Don't Buy a Beer Making Kit (Before Watching This Video) 🍺🚫

[@jacksonakson8224]

I started brewing 37 years ago using the same book. I still use glass carboys, thin walled stainless kettle, propane burner, Jaded immersion chiller, Better Bottle secondary fermenters, gravity for all transfers, and Rubbermaid coolers for the mash tun and hot liquor tank. I brew on average every 6 days. I could easily afford to 'upgrade", but I have never seen anything I like better than the archaic system I currently have and love.

[@mxrcla596]

Ok boomer?

[@rockvillerocks4929]

I have a kit I was given for my birthday by my middle son, who keeps asking when I'm going to start brewing. Thankfully, he lives 400 miles away and can't see that it's been sitting under my desk all this time, but I do want to get into it, so today I broke open the kit and sat there staring at all the pieces, wondering what to do with them. Instructions are not entirely clear about what to do, and the kit also includes ingredients that aren't even mentioned in the instructions. It's a bit daunting. What's my problem? I mean, I have a Ph.D. Shouldn't this be easy? My only consolation is that my degree isn't in brewing beer...

[@luke5029]

@@rockvillerocks4929 its not that hard mix yeast with sugar let it ferment for a few days ,now either bottle that shit for beer or cook it for whiskey

[@altheliterate]

That's where I started, forty years ago. Haven't done a thing with it for the last twenty five years. Thinking about going back to it. It works, why quit. If ti ain't broke, don't fix it.

[@desertriderukverun1002]

We are living in the best of time for home brewers. Easily accessible information and great equipment.

[@AlbeeSoaring]

You guys that started pre youtube are savage. If it wasn't for youtube I probably still wouldn't be making my own beer. Videos like yours helped make me realize how easy it is and how imaginative you can get to making your own beer.

[@stillbald5827]

One of the best decisions I made early in my brewing journey was starting small. I started with 1 gallon all grain batches. I could use a lot of equipment I had in hand, and the ingredients were pretty cheap. When I was ready to upgrade I had a few dozen batches under my belt, and got my bad batches out of the way.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

This is a great way to get started!

[@mosjeschwartzman5960]

It's pretty easy to say "don't do this, that or that but do this , that and that" in hindsight , but when you start brewing you don't even know if you will like it or not. You don't set out to by the top of the bill for something you have no clue of. And messing about with the pots & pans, sucking on your transfer hoses, and cooling wort in a bucket of water with icepacks is part of the learning process. You need to know how it's done in its essence - and if you like doing it or not - before you can even make an informed decision on your upgrade path. If it turns out you didn't like it, you didn't loose a lot of money either. I made my fair share of purchases that are now taking up too much space, unused, but each of those has formed me and helped me getting to my current rig I truly love. And everyone will have his/her/their own preferences on what equipment to use and how - but in order to know, you will need to find out. Yourself. Sure, it's valuable to get advice and see how others go about,. No doubt about that. But, it's never wrong to start out with the simplest of kits to see if the hobby is anything for you or not.

[@anonymouscrank]

I walked into a homebrew shop in lower Manhattan in 1993 and the fella set me up with a couple of 5-gal buckets, some malt extract, and a copy of Charlie Papazian's book all for $125. Today, All-In-One units aren't much more expensive. I'm tempted to buy one.

[@CanadianBrewingChannel]

When you held up that book by Charlie Papazian, it brought back many beer memories lol. I saw a how to make beer video back in the early 90's and Charlie Papazian was the host. That got me into brewing. I still have old glass carboys that I never use haha!. I also stopped brewing for many years at a time but mainly because there were no good hops or grains available for home brews back in the early nineties. Now is a great time to brew! Great video! Cheers.

[@PatrickBuckles]

Love the advice. I've had my own version of the home-brew road story that is quite similar. But, I also am an impulse purchaser which gets me into a lot of trouble :)

[@keithpoolehomecoffeeroasti489]

Have to agree, I recently got back into brewing and cobbled together what I was used to (stove pot, igloo for mashing). Then figured out that price wise, an all in one would be far easier, compact, and cheaper or just slightly more.

[@Homebrew58]

I would argue with you about the plate chiller (clogs and not so easy to clean) and the counter flow chiller (I've had the inner tubing on one develop a fracture... not good). I ditched both of those for a Jaded Hydra immersion chiller which is super fast and easy to keep clean.

[@PatrickBuckles]

Guess this goes to the whole "you win some, you lose some".... my Exchillerator counter flow blasted my Jaded Hydra away in tests. Sorry about your counter flow chiller and I'm glad you found a good answer for you! Moral of the story, what works for some, doesn't work for all, but for the most part, the homebrew community is here for to help!

[@kristina-honey]

I really like how you edit your videos! They are fun to watch. Very informative thank you!

[@TheBenlewis2006]

Well put, main reason I stopped brewing is having bought the wrong setup, I’ve been eyeing y’all’s latest setups, and I’m probably going to have to pick up some stuff and get back into the hobby

[@KeifusMathews3]

His journey was my journey, got that book make a few batches and called it quits but seeing this video has inspired me to try again but with this sweet equipment

[@sethb9687]

Just wanted to add my two cents. I don't have a claw hammer system, but I did start with the BIAB method. BIAB makes it so much simpler. And if you're like me where you don't need a 5 gallon batch, then by far my favorite investment has been a 3 gallon keg and a spunding valve. I got a brand new keg for 100 bucks and the spunding valve for 20. I just cut 5 gallon recipes in half and brew off of that. Makes it simple. Plus you can ferment under pressure, so you don't have to invest in too much temp control.

[@coastchillin]

I bought the best home brew system i could find and it all worked out lol. What sucks the most is glass carboys.

[@ballerr45]

I disagree. Extract beer with steeping grains is excellent.

[@clubroot3383]

This is an excellent video. Made many of the mistakes like you. There are a lot of home brewers that won’t move on despite any evidence you present them. Those that do progress end up making beer that is even better than the commercial favourites. I have been brewing for 25 years, that’s not a badge, it just goes to show how long you can keep making mistakes.

[@georgeurquidi1602]

This was super helpful, as someone who wants to start brewing. I started looking at 1-gal kits, then 5-gals, and now I'm thinking of downsizing to a 1-gal thanks to this. The 5-gal seemed very intimidating.

[@garrymcgaw4745]

Thanks for the advice bro, I would have gone down the same road as you. Great video 👍.

[@jameslacroix5344]

Really related to this video. You just got yourself another customer

[@blainesimpson8134]

The assertion that there are not good, inexpensive 5 gallon fermenters where you can start with extract brewing and move up to all grain is wrong. You would think that the owner of a brewing supply company would know about the hugely popular Fermzilla and competing fermenters. I've found that most home brewers are like me and love to have the ability to see what you are brewing and have capability for pressure brewing. You can do all this for under $100 with a Fermzilla All Rounder-- try getting anything as scalable, flexible, and capable as that for $250 with any stainless fermenter.

[@piazzonim]

Leave it to Kyle to make a video about most of our home brewing history (yes - I still have my canning jar pot and glass carboy in the garage from the mid-90s)

[@thejdaz]

Jeez, I have such a similar pile of uninformed purchases. If I could go back in time, I'd definitely go for a more modular system that could be upgraded. It is a bit fun looking back at how junky my old setup was.

[@coalacorey]

This christmas I will replace my beloved sous vide stick with an AIO system so that I can brew more than 10L batches :)

[@babygoon25hrs]

1:57. My dad had the same pot. Only time it saw beer was when it was added to flavor the crabs we had steaming inside😂💯

[@mrthomas7511]

I started back in the days before KZbin really had any information for brewing. This was the time when glass carboys were preferred and buckets frowned upon. Wow have times and tech changed

[@akasgsvirgil9503]

The reason why homebrewing is on the decline is because the cost of making your own beer is too expensive. This is a great if you have deep pockets, are not married or have a wife that doesn't mind the house stinking like a drunkard's fart. For example, to brew a good 2xIPA at home, not including the startup cost for the equipment, you're going to spend around $100 if you want top shelf ingredients. If you skimp, you'll spend around $60. I can buy a 6 or 12 pack of 2xIPA for a quarter of that price. This is why home brewing is dying. You want to save home brewing, cut the costs, especially for the ingredients. The 10 gallon brew kit offered by these guys costs $999. If you buy the accessories to go with it, you're into it for roughly another $375 and you haven't even purchased your first bag of hops or yeast. If you want to save home brewing, the prices have to come down. Otherwise, this cottage industry won't be around a couple years from now. There's an old saying in the retail business, "pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered".

[@ZhuJo99]

You need just a propane bomb and stove, stainless steel pot, steel immersion chiller and cheap food safe plastic bucket you can make from home depo one. Or get electric pot for making worth directly for about 150 euros/usd Make manifold for getting the worth from the pot to the fermentation bucket. Yes, you can go more expensive with full automatic systems, pressurised fermentation, kegators etc but that is higher level. Don't know like in USA, you can make all grain beer for 45 eurocents per half a liter. 5 kg of malt is like 10 euros, 4 euros hops, about same for yeast. That's it.

[@Will-jd2br]

A plate chiller is easier to clean and sanitize than an immersion chiller 😂 .

[@fabioposser2]

Fake news lol

[@attacoustic5926]

Yeah although the plate chiller is definitely more efficient, an immersion chiller (especially a stainless one) is extremely easy to properly clean and sanitize since the exterior of the coil is what actually contacts the wort. The interior of the tubing does not need to be sanitized since it is separate from the brewing vessel and should never come in contact with the wort.

[@mikekeller5202]

Unless you have access to professional brewing grade acids for cleaning, a plate chiller is much more difficult to clean than an immersion chiller.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

@@justthebrttrk - Not sure what you're talking about. We definitely did not delete your comment.

[@TodayIMade]

​@@justthebrttrkcould just be "the algorithm" - wild shite is happening thanks to letting machines make decisions.

[@jshall14]

When I started brewing, I lived in a small attic apartment. I didn’t have the space to do 5-gallon all grain batches. I went from extract, to partial-mash, to 3-gallon BIAB. I do mostly 5-gallon all grain now. I’ll still do an occasional extract or even beer kit. It’ll be a long time until I upgrade from my glass carboys. I have two mini-fridges that I use as fermentation chambers. They’re too small for the stainless fermenters on the market. If/when I upgrade I’ll probably have to invest in a glycol chiller. That’ll be expensive 😂

[@matthewspence7476]

I just buy 3L cranberry juice, pour out a little, add 1.5 cups of white sugar using a diluted bleach sanitized measuring pitcher, and add enough bread yeast to cover the surface of the water level for the juice

[@tuamstuamstuamstuams]

finally, a small clawhammer fermenter that didn't blow up due to clogging :D

[@johnmcmullan9741]

A lot of LHBS are now selling fresh wort beer kits. I haven't tried any, but I suspect they are a massive improvement on the LME kits sold years ago and even these days. Probably of interest to anyone just looking for cheap quality beer for next to no time investment, like a brew day, pre prep and clean up.

[@lafamillecarrington]

My personal hate is the plastic bucket fermenter. I've always found them hard to seal properly, hard to open - particularly if you are just trying to add hops - and they scratch and crack easily. I use a plastic Speidel fermenter which has lasted extremely well and is much easier to use.

[@stevenstone307]

Great video! How about a similar video on the easiest, most likely successful beers? I've had a terrible start to brewing, the 4 brews I've done all resulted in beer that had to be poured down the drain. I suspect oxidisation. I also had a problem of making too complicated recipes I think. I was trying for Juicy NEIPAs as my first brew, and similar IPAs involving lots of dry hopping etc. I'm coming back to brewing this year and want to keep things simple.

[@timothywilliams2021]

Got the same book on my shelf... collecting dust. Much better information out there now. As far as equipment goes I'd love to have one of your systems but can't justify the price of an upgrade at this point. Maybe if i found it before buying all the stuff i now use. Possibly in the future though. Might have too find an excuse to sell old stuff or if something breaks down.

[@SERPENT616]

lol INTRO was so cool 👍

[@mkremmi]

My first setup look almost exactly like yours... even down to the canning pot!😂

[@aussiegruber86]

Your crawl space is neat as

[@johnmcmullan9741]

Fancy-pants brewing equipment is not really about making better beer, it just makes brew day, fermentation management, etc., easier.

[@wemcal]

Great video and wonderful information

[@orekpk]

damn this video is so good

[@NWsmallbatchBrewing]

Nice Editing on this one ! Cheers.

[@jordanweber7398]

Super cool! So if I start with the smallest version and perfect a beer, can I just multiply the ratios when I upgrade to the larger systems or does the recipe have to completely change?

[@EvansCantStop]

I feel called out as I brew in a blue aluminum canning pot. The beer comes out good tho 😅

[@CascadesHomebrew]

Have you guys thought about equipment targeted at batches in the 2.5 gal range? I find it sad that commercial vendors only know about 1 gal and 5 gal brewing, but for many of us those mid-sized batches are a sweet spot. I enjoy brewing, and 2.5 gal batches let me brew twice as often! I still have about a case of beer to enjoy myself and share with friends. P.S. I don't know anybody that purchased a plate chiller that did not regret spending the money. They are just not practical to clean and sanitize at the homebrew level.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Our 10.5 gallon system is designed to brew 2.5 - 5 gallon batches.

[@CascadesHomebrew]

@@ClawhammerSupply I guess. A 10 gallon kettle is too big, bulky and expensive for brewing 2.5 gallon batches. The only real solution is DIY or something like the Anvil Foundry 6.5 gal system (or a 5 gallon kettle on the stove, my setup). I know many people that brew smaller batches, but they are on their own for equipment, recipes and kits.

[@dennisschickling2249]

Great commercial video. Love your system. I wish I had one. 💰 #STAYSAFE #PHILLYPHILLY 🇺🇸

[@jabanan]

a pot and a bucket is all you need

[@MissionSilo]

What do I need to make clear alcohol at home? Home made equipment only. I'm doing it to learn about chemistry and engineering.

[@neilelliott5291]

Bring the 🐐 Emmet back for vids. Need some awesome cuts/Editing of Emmet vs the Bro's. Well guess it would be just kyle now. But missing the the old vibes of Emmet trying to get some work done while Kyle I guess edits him to look like he has no idea whats going on and having some fun cycling up a mountain.

[@Kira-dj8dj]

Hello sir, what is the best temperature to store wine yeast for the long term, a year or more, and what is the method? Thank you.

[@thomaspena4290]

What is the name of the 1 gallon piece of equipment for extract brewing you showed in the video and where can I buy it ?

[@ChadAF_YT]

Don’t forget to crack your grain. Don’t ask how I know :)

[@RecipeswithBen]

Based on everything you said why don't you sell a smaller version of your system targeted to make 1-3 gallons of beer as there really isnt one out there

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Our 10 gallon system can do 2.5 gallon batches.

[@therealguru5126]

do you guys offer education/hands on training at your shop?

[@chrisnewton9788]

Is it also easier to remove blockages from plate chillers than immersion chillers 😉😂

[@colkestrel]

My first two beers I bought a 5 gallon stainless steal pot and they were both extract beers. Used food safe buckets for fermentation. Bought bottler and bottles. After those too brews I was hooked and bought a brewzilla. This is exactly right and wish I went right for the all grain system.

[@joshbent653]

Love my clawhammer system and besides the few small problems I've had it the best system I've owned in 20yrs of homebrewing. The plate chillers don't clog and and not hard to clean. Stop whining lol

[@jigglypuffdude]

Is that an OP1 at :18? Music producer AND beer brewer???

[@tysynswoon7956]

Is the mash basket that comes with your Claw Hammer brewing system able to handle boiling temperatures?

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Yes, it’s designed for that

[@myleshennelly9176]

'English Ale Cider'.... Is it some kinda draught snake bite? Is it just referring to the use of cerevisiae?

[@nate14120]

A "thick bottom"...

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Juicy.

[@jimscott4539]

I agree with just about everything you said except…You can make some killer beers with LME! By cheating the all grain process and equipment. And, using the right grains in socks and finishing hops. You can still produce a high end beer product. I know this because I’ve been brewing since before you were born most likely. And, have won awards in brew contest using LME as a base. :)

[@Michael_Kerstein]

My home town brewing place sales kits way way cheaper

[@nrhurley117]

Ever brew out of an old hot tub?

[@mrbeans2517]

first mistake: try learn if while consuming beers :D

[@darrenhutton321]

Music is annoying .

[@RomeoJohnsson-Montal]

I was just about to write the exact same comment ^^ I dont understand the need for background music all the time on youtube

[@rockvillerocks4929]

Same here. I kept hearing this strange music, wondering where it was coming from

[@BrendanPNW]

Great video to sell your products to try and justify them but otherwise useless. Everyone is different as to what gives them passion to keep brewing. Some love to justify an expensive system and some will always love to keep things cheap and simple. The fact you couldn't figure out how to enjoy it with the equipment you had doesn't mean someone else can't love to do it and/or make good beer with the same setup.

[@waughjake]

Nice ADvice

[@ROFLitsJobe]

Did y'all use machine learning to clean up the voice track on this

[@ClawhammerSupply]

The entire video is A.I. The brew system is real, of course, but Kyle is definitely not. Our simulations of him are getting much better, right?

[@clyntebling9050]

Agreed, I like the video but the voice audio (autotune?) is very distracting with good quality headphones/audio. Love the content as always though.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Ok, hadn't watched the vid with headphones. Thanks for the heads up, folks. What I did was speed the entire video up by 10% to improve the flow and drop my voice by 10% so I didn't sound like a chipmunk! I guess i'll just need to talk faster if i want the videos to move better.

[@HOMEBREW4LIFE]

Slippery when wet IPA

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Shattered Dreams IPA!

[@TheHeraldOfChange]

Mate, I love your channel, and the info, and this video is a nice advertorial and all, BUT! Who can even remotely think about trying to win brewing awards when they are just starting out? That ain't any beginners starting goal, ffs. "...extract brewing... blah blah blah... not goin to win any awards... blah blah blah... "There are many paths to "all grain" brewing and your path was yours, good for you. But don't be so blindingly arrogant as to assume all the rest of us are blithely following along on the same trajectory. You lost me on this one

[@bloopblaaableee]

Hey, what if I told you we have the space and we have the the market and the licences. Would you partner with me to sell in India ? 1.3 billion people and atleast 10 million in each city. We will share goood profits if we start one brewery. I'll take care of all the paperwork and give you the space. Let me know if you wanna talk

[@ge0metr1xx]

High quality glass carboy with an auto siphon produced the cleanest beers. All plastics has endocrine disruptors and androgenic estrogen promoters in them that leech into the beer. Stainless leeches chromium and nickel. Fuck that shit.. Italian glass carboys are the only way to get a clean beer. But only the Italian glass.

[@myleshennelly9176]

What is a 'Clean Beer'? probably 99.9% of beer produced globally is fermented in 304/316 stainless. Historically, almost every material used in any food and drinks production has had some extent of leaching, stainless steel is one of the safest for it. Compared to glass, it's far better suited to beer production due to thermal conductivity, affordability, modularity/repairability and strength.

[@ge0metr1xx]

@@myleshennelly9176 Commercial brewing at such a large scale where massive tanks are needed is a different subject than homebrew. For homebrewing scale, quality glass is clean and inert and safe. Fuck stainless and plastic. My beers are made in glass pots, fermented in glass. I dont use any chemicals, I use only heated water for sanitization. Zero chemicals. All my RO water goes through a carbon filter to remove micro plastics, then filteted through ion filter to remove benzenes. All organic grains and hops. That's a clean beer, and that's why I brew my own.

[@myleshennelly9176]

@@ge0metr1xx To each their own, Many larger breweries also implement RO for water, but I've seen quite a few homebrewers with SS kit! If you're doing really small batches, more power to you for finding a production niche :) What temp/hold time do you sanitise the pots with?

[@ge0metr1xx]

@@myleshennelly9176 for carboys I do around 150-160 for a few minutes. Its important not to shock the glass, I always warm it up with the hottest sink water. My sink water comes out at 145 so it primes it np. For bottles i steam them in a large kettle. And i use everclear and boiled water that had been cooled for my risnse water. Its important to always wear PPE just incase. I have kevlar sleeves to protect my wrists and arms, saftey glasses and a good pair of leather work boots. I do 5 gallon batches at a time. Never had an infection.

[@callumberry661]

Do you also cook your dinner in glass pans? Absolutely nothing wrong with stainless kit on a home brew level. It leaks absolutely no chromium or nickel at a level worth being concerned about. Stainless steel is now being used in most commercial distillation setups. This exposes the stainless steel to 90% + Abv hot alcohol vapour and still absolutely no concern for contamination from chromium or nickel. Stainless steel exposed to 3-10% abv beer in a home brewing setup is absolutely no worry at all! I’ve had tours around over 12 British distilleries and I can assure you they ALL use large stainless steel tanks for storing the pure ethanol.

[@AvaJansen-f5v]

Just wanted to add my two cents. I don't have a claw hammer system, but I did start with the BIAB method. BIAB makes it so much simpler. And if you're like me where you don't need a 5 gallon batch, then by far my favorite investment has been a 3 gallon keg and a spunding valve. I got a brand new keg for 100 bucks and the spunding valve for 20. I just cut 5 gallon recipes in half and brew off of that. Makes it simple. Plus you can ferment under pressure, so you don't have to invest in too much temp control.

[@Kirby-Bernard]

Jeez, I have such a similar pile of uninformed purchases. If I could go back in time, I'd definitely go for a more modular system that could be upgraded. It is a bit fun looking back at how junky my old setup was.