I purchased my brewkit two weeks ago from Williams Brewing.  As I complete my second boil and prepare it for the fermentor I think I made a pretty good choice.

It seems like every online brewing supply outfit has put together an all in one brewkit.  Some kits are more complete than others.  The Complete Home Brewery from Williams had everything I needed to get going. 

One of the main items missing from most kits is the brew pot.  The pot is the heart of the brewing process and if you’re going to attempt to boil wort in your spaghetti pot on an electric stove you might as well forget it.  Recipe kits are usually designed to produce 5 gallons of beer.  You need hardware that can accommodate that volume with room to spare to prevent boil-over.  The Williams kit comes with a big 7 gallon pot.  This pot even comes with a spigot to help move the wort to your fermentor.

Another great part of this kit is the included copper immersible wort chiller.  Cooling the wort from a full boil to an acceptable temperature for pitching your yeast is the most hazardous part of the brewing process.  The longer your beer sits exposed to the environment once it’s temperature starts to fall the more danger of the wort picking up an infection.  Running water through your garden hose and into the copper coils of the chiller can cut your cooling time from an hour or more to less than 30 minutes.

Also included in the kit are all the testing equipment and accessories you’ll need.  A long steel thermometer, hydrometer, spoon, airlock, and racking lines are all in the box.  All the ingredients for a 5 gallon batch are there as well.  I chose the India Pale Ale kit.

I can already see where some slight upgrades could improve my brewing process, but all the basics are there and I can see most of the kit getting years worth of use.

Popularity: 93% [?]