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Oldest comments listed first.

• The key is sanitation, sanitation, sanitation. ANYTHING that touches your beer needs to be boiled and/or bleach-watered. A friend of mine received this exact set for Xmas last year and had some very funky bottles, enough to put him off brewing. This is a beginner kit, and not very re-usable. In fact, I would say you can use this kit exactly once based on conversations with my friend, and the quantity breweed is, IMHO, not enough to justify the labor.

  If you enjoy beer and think you might enjoy brewing (I brew 5 gallons about once a month), I would suggest heeding the old dictum "buy once, cry once" and purchasing slightly more expensive, sophisticated, and more reusable home brewing equipment, the most important piece of which is Charlie Papazian's "Complete Joy of Home Brewing," considered to be the bible of homebrewing. Craigslist is a good source of used equipment, but most major burbs have homebrewing stores which specialize in this trade, and can offer good advice to the newbie.

  Posted by: daveselden on October 3, 2005 at 4:08 PM

• I agree with Dave. Do yourself a favor and buy a $50-$100 kit at your local Brew Shop. After that is purchased, pre-assembled ingredient kits will cost you around $20 each, and will brew you 5 gallons or so.

  This is my local shop, and their list of brewing kits.

  Posted by: JoshBurley on October 3, 2005 at 4:30 PM

• My wife got one of those kits for a birthday gift. We only used the plastic bottles once and then from there stepped up to glass bottles and a capper.

  She had hit/miss on good beer. I don't drink, but I'd take it to work and share it with everyone there and one batch got major thumbs up. Other batches would only get drunk by booze hounds at work.

  Sanitation is the trickest of making beer.

  Overall, it really is a good kit for your first steps into making beer, and we used the barrel for some other brands of beer mixes as well with good results.

  Posted by: pencilneck on October 3, 2005 at 4:37 PM

• This looks exactly like the kit I have seen sold at the end of the checkouts at Walmart around Christmas time. If they sell this kit again, look for a near or after Christmas deal where they mark it down to under $20.

  Posted by: Muddler on October 4, 2005 at 9:43 AM

• If you're going to do something, do it right. This kit is not how to do it "right". If you're looking to make good beer, I guarantee you this is not the way. It If you're looking to save money, then look for economies of scale, and get a real kit and buy ingredients in bulk. This is a great place to start learning the process: http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html

  BTW- bleach should *never* be used in beer making. Chlorophenol is formed unless you wash every last trace of it out of your equipement. If you don't, your beer can have a horrible medicinal flavor.

  Posted by: rama-amar on October 4, 2005 at 11:00 AM

• Kits? Oh the horrors!

  If you are reading this blog you clearly should start with all grain brewing, liquid yeast, and home kegging...

  Posted by: richgibson on October 4, 2005 at 11:24 AM

• I first saw the wonders of beer brewing spelled out to me after watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. While the professionals in the field were crying foul on most of his techniques, it did get me into my local, reputable brewing store. There I picked the brain of the owner for a good hour, re-learned everything there was to know for a beginner and purchased a kit. Granted, it wasnt a $20 kit, it was a kit the store put together which included everything I would ever need. GLASS carboy, bucket, all tubing needed, hydrometer, thermometer, bottle tree, ferrari bench-press style capper, all cleaning powders, two cases of bottles, caps, autosiphon racking cane, much more to mention.. It was about $350.. But I purchased the top of the line of everything I needed. Except a second Carboy for a second fermentation.

  Everything went off without a hitch, I used an already bundled kit for a nice pale-american lager w/ malt extract. Of course the worst part was the wait, but the end result was mighty fine. For all that work, and the absolute STINK of the wort (baby beer) brewing was worth it. Definately try it out, but get yourself the good stuff. You could always re-sell it as the kit minus a few bucks.

  Bleach will work, but the cleansing powders are cheap and made to be used in this situation! I only used at most a 5th of my $4 bag of cleaning solution to clean my carboy, buckets, bottles, tubing, canes, and hydrometer.

  Heres my local store, they have everything. I will always be a loyal customer.. Annapolis Homebrew

  Posted by: milleker on October 4, 2005 at 12:41 PM

• The most recent "From The Shadows" episode (Box 5) has a really interesting feature on brewing beer. First they visit the Anchor Steam brewery and get a tour, then they brew their own batch of beer. Definitely check it out: http://fromtheshadows.tv/

  Posted by: cheesy on October 4, 2005 at 1:27 PM

• I concur with richgibson's comments. No self-respecting maker should buy a Mr. Beer kit. Spend the $27 on a couple of decent homebrew books (Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide and Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing come to mind) and get into the maker's and tinkerer's dream-world of homebrewing. I am in the middle of building a 10-gal garage brewery using parts and equipment taken from the local junk dealer, my fathers old solar heating business, a ten-years worth of cast off computers and electronics. hbd.org is another great place to start

  Posted by: jerryscott on October 4, 2005 at 7:22 PM

• Bleach is a common household item, and provided you rinse well, it's a fine sanitizer. I use Iodophor myself, but didn't think the general public would know what that was. Anywho ...

  I was actually discussing this with a friend last night, and how you'd do this the MAKE way, i.e. on the cheap.

  Here's the bare minimums I think you'd need to brew 5 gals. Phillip, if you're listening, I'd love to do an article on this for you:

  So, bleach, commonly available, inexpensive.
  Big pot (2 gals, minimum)
  Spaghetti strainer (rough filtering of wort, do the rest by gravity in fermenter)
  Spoon for stirring
  5 gallon or bigger plastic bucket with airtight lid (commonly available from delis)
  Surgical tubing (use for blowoff hose AND airlock AND bottling)
  Some kind of quick-release hose clamp for bottling
  Bottle capper and caps (cheapo $7 special)
  Bottles (drink em til they're empty)

  ... and then ingredients for your recipe.

  Posted by: daveselden on October 5, 2005 at 10:11 AM

• -Its all about the yeast, folks. spend your money on a good liquid culture and you won't be disappointed. Its all about making your yeast happy, so temperature is important, nutrients are important...

  -Cleanliness is important, but a strong yeast culture will pretty much take care of itself. Wild yeast can't really keep up - if you set up the proper environment, natural selection does the rest. So, sanitize, keep things clean, but don't worry so much.

  -Put stuff in glass. Its easy to clean, and it doesn't impart off-odors or tastes to the beer. Plus, it lasts a lot longer.

  -Don't use bleach - it kills a lot of stuff, but its hard to get rid of, and it will kill your yeast too! I use iodophor...

  -Don't by kits like this. (Sorry.)
  

  Posted by: severn on October 5, 2005 at 8:34 PM

• I was given one of these kits, and was able to make some pretty tasty beer with it.....But as mentioned earlier, a real MAKEr would construct their own apparatus. Here in Kalamazoo we have the magnificent Bell's Brewery, which has a homebrewing store with all the goodies in addition to their own fine products.

  Posted by: robotland on October 6, 2005 at 12:37 PM

• I got one of these as a gift a few years ago. It got me into home brewing, and now I'm doing 5 gallon batches 3-5 times a year.

  The mixes that came with it were OK, but after I got Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Home Brewing, I never used one of their kits again.

  I still use the tank for small batches liek hard cider or meads. I suggest you never use bleach to sanitize plastic, as it does not rinse well. One-step rinse free sanitizer does the trick very well, and works just as well on plastic.

  Posted by: UncleOengus on October 9, 2005 at 8:50 PM

• My friend and I just finishing brewing with a Cooper's brew kit. It was amazing.

  I have been a fan of the beer for awhile so I decided to try their kits.

  It Rocked! Very easy beer brewing for beginners or for those who want make a good beer easily.

  As we get more experience we will try different techniques. But I will definitely keep using this kit while we get more experience.

  Check out their stuff on Makebeer.net or Amazon.

  Posted by: DanK5s on October 3, 2007 at 2:14 PM

• we ardered a kit from some place for $15 and belive it or not the beer was good we did it because we drink and wanted to try it for our selfs i will definately invest in a better kit but if you want to experiment with home brew these kits are ok i think that is the whole reason for these kits to open the door

  Posted by: bigmagoo on January 1, 2008 at 4:37 PM

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