Equipment for Extract Brewing

You will need all the equipment needed for kit brewing, i.e. all the gear to ferment and bottle or keg your brew. In addition, you will need some kind of boiler.

You can get away with a boiler of 2 - 3 gallons capacity by boiling in batches or boiling the extract with part of the water and adding the rest cold. The problem is that boiling in batches takes much longer and using only part of the water increases the concentration of wort in the boiler, which means you won't extract the bitterness from the hops as efficiently. For these reasons you should aim (if you want to produce many batches by this method) for a boiler of at least 6 gallons capacity if you're making 5 gallon batches of beer. The extra capacity allows for boil over and evaporation.

To cool the wort quickly after boiling, some kind of chiller is required, however if you don't want to go that far, standing the fermenter in a bath of cold water will do the job (though not as quickly).

Essential

• Fermenting Bucket, preferably fitted with a tap
• Bottles and Caps OR Plastic Pressure Barrel OR Cornelius Keg
• Boiler fitted with a hop strainer (or use a hop bag in place of a strainer)
• Grain bags (to contain the specialist grains that can be used to enhance the flavour of an extract brew)

Preferable

• Chiller
• Syphon Tubing (essential if your fermenter has no tap
• Hydrometer

Nice to Have

• Brewing Paddle
• Thermometer(s)