item. But its expensive for a small-volume kit, and theres no recipe choicehope you like pilsner! Beer consists of four main ingredients: malt, hops, yeast, and water. Finally, kits should do their best to keep you safe from mishaps and potential injury. When I recommend gear to folks interested in getting into brewing, it almost always includes a kettle and quality fabric filter.. And at any given time, I have at least three more beers fermenting, plus long-term barrel projects and mixed-culture fermentations. However, despite its relatively high price, this kit doesnt come with a kettle or a lot of other crucial and nice-to-have items, including a hydrometer, airlock, or spoon. The Wirecutter kitchen team knows how to throw a party, and weve spent hundreds of hours finding the best gear for any occasion, even game day. These stores serve as hubs for a citys homebrewing community and provide expert advice that can be trickier to find online. Im not going to go too deeply into what each ingredient contributes or the precise details of the brewing process. But we also checked out Amazon and Walmart just to make sure there werent any hidden gems out there. You also get a copper immersion chiller (a pricey add-on for our top pick that makes cooling beer after the boil much easier) and a clear plastic fermenter with a ball valve (which makes it easy to see whats happening during fermentation and to bottle your beer once its ready). Another way to make your brewing more sustainable is to feed your spent grain to livestock or wildlife, or compost it for your garden. Our top pick doesnt include one, so its instructions recommend you fill a sink with ice water, plop the kettle inside, and stir your wort in the kettle to chill it. For one thing, this kit doesnt come with a kettle or a recipe; you can get a kettle and spoon as a $30 upgrade, and a typical 5-gallon extract kit from MoreBeer will cost you about another $30. Once we had a list of candidates, we made our picks based on which kits included the most crucial items, and we also gave weight to sellers that we know provide excellent customer service. The last notable upgrade you get with this kit is a small bottle of Star San, a popular acid-based no-rinse sanitizer. But this kit is also slightly more expensive most of the time, and we think Northern Brewers superior customer service is enough to put it ahead. Each of these kits comes with detailed instructions (heres an example in PDF format), as does the equipment kit. If you just prefer smaller batches, or youre looking for a low-cost way into the hobby, this 1-gallon kit will make great beer. For more resources when starting out, Conn also recommends that newbies check out Charlie Papazians The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, in addition to John Palmers book. Though the effort involved is still considerable, a 1-gallon kit makes the process less intense. Finally, we looked at the recipe kits themselves, focusing on the freshness of the ingredients, but we ultimately didnt give recipe design too much weight. That means you have to bottle directly from the autosiphon, which is one of the most annoying ways to do it. But while it includes both a 2-gallon primary plastic fermentation bucket and a 1-gallon glass jug intended for secondary fermentations, theres no bottling bucket. The temperature controllers can be used to program step mashes, and some of the more advanced models can even interact directly with brewing recipe design software to automate every step of the mash, boil, and chilling process. For people who are pretty certain they want to dive headfirst into brewing beer, the MoreBeer Premium Home Brewing Kit provides a more durable, flexible, and complete starting point than the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy kit, albeit at a significantly higher price. But there are pros to going small, too. But if you dont want to break the bank, this is a fine kettle to start your brewing journey with. These game day go-tos will ensure that you can focus on the score and cracking another cold one, instead of on what you forgot to bring to the stadium. (Its likely that youd never notice a difference in most scenarios, but theres nothing wrong with a little insurance.) Its the best 1-gallon kit weve found, and itll get you started with brewing for significantly less money than any of our 5-gallon picks. (A less-expensive, extract-focused version of the kit without the DigiMash upgrade is also available.). The fermenting and bottling buckets were all the same size and all made from the same food-grade polyethylene; the siphons (with just a couple of exceptions) were auto-siphons of the exact same design and material; the bottle fillers and bottle cappers were all identical; the tubing was all vinyl hosing of the exact same length; and most of the kits had identical airlocks. It includes most of the essential tools, providing a solid foundation you can build on as you progress in the hobby. But it has some significant downsides that led us to prefer the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy. Ive got a four-tap keezer (a chest freezer kegerator) thats always full. The Great Fermentations Basic Brewing Starter Kit relies on an autosiphon, rather than having a siphonless design. But supporting local homebrew stores is also important for the sustainability of the hobby itself. Using dirty, unsanitized fermenters and bottles is a sure way to ruin an otherwise fine batch of beer. The 2-gallon BrewDemon Craft Beer Brewing Kit Signature Pro with Bottles uses a conical plastic fermenter design like the Craft-A-Brew Catalyst 5-gallon kit, but without the yeast collection jar. But I wanted the perspective of other homebrewing experts. Subscribe now for unlimited access. MoreBeers phone support lines are open Monday through Saturday (compared with Northern Brewers seven days a week); this is a small but notable shortcoming since many homebrewers brew on the weekend. Thats fine for brand-new equipment, but once youve brewed with your gear, youre going to want to start sanitizing in addition to cleaning. This is a time-tested method, but the equipment takes up a lot of space, and those three vessels dont come cheap. Schott also called out glass carboys as a red flag that would keep him from recommending a kit. But once your gear has been used, sanitizing is essential for preventing off-flavors. This is not unusual among homebrewing kits, and you can either buy bottles from Northern Brewer (and other sites) or collect and reuse your favorite craft beer bottles. But it lacks many of the extras the 2-gallon version and our 1-gallon pick come with, like an airlock, bottling wand, and spoon. Finally, the company has a no-questions-asked replacement policy should anything go wrong, or if youre dissatisfied with the quality of the ingredients or equipment you receive. With this method, you mash your grains in a fine-mesh bag thats placed inside a kettle; when the mash is complete, you simply lift the bag out, let it drain (or squeeze all the liquid out), and then proceed to boil in the same kettle. Speaking of bottling, a heads-up: The Brew Share Enjoy kit does not include bottles. Ive made use of this policy a couple of times myself, and my interactions with customer service have never been anything less than friendly and efficient. The kettle is made of stainless steel, which is a plus, but its on the thin and flimsy sideand its spindly handles arent very comfortable to hold when youre moving 5 gallons of hot wort. He previously spent more than a decade writing about cameras, printers, and other office equipment for Wirecutter, Reviewed, USA Today, and Digital Camera HQ. So to round out the gaps in my knowledge, I talked to Denny Conn, co-author of Simple Homebrewing, Experimental Homebrewing, and Homebrew All-Stars, as well as the co-host of the Experimental Brewing podcast; Sarah Flora, homebrewing YouTuber and host of the Brewing After Hours podcast; and Marshall Schott, creator of homebrewing science site Brlosophy and host of the Brlosophy podcast. The tools you find in most prepackaged kits are generally of comparable quality to those you can buy individually, and a kit has everything you need (including recipes and ingredients) to brew, ferment, and bottle your homebrew. Another important inclusion here is a triple-scale hydrometer, which is crucial not only for determining your beers ABV but also for ensuring that fermentation has finished before you bottle it. Most notably, theres no kettle, and the included spoon is plastic rather than stainless steel. The included tools are far more important, because although youll make the included recipe only once, youll be using the equipment over and over. We dismissed some kits because they allowed only for extract brewing or were otherwise not upgradeable. If the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy kit is out of stock or costs more when youre ready to buy: Give the MoreBeer Deluxe Home Brewing Kit a look. My garage currently contains more than 300 pounds of malt, and my freezer holds over 30 pounds of hops. Use it to water your lawn, garden, or houseplants, or to top up your pets water bowls. That might be okay for the first use, when everything is fresh from the factory. In general, the items you get in the Brew Share Enjoy kit are similar to those youd get in competing kits, but there are more of them, and in some cases theyre designed a little better. Although the Brew Share Enjoy kit comes with an oxygen-based cleanser, it just cleans your gear, rather than sanitizing it. However, there are some compelling reasons to move to all-grain. Its worth repeating: In brewing, sanitation is everything. And if youd prefer to be safe rather than sorry, a good hydrometer will cost you only an extra $15 or so. Since these machines rely on electric power, you can brew indoors when its cold or rainy outside, unlike with propane-powered three-vessel systems or even larger gas-powered BIAB setups. However, I have personally been brewing on an early version of the current BrewZilla design for well over 100 batches, and I find it both easy and enjoyable to use. Finally, we made some beer. New-school thinking eschews the use of a secondary fermenter, since unnecessary transfers are just another way to expose beer to oxidation and infection. In other words, this is something youre going to buy regardless, so its nice that this kit includes it. Specifically, with all-grain you can choose the specific malted and unmalted grains that go into your beer. Denny Conn, co-author of Simple Homebrewing and Experimental Homebrewing, interview, February 2022, Sarah Flora, homebrewing YouTuber and host of the Brewing After Hours podcast, interview, February 2022, Marshall Schott, creator of homebrewing science site Brlosophy and host of the Brlosophy podcast, interview, February 2022, John Palmer, author of How to Brew, interview, Gary Glass, director of the American Homebrewers Association, interview, Ben Holmes, co-founder of Aeronaut Brewing Co., interview, Mike Smith, brewery director at Aeronaut Brewing Co., interview. With an immersion chiller, you can circulate cold ground water through the wort instead, chilling more efficiently (and avoiding having to buy ice every time you brew). The Craft-A-Brew Catalyst Premium Homebrew Starter Kit uses a unique 6-gallon conical plastic fermenter with a yeast collection jar, which theoretically allows you to get rid of trub (unwanted sediment), reuse yeast, and bottle clearer beer. The Northern Brewer Electric Brew Share Enjoy includes a lot of useful items, including a copper immersion chiller and ported wide-mouth plastic fermenters, but its 4.4-gallon Gigawort electric kettle would limit homebrewers to smaller extract batches, or require them to make very concentrated wort and top up for larger batches. (That low effort-to-reward ratio is one reason we recommend going for a 5-gallon kit whenever possible.) This is the best kit weve found for beginners. Once everything has been cleaned, sanitized, and dried, store it someplace dry and covered until youre ready to use it again. Speaking as someone whose LHBS recently closed, you really miss them when theyre gone. Thats tempting, but the $500 price tag will probably be enough to scare off most rookie homebrewers. *At the time of publishing, the price was $70. (If this isnt your first brew, feel free to skip ahead.). With all that said, if you decide youd rather start with an extract-based kit like those we recommend, dont worry: Upgrading to an electric all-in-one (or some other all-grain setup) down the line wont render your initial investment worthless. Speaking of chilling, the 25-foot copper immersion chiller is a great addition to this kit. The Brew Share Enjoy kit is one of just a few we found at its price point that includes a kettle. I wouldnt even look sideways at a glass carboy, Flora said. Brewing beer takes timeusually two to 12 weeks from brewing to drinking, depending on the style youve chosen to make. This kettle upgrade will allow you to make larger batches and transfer your beer to the fermenter more easily, and it will last longer as well. (Go ahead, ask me how many hydrometers Ive broken!). If theres too much sugar remaining in solution when you bottle, the yeast will keep working, producing CO2, which produces pressure, which can eventually cause your bottles to turn into grenades, complete with glass shrapnel. But if you follow the instructions well (especially with regard to fermentation times and temperatures), you can probably get away with not testing. Brewing beer takes a lot of water, but there are steps you can take to mitigate your water consumption, especially while chilling your beer after the boil. We especially love its siphonless design, with a wide-mouth, 1-gallon fermenter with a spigot thats easier to clean than typical apple-juice-jugstyle small fermenters. For example, old-school brewing rules mandated that every beer should be transferred to a new fermenter for a secondary fermentation after the main (aka primary) fermentation was finished. At 14 by 14 inches, this kettle is a relatively bulky piece of equipment, but it is still compact enough to use on most full-size gas or electric kitchen ranges (note that it doesnt work with induction). Finally, even though its tempting to buy from online homebrew shops (thanks to their low prices and large selection), wed recommend patronizing local homebrew shops (aka LHBS) as often as possibleassuming youre lucky enough to have one. Another recent innovation we love is the rise of siphonless fermentation systems, which use fermenters with ball-lock valves, a length of vinyl tubing, and gravity to move beer from a fermenter into a bottling bucket. But our experts all agreed that theres no reason to complicate things too much when youre getting started. Both kits are siphonless. Like several other cheap kits, this one is not siphonless, and it doesnt include a kettle, spoon, or recipe kit. With the addition of a few items, however, the Brew Share Enjoy kit can also be used for all-grain brewing, should you decide to go that route in the future. The Brew Share Enjoy kit comes with Northern Brewers Homebrewing 101 course, a five-chapter seminar that offers a great overview of the basics of the brewing process, from equipment and sanitizing to brewing and fermenting. And it can be repurposed for cooking or even heating sparge water once its days as a boil kettle are through. After a new round of testing, the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit remains our top pick, but we have new budget and upgrade picks, as well. The Fermonster fermenter you get with this kit is a small but notable upgrade over the bucket that comes with the Brew Share Enjoy kit. In addition, once youre ready to move to kegging, youll likely want a more-elaborate setup than this system provides. And Northern Brewer provides excellent support. A longtime cult favorite, Rastals Teku beer glass is elegant, sturdy, and well suited for drinking pretty much any kind of beverage. If your budget allows it, theyre worth looking into as a way to fast-forward your homebrewing journey. This article was edited by Marilyn Ong and Marguerite Preston. A good fermentation of a bad recipe is going to make a better beer than a bad fermentation of a great recipe.. We followed the instructions to the letter and used only the tools and utensils that were provided, and we did the same with our 1-gallon pick. This is a great addition to the kit, but its also an item youll probably want to upgrade down the line. The Brewers Best 1 Gallon Brewing Starter Kit comes with some nice extras you dont often see in small kits, like a hydrometer and a bottle of sanitizer. They also give you the option of picking up ingredientslike a packet of yeast or a couple ounces of specialty maltat the last minute, which can make or break a brew day. The other risk comes from bottle bombs, which occur when you bottle beer before the yeast is done fermenting. Northern Brewers hydrometer is made from polycarbonate plastic (unlike most other hydrometers that are made of glass), so its a lot less likely to shatter when it inevitably rolls off your countertop. In turn, this can cut down on greenhouse gas emissions (though this subject is very complicated). Compared with all-grain brewing, extract brewing is a simple process, so its a great way to start. Overall, its not a lot of work. For example, you dont get a kettle, since you almost certainly have something in your kitchen already thats large enough to handle the necessary boil volume (like an 8-quart stock pot or a 6-quart Dutch oven). The 8-gallon kettle that comes with the Premium Home Brewing Kit is both larger and thicker than the 5-gallon kettle you get with the Brew Share Enjoy kit. A lot of the items in your kit will need to be replaced from time to time. Treat it well. So, with that preamble in mind, here are the essentials a good kit should include: We strongly recommend avoiding large glass carboys for fermenting. On bottling day, give them another thorough rinse with tap water followed by a dunk in a bath of sanitizer solution. There are many ways to brew all-grain. If youre intimidated by the volume of a 5-gallon kit, you dont have a lot of space to make your own beer, or you simply want to experiment with smaller batches, consider a 1-gallon kit. This is potentially important for two reasons. When we first reviewed homebrewing kits, in 2017, our testing process was simple. Many kits come with other items that are helpful but not essential, especially for extract brewingstuff like a long metal spoon, a bottle brush, or a wort chiller. We also dont love that the fermenter is made of glass, but its much less of a liability at this scale than in a 5-gallon kit. And it comes with your choice of four different extract recipe kits, including an American pale ale, an Irish red, an IPA, and a hefeweizen. 2022 Wirecutter, Inc., A New York Times Company, Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit, Northern Brewer Craft Beer Making Kit With Siphonless Fermenter, Our pick: Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit, Upgrade pick: MoreBeer Premium Home Brewing Kit, Budget pick: Northern Brewer Craft Beer Making Kit With Siphonless Fermenter, Next steps: all-grain and electric all-in-one brewing, Brewing Award-Winning Beer at Home Is Easier Than You Think, killing the vast majority of unwanted organisms, Northern Brewers Homebrewing 101 course, MoreBeer Premium Electric All Grain Home Brewing Kit, Brewers Best Beer Brewing Equipment Kit, Craft-A-Brew Catalyst Premium Homebrew Starter Kit, Great Fermentations Basic Brewing Starter Kit, MoreBeer Premium Home Brewing Kit With Kegging System, Northern Brewer Deluxe Homebrew Starter Kit, Northern Brewer Electric Brew Share Enjoy, Northern Brewer Premium Craft Brewery In a Box, BrewDemon Craft Beer Brewing Kit Signature Pro with Bottles, Brewers Best 1 Gallon Brewing Starter Kit, Midwest Supplies Simply Beer 1 Gallon Beer Making Kit, co-author of Simple Homebrewing and Experimental Homebrewing, homebrewing YouTuber and host of the Brewing After Hours podcast, creator of homebrewing science site Brlosophy and host of the Brlosophy podcast, director of the American Homebrewers Association, The Best Gear for Hosting a Tailgate Party. A simpler, more-cost-effective all-grain method that has become increasingly popular over the past decade is brew-in-a-bag (BIAB). (Just be sure to keep hopseven spent onesaway from dogs, since it can be toxic for them.) The kit recommends you gently flow the beer directly from the fermenters ball-lock valve into PET screw-top bottles, which is a great way to make oxidized beer. This kit is essentially identical to our upgrade pick, except that its designed for all-grain brewing and replaces that kits 8-gallon kettle with a 9-gallon DigiBoil electric brewer and DigiMash upgrade kit. But eventually I progressed to using an electric all-in-one system. If the kit youve purchased doesnt come with sanitizer (many come only with cleanser, which isnt the same thing), buy some. Although this one doesnt come with everything wed like in our ideal kit (most notably, its missing a hydrometer for gravity readings), on the whole this kit makes the brewing process more foolproof than any other 1-gallon option. If you plan on reusing beer bottleswhether commercial or homebrewmake sure you rinse them clean with hot water before storing them, in anticipation of bottling. Many brewers stick with extract for years, and its possible to make excellent beer using both dry and liquid malt extract. Printed step-by-step instructions are also included in the box, and theyre unique to the recipe kit you choose. The biggest risk comes from glass carboys, which are heavy and fragile, and if you drop them can cause serious injuries (warning: many photos of glass-related injuries). These four items aside, the gear that comes in the MoreBeer Premium Home Brewing kit is more or less analogous to what you get from Northern Brewers kit. Always wash, scrub (with a soft sponge), and sanitize your bottling bucket and fermenter after theyve been used. If you want to jump right into all-grain brewing with an all-in-one electric setup, but you dont want to break the bank: Consider the MoreBeer Premium Electric All Grain Home Brewing Kit. The only other item you need to complete your setup is a digital probe thermometer or traditional lab thermometer, to ensure your mash temperature is where you want it. If you are on a tight budget, have a very small living space, or just arent sure whether you really want to brew your own beer, consider the Northern Brewer Craft Beer Making Kit With Siphonless Fermenter. That concept is outdated, and if the kit makes that mistake, it might make others, Conn told us. Denny Conn agreed that the batch-size question ultimately depends on your circumstances, saying, Small batches are practical and popular now, so you need to examine your situation and see what works best for you., If youve never considered making beer before, you might be wondering what youre in for. So its a good entry point for beginners. Even though I now use an electric brewer, I started brewing with an older version of the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy kit we recommend, and Im still using many of the items that came with it, including the plastic buckets, capper, and bottling wand. You can also control the mash temperature, length, and thickness (ratio of grain to water), all of which are levers you can pull to influence your beers sweetness and mouthfeel. The Northern Brewer Craft Beer Making Kit With Siphonless Fermenter comes with more of the most important brewing tools than other small-batch kits have, and it is backed by the companys friendly and dependable customer service. If youre looking to brew beer for the first time, but you arent ready to invest in a fully customized home brewery, the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit is a great place to start. It includes more of the most important tools than other kits, and it costs less. Not only is it thin and flimsy, but its handles are uncomfortable to hold when its full of hot liquid. The Northern Brewer Premium Craft Brewery In a Box offers a better kettle than any other kit weve seen (our MoreBeer upgrade pick included), and we love that the ported Big Mouth Bubbler plastic fermenter comes with a carrying harness for extra safety. These machines feature a stainless steel kettle and integrated ultra low watt density (ULWD) heating elements paired with a digital temperature controller. If youre interested in all-grain brewing, the good news is that you can add such a bag to any of the extract kits we recommend, generally for well under $50. And theyre all-grain rather than extract, which teaches new brewers some important skills. And it doesnt include a kettle, so its not as easy to use or as good of a value as our picks. Whether it's finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we'll help you get it right (the first time). Though not quite as advanced as other electric systems on the marketlike the BrewZilla 35L (made by the same manufacturer) or Grainfather G30this kit is the only option we found that bundles an electric brewing machine with all the essentials needed to get started from scratch. But you do get almost all the essentials you need to make a (small) batch of beer with minimal stress, including an airlock, a bottling wand and tubing, a bottle capper, bottle caps, oxygen-based cleanser, and even some personalizable beer bottle labels. Taste-wise, any of the three recipes that you can choose for your kitincluding an American amber ale, a hefeweizen, and an IPAshould satisfy the average craft beer fan. Though the Brew Share Enjoy kit comes with an oxygen-based cleanser, it does not include a sanitizer. Reusing bottles (rather than buying new ones for every batch) or switching to kegging reduces glass and plastic consumption, as well. Thats because it comes with a larger, heavier-gauge, 8-gallon kettle with a ball valve. We didnt test and dont recommend any of these machines for beginners (mostly due to their high cost). The fermentation bucket has a ball-valve spigot that allows you to use vinyl tubing and the power of gravity to more easily transfer the beer to the bottling bucket. And as John Palmer told us, A good fermentation of a bad recipe is going to make a better beer than a bad fermentation of a great recipe..