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When dealing with the mad science that is brewing your own beer, you’ll likely be inundated with ample opportunity to spend many a shilling on the latest technology in beer making supplies. As easy as it is to think that this mash tun or that beaker will make essential additions to your lab, it’s the science of fermentation that will dictate necessity in your brewing arsenal.

When you first set out on your beer brewing journey it’s important that you not go overboard by investing in gear, tools and equipment that you do not need. Instead, you should focus on acquiring the most important beer-making items first, and then build up your laboratory as both your experience and passion for homebrewing grows.

Beer Making Supplies: Extract Brewing Equipment

Should you decide to start out as an extract brewer (which I highly recommend you do) your requisite lab-ware is as follows:

1 large pot – capable of boiling a volume of water equal to half or more of your total batch size (5 gallon batches are the norm). You can also use a more professional “brew kettle” for this first step of the beer making process.

1 fermentation vessel – (usually made of plastic or metal) that has a capacity greater than your batch size. If brewing a 5 gallon batch, for example, a 6.5 gallon vessel will suffice. This fermentation vessel needs a lid of some kind and must be able to be closed off from the outside environment (unless the inclusion of wild airborne yeast is desired).

Mesh bags – used to filter the barley and hops out of your beer after fermentation has ceased. Mesh bags made of cheesecloth or nylon work well as long as the openings in the weave are small enough to hold back any debris while allowing your liquid beer/wort to pass through.

1 airlock – used to release the buildup of carbon dioxide while simultaneously preventing any outside contamination. This device is only necessary for beers that you will inoculate with a specific yeast strain and do not wish to expose to wild airborne yeast.

Sanitizer solution – a soap/cleanser that’s vital to successful beer production.

Empty beer bottles – brown glass bottles work the best. You want to make sure that the bottles can be capped and re-capped after you use them. The larger the batch of beer you produce, the more beer bottles you’re going to need.

1 bottle capper – This simple device comes in several variations and with a variety of price points. It’s an important piece of beer brewing equipment to posses, however, so be sure to get a good one.

Bottle caps – available from your local homebrew store or from a variety of online vendors. Just make sure you’re getting the right size caps for the beer bottles that you’re using, as there are two different commonly sold sizes.

Bottling vessel – a large container (similar in size to your fermentation vessel), which will be used to transfer your beer from the fermentation vessel after fermentation has ceased, and then into your beer bottles before carbonation.

That’s really all you need to get started! Everything listed here can be found at your local homebrew store or on the website at: www.doctorhomebrew.com/shop

Beer Making Supplies: Partial-Mash Brewing Equipment

Should you decide you’ve outgrown the extract game and are looking for more of a challenge, partial-mash brewing is the next logical step to take. Luckily, the differences in both beer making supplies and techniques between extract brewing and partial-mash brewing are minimal and ultimately come down to the inclusion of the mashing process.

While mashing is perceived by some as too difficult for the average homebrewer, this is simply not the case (provided of course, you’ve built up a strong brewing foundation with several extract beers already under your belt).

With extract brewing (which we discussed previously), you get the necessary fermentable sugars for your beer from pre-processed malt extracts. But with partial-mash brewing, you supplement those sugars with the sugars you extract from malted barley through the mashing process. Mashing, therefore, is much akin to steeping tea bags in a teacup until the desired flavor is attained.

With partial-mash brewing, your “tea cup” is a large waterproof container known as a “mash tun” and your “tea bag” is a bed (or bag) of grains. During the mashing process, your bed of grains will rest inside your mash tun on a perforated metal screen called a “false bottom,” which works to separate your grains from “the tea”(your wort) without removing “the tea bag” (the bed of grains) from “the tea cup” (your mash tun).

I cover the steps necessary for partial-mash brewing inside Dr. Homebrew’s How-To Beer Book. For now, however, just know that in addition to all the other beer making supplies necessary for extract brewing (listed above), you’ll also need to obtain the following additional items if you wish to brew your next beer using partial-mash brewing techniques:

1 mash tun – a large container in which your barley will be soaked and the water later drained. While commercial mash tuns do exist, many homebrewers create their own mash tuns using converted Igloo coolers. This is done by replacing the standard plastic spigot with a stainless steel ball valve that has the ability to attach to a false bottom.

1 ball valve – should be made of stainless steel. Some models have an attachment for a hose on both ends of the valve. This is convenient for controlling the flow from the mash tun to your boil kettle. (Note #1: The ball valve is usually included with commercial mash tuns, but if you make your own tun, you’ll need to purchase the ball valve separately.)

1 false bottom – usually made of stainless steel and designed to allow for a rate of flow of the wort leaving the mash tun while simultaneously being small enough to prevent the passage of any grain particles that might make it through otherwise. (Note #1: Fine mesh bags made of cheesecloth or nylon can be used in leiu of a false bottom.) (Note #2: The false bottom is usually included with commercial mash tuns (like this one, which I highly recommend), but if you make your own mash tun, you’ll need to purchase or construct the false bottom separately.)

Hosing – constructed of rubber, food safe materials, this short hose will connect the ball valve on your mash tun to the false bottom and the other end to the boil kettle. 3 or more feet of hosing is recommended. (Note#1: Be sure to purchase hosing of the correct diameter, as hosing can be found in a number of different sizes – although 1/2 inch and 3/8 inch is most common.)

Once again, all of the beer making supplies listed here can be found at your local homebrew store… or on the website here at: www.doctorhomebrew.com/shop/

Beer Making Supplies: All-Grain Brewing Equipment

After mastering both extract and partial-mash brewing, you may wish to advance to the all-grain brewing technique. While the beer making supplies and equipment necessary for partial-mash brewing and all-grain brewing are pretty much the same, there are a few additional beer-brewing items you might wish to add to your arsenal at this time:

Water filter – used to clean and filter your water before you begin the beer making process.

Stand-alone burner – used instead of the standard gas or electric burner you might find in your home kitche, stand-alone burners allow you to better regulate the temperatures of your brews, while at the same time boiling much larger batches that you might be able to brew otherwise.

Grain mill – a device that allows you to purchase raw grain and crack open the husks without destroying the grain inside. Once your grain has been milled in this way, you can then begin the all-grain brewing process.

Thermometer – used to take the temperature of your water, wort and beer at various stages of the beer making process.

Wort cooler – A device (also referred to as a “wort chiller” or “immersion chiller”) designed to rapidly cool your wort down after it has finished boiling. The rapid cool down that this device provides prevents your beer from spoiling due to unwanted bacteria getting into the beer between the time you finish the boiling process and the beer’s eventual transfer into the fermentation vessel.

If you have ambitions of experimenting with partial-mash or all-grain brewing in the future, plan on spending anywhere between 100 to 500 US Dollars  – depending on the size and quality of the beer making supplies you purchase.

For brewers on a tight budget, there are several opportunities to buy used beer making supplies from online retailers, Internet message boards, community classified ads, and postings made at your local homebrew store. If you acclimate yourself within the circles of beer brewers in your community, it’s not uncommon to find another brewmaster looking to sell or give away the equipment they’re no longer using.

While there are hundreds of optional beer brewing gadgets and gizmos available to you, you now know the basic beer making supplies of any homebrewer. With the beer making supplies listed above, some fresh extract, hops, viable yeast, and clean water, you’ll be able to whip up some wonderfully delicious concoctions to share with your friends and family… and you will be proud to say, “I made that!”

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