Equipment & Setup
Starter Kit Guide
Everything you need to brew your first batch without overspending.
Your First Setup
Starting to homebrew does not require a massive investment. A well-chosen starter kit provides everything you need for extract brewing, with an upgrade path to all-grain later.
Essential Equipment
Brew kettle — 5-gallon minimum for extract brewing, 8-10 gallon for all-grain. Stainless steel is durable and easy to clean. Aluminum works but requires seasoning to prevent metallic flavors.
Fermenter — 6.5-gallon food-grade bucket or glass carboy with an airlock. Buckets are cheaper and easier to clean. Carboys allow visual monitoring but are heavy and breakable.
Airlock and stopper — a three-piece or S-type airlock allows CO2 to escape while preventing air and contaminants from entering.
Siphon and tubing — an auto-siphon makes transfers easy and sanitary. Food-grade vinyl or silicone tubing connects the siphon to the fermenter or bottling bucket.
Bottling bucket — a food-grade bucket with a spigot for filling bottles. Also usable as a secondary fermenter.
Bottle filler — a spring-loaded wand that attaches to the spigot for filling bottles from the bottom up, minimizing splashing and oxidation.
Bottles, caps, and capper — reuse commercial pry-off bottles (not twist-offs). Crown caps and a bench or wing capper seal them.
Sanitizer — Star San or Iodophor. Non-negotiable.
Thermometer — a fast-reading digital thermometer accurate to 1 F.
Hydrometer — measures wort gravity to track fermentation progress and calculate ABV.
Budget Breakdown
A basic starter kit costs $80-150 and includes most of the above. Add $30-50 for your first ingredient kit. Total first-batch investment: $110-200.
What You Do NOT Need Yet
A wort chiller (use an ice bath), a grain mill (buy pre-crushed), a mash tun (start with extract), a kegging system (bottles are fine), or a fermentation chamber (find a cool closet).
Upgrade Path
After 3-5 extract batches, consider upgrading to all-grain: a mash tun ($50-100 DIY cooler conversion), a larger kettle ($80-150), and a wort chiller ($40-80 for immersion copper). Each upgrade improves your beer and opens new recipe possibilities.
Space Requirements
Extract brewing needs a kitchen stove and a closet-sized fermentation space. All-grain needs slightly more space for the mash tun. A garage or outdoor propane burner setup is ideal for full-volume boils.
More in this series
Embed on your site — BeerFYI
Add the widget to any webpage using a script tag.
<div data-beerfyi="guide" data-slug="equipment-starter-kit-guide"></div>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/beerfyi-embed@1/dist/embed.min.js" defer></script>Embed using a standard iframe — works in any CMS.
<iframe src="https://beerfyi.com/iframe/guide/equipment-starter-kit-guide/" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" title="BeerFYI guide widget"></iframe>Paste the URL into WordPress, Medium, or any oEmbed-aware editor.
https://beerfyi.com/guides/equipment-starter-kit-guide/Add a badge linking back to BeerFYI.
<a href="https://beerfyi.com/guides/equipment-starter-kit-guide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://beerfyi.com/badge/site.svg" alt="BeerFYI" height="20">
</a>
Use the BeerFYI WordPress plugin shortcode.
[drinkfyi-guide site="beerfyi" slug="equipment-starter-kit-guide"]Use as a native HTML custom element in modern browsers.
<beerfyi-guide slug="equipment-starter-kit-guide" theme="light"></beerfyi-guide>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/beerfyi-embed@1/dist/embed.min.js" defer></script>