The Royal Black Watch Forums
Public Discussion => General Discussion => Flotsam and Jetsam => Topic started by: Gilgamoth on June 27, 2009, 02:05:13 am
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I'm thinking about finally starting to make my own homebrew. I'm planning on hard cider (my favorite drink) since I'm only like a 5 minute drive away from a cider mill (they do custom batches by request). Do any of you out there brew your own beer, cider, or whatever? If you've got tips, I'll take 'em.
(Yes, it's legal to brew at home where I live, but not legal to transport it for some reason...)
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Sooooo Cider tasting at Gilg's place!
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I had a friend who did home brewing, years ago. He used to put the carboy containers in a closet because the brewing needed to happen in a dark place, but he was brewing beer, I don't know if cider has the same light sensitivity. He also used to wash the bottles in the bathtub, in a bleach solution before bottling. So, some extra closet and tub space are the only tips I can think of. And some kitchen space, he used to have to use the stove to do something to the hops, I think he was boiling them. This is all going from memories of about 20 years ago.
I looked into homebrewing a few months back, and found some websites that have starter kits and books for sale.
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I think the ultra-violet light in sunlight might kill some of the yeast in the brewing process, thus avoiding sunlight with the carboy. With hard cider, you can pasteurize the cider prior to brewing via exposure to UV, as an alternative to normal pasteurization . I'm not sure if my local mill does UV or not. The UV treatment kills the natural yeast in the cider, letting you control the fermentation via added brewer's yeast.
I'm in WA state. For some reason, the State lets us brew at home, but doesn't let us transport it. Anyhow, should be a good state to brew cider, if you know what I mean. I'm about a 3 hour drive to apple country.
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I'm a pretty big homebrewer, mostly beer but I'll do a batch or two of mead a year, plus a few batches of cider over the years. This fall I'm thinking I'll have a another try at cider, maybe wine.
To address some of what's been said, I never use bleach. Bleach has to be rinsed off, which if nothing else, adds another step. I use Iodophor/BTF, which is a no-rinse-required sterilizer. In wine-making they use potassium metabisulfate, a.k.a. Camden tablets.
Light is never your friend, though. I always have carboys covered or in the dark. I only use blue or brown bottles, since the clear and green ones don't block the bad part of the spectrum.
From my reading into cidermaking, there seems to be a minor school of thought that you can use the yeast that naturally occurs on the fruit in addition to what you pitch--i.e. use raw unpasteurized cider. But it's been a while since I've looked into it.
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Ooh, thanks for the tips. Some of that is new to me. My local homebrewer's shop sells non-bleach sanitizers. Would you still want to rinse it out afterwards though? Does tap water contaminate the carboy? I do have relatively hard water, but that's just minerals.
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I don't rinse out the iodophor. For instance, while I'm soaking a bunch of bottles to bottle a batch of beer, I'll invert them and let them drain while I'm soaking another bunch. Bleach has a long contact time, whereas iodophor is just a few minutes. My place doesn't have a dishwasher, but if you have one I've heard that you can just run a full load of bottles through to sterilize them... no personal experience, though.
If you've got hard water, you may want to tweak it a little, depending on what style of beer you're going to make. For some styles to be "authentic", you're supposed to mimic the water qualities of the area of the world that style is from. I try, but I don't sweat it too much. Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew, etc.
One thing you may want to check is if there are demonstration days, either through a homebrew club in your area, or your local homebrew shop. Actually seeing someone go through the steps would be super-helpful. I know I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning that would have been easily avoided.
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Well, my current plan is just for making cider, not beer. (I'm assuming that the 1+ month brewing/aging cycle (35+ days) for the cider in my current plan will make me impatient and then try some faster small batches of beer though.) I'm currently looking at doing a 5-gallon batch, made from local unpasteurized cider with the natural yeast killed by campden tablets, sweetened and using a proofed yeast starter, fermented for about 3 weeks, syphoned into a 2nd bucket with extra sugar for another week, bottled, then aged for at least 1 week. From what I've read so far, that should give me a relatively dry sparkling cider at around 5-6%abv. If this works well, I'm going to do several concurrent batches and let them age for as long as I can stand. Cider doesn't last very long in my general vicinity... ;D
Redmond City water = blech. If I was going to make beer, I would steal tap water from my parent's house. 20 minutes away from me, but the water is really really good over there. Its from an unpolluted aquafir.
I tend to obsess over details, initially gorging my mind on information, create a plan, then execute said plan. I'm in the create plan phase now. I'll probably buy most of the supplies tomorrow. I can't "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" until long after I've started! :)
Thanks for the extra sanitizing tips.
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Well, I've got the brewing supplies now. I still need to sanitize the gear, buy local cider, and proof the yeast. I'll see if I can post a pic of the setup once its in action.
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Okay, I'm brewing now... won't be racking/bottling for 3 weeks. Maximum potential alcohol is approx 8.3% based on a hydrometer reading of 1.063 @ ~ 84 degrees F. Brew temperature will be approx 71, which is a bit high, but is around the mid-range for the yeast I used (Lalvin 71B-1122). I've read that cider likes temperatures of around 60 degrees. The wine yeast would barely even be active at that point. Maybe that's the point? ???
Update: There is an odor of fruit and yeast in my apartment now, almost as if I was baking some sort of desert 24/7. Its kind of nice...
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Okay... now I'm brewing a brown ale alongside my cider. Outside of it boiling over once and leaving a foaming sticky syrup residue ALLLLLL over my kitchen, everything is A-okay. ;D
What I really want to do is make a maibock lager, but I think that will have to wait until the winter, as I don't have room for a 2nd refrigerator, just for lagering. :-\
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*waits for samples*
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*waits for samples*
Gilgamoth would gladly supply, but WA state forbids the transportation of homebrew beyond the home except when in small quantity (1 pint???) and when being transported to a expedition, and only when a judge is the only one drinking said homebrew. A bill to change that particular state law passed the state house and senate. My governor hasn't signed it yet, AFAIK. (She made a better Attorney General, grumble grumble...)
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Glad to hear the homebrewing is working out, in spite of the syrupy mess in the kitchen :D
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Where did you get your homebrew kit from Gilg?
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Where did you get your homebrew kit from Gilg?
There is a shop nearby my place. Here is their webpage: http://mountainhomebrew.com/ (http://mountainhomebrew.com/). A shop like that sells everything you need to make beer, except for water. You can buy online from a variety of stores, but when buying the basic brewing supplies, you should probably stop by a brick-and-mortar shop. I've also been using this book as a reference as I learn: http://www.amazon.com/Brewmasters-Bible-Gold-Standard-Brewers/dp/0060952164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247517102&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Brewmasters-Bible-Gold-Standard-Brewers/dp/0060952164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247517102&sr=8-1)
Also, I got my cider from here: http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/farm_profile.asp?farmID=232 (http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/farm_profile.asp?farmID=232) If any of you are in the Puget Sound region, you should try the Minea's fresh unpasteurized cider (pronounced like "mini", as in miniature). It's really good. You can buy it frozen as well, if its a long drive home. :)
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Thanks Gilg for the info, best of luck to ya! :)
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Hmmm, transferred my brown ale to the secondary fermenter today. I swear it looks and smells just like Newcastle Brown Ale. Mmmm. ;D Not sure on the taste yet.
Lesson learned: plastic fermenting buckets are cheap and great for racking/bottling, but as a fermenter, the plastic lids are the weak spot. I'd say the buckets are good for a one-time use as a fermenter at most. Best to stick with glass or plastic carboys instead.
Update: It looks like my state's governor actually did something good for a change... she just signed the bill to change the law on homebrewing in WA. As of July 26, I'll be able to transport my homebrew outside of the home, limited to 20 gallons. ;D ;D ;D
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Dang... I just took the "final gravity" reading for my cider. It puts the alcohol-by-volume at over 8%. I tasted some of it. It is extremely dry and a little yeasty.
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Is that good?
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The over 8% part sounds good ;D
Not sure about the yeasty part, though. I'm not even sure what yeast tastes like.
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Anything over 6% is a bit strong for cider and most beers in my opinion. (Strong Scotch Ale at 7% ABV is nice. Tasty and packs a punch!) The best cider I've ever had was labeled as 6% ABV, but I'm sure it was really less than that, probably closer to 3-4%.
When you make bread, you can smell the bread-maker's yeast up until it's baked and cooled down. As I understand it, the yeast should settle to the bottom of the bottle after fermentation is 100% complete. When you open the bottle of homebrew, you're supposed to pour it into a glass and leave the last 1/4-inch where the yeast is. When you drink a bottled heffeweisen, its really noticeable.
Hmm... it will be legal to share homebrew outside of my own home in WA State in about 22 hours. ;D
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Well timed then sir!
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Good news about the law being changed, hehe.
That's good to know, about the desired ABV percentage. My memory might be fuzzy, but when I was in the UK I recall having a clear cider that was 10%. Maybe that wasn't true cider, but more like the cider equivalent of a wine cooler. My favorite beer of all time is a British ale I had called Castle Eden. It wasn't terribly strong, but it had a wonderful flavor and was easy to drink. I was never able to find it here in the states, even in stores that stock a lot of imports.
What about stout, you guys like stout? I know a lot of people don't like it, but personally I enjoy it as one pint kind of thing.
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Very strong and clear cider is common in England, I read. It's like their equivalent of malt liquor, in terms of cost and alcohol content. Sounds a lot better though, doesn't it?
I'd drink stouts more often, but they often have milk by-products in them. (I'm a fairly strict vegan.) Technically, that would be cream stouts I can't drink. I've had others that were alright.
The #1 beer for me has to be the Maibock though. Nothing beats a proper Maibock. When I was in my last year of college, I has joined the school's Kendo club (Japanese sword-fighting). For a college club, it was amazingly well-supplied and visited by some of the best teachers in the country (and world, if you don't count Asia). After each Wednesday practice, a group of us started to stay behind and practice some Iaido as well (sword-drawing techniques). One of the teachers stayed with us for that, then we all went to a local brew-pub. The beer and food was really really good there. We'd talk about kendo, academics, life, and anything else for hours and hours. The beer was so good, we'd drink too much and then have to wait for an hour or two outside in the spring nights, sobering up, talking even more. I learned more those evenings than I did in school. (My grades increased around 50% that year too!) The brew-pub only served a Maibock for a few weeks that year, right at the end of April (not quite May, but who's complaining? ;D ). So many good times...
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Both my cider and brown ales have carbonated by now. The cider is supposed to be drinkable now, while the brown ale is supposed to bottle-condition for another two week. I decided to try both of them. Here are the results:
The cider didn't seem to have carbonated, which would imply that the yeast was dead (very possible, since it brewed for almost 3 weeks). FYI, you carbonate homebrew by adding a small amount of some type of sugar just prior to bottling, which the remaining yeast will eat and turn into more CO2. Also, the cider tasted terrible. It was definitely very strong stuff and had some good flavor notes, but it was totally ruined by an over-powering yeast flavor. (Perhaps it needed a fining agent?)
Thankfully, the brown ale turned out very well, even 2 weeks before it was supposed to be ready to drink. It tastes like a brown ale (slightly malty, not too bitter) and was perfectly carbonated. Light and refreshing. Ahhh. ;D
Once this freak heatwave in WA is over, I'm going to brew an amber ale and try to figure out how to make drinkable cider.
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And I thought cider was just fermented apple juice. I didn't realize the process of making it was that involved.
I have to wonder how earlier humans originally figured out the brewing process for beer, cider, and other things. How they figured out how to mix yeast, barley, hops, and a host of other ingredients to create a drinkable beverage. Their scientific knowledge was more limited back then. I wonder how many decades or centuries of trial and error it took to perfect the process.
Glad to hear the brown ale turned out well. :)
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Well, you can make cider with the naturally-occurring yeasts in the fruit itself. If you don't chemically-preserve, pasteurize, or heat-treat the juice, it will have natural yeast. I used heat-treatment in my batch (low heat, not considered pasteurization). In other words, you CAN take raw apple juice, put it in a fermenter, and let it do its thing. Adding sugar just raises the alcohol level, while adding yeast changes the fermentation process and leads to different flavors and properties. Other additives are just for manipulating the outcome. Some people add cinnamon sticks for flavor, some add enzymes for clearing the yeast. It can be simple or complex. I hear that relying on natural yeast is a hit-or-miss proposition though.
There was definitely a lot of evolution involved in the history of beer. Using hops was a continental improvement. British ales used to use other herbs as bittering agents. Using hops instead makes a lot of sense since it has so much flavor and acts as a natural preservative. (Mmmm... fresh hops smell so good...)
I found another recipe for cider that looks even stronger and better managed. Now I gotta try it once the Summer heat winds down. I am such a sucker. This is one hobby that can easily explode... metaphorically . :D
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Well, I've got an Amber Ale brewing now. I tweaked the recipe (divided and staggered the addition of hops during the brew) to make it a bit more well-rounded and slightly less bitter. I used a liquid ale yeast this time. I had never used one of those before. They cost like 3x more than the dry ale yeast packets, but give different results. It took nearly 24 hours for it to show signs of activity, which had me pretty worried. Would be a shame for the batch to go to waste. I spent about 2.5 hours on the whole brewing process yesterday.
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Now that is a bit of a time investment, When is the tasting?
Connor
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I've got some malty brown ale that is ready to drink any time (37 bottles left). If any watchers are near Redmond (WA), they can stop by and pick up some samples. I also have even more cider, but its not drinkable yet (if ever...). My amber ale should be ready to drink by about Sept 20th. :)
The biggest expense right now is buying enough plain brown bottles (not the twist-off ones). With 100x 12oz bottles, 5x 64oz growlers, and 10x 22oz bottles, that only allows for about 3x 5gallon batches at any given time. I can produce this stuff a lot faster than I can drink it. All that cider is taking up 5 gallons worth of bottles too. Not sure if that will ever pay off. It costs me about as much to buy empty brown bottles as it does to buy full ones... but the ones filled with beer seem to be cheaper (thinner glass).
I think I'm going to try another cider and then maybe an ale-yeast version of a Boch-style beer. I can't do lager unless I move into a house with a cellar or get a 2nd refrigerator.. . which I don't have room for... plus it would probably trip the circuit breaker each time it kicks in and cut the power to my PC or consoles. :-\
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I bottled my Amber Ale today. It smells kind of like an IPA (almost like butterscotch, but less sharp), which is not one of my favorite types, but it will probably still be good.
I tweaked the recipe a little with the adjunct malts... but not by much. I'm hoping the final gravity reading I took (equaling about 3.4% ABV), really is the end of the fermentation as expected... or this batch might turn into an explosion of glass and beer. :)
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I just picked up a book about beer that was written by a physicist (Froth!, by Mark Denny). Its well worth a read. He challenges a lot of conventional wisdom in brewing and makes a lot of good points from his own casual research. He seems to take a "'good enough' is better than 'perfect'" approach to brewing though, as if he was a manager for software engineers.
Anyhow, I got antsy and brewed an ale-yeast version of a pale Mai Boch with some licorice root added. I used a "slap pack" style yeast packet (Wyeast #1007 German Ale). After adding the proofed yeast, the brew was very active just a few hours later. In Froth!, the author goes into the math surrounding yeast propagation. Makes a lot of sense. I think I will forgo using White Labs brand yeast (was nearly a dud when I tried it with my Amber Ale batch, implying that most of the yeast was actually dead when I bought it). Wyeast slap packs (fast and good) and Safale dry yeast packets (cheap but still good) seem to be a better choice. :-\
The last time I was in my local homebrew shop, this old guy in a wheelchair made fun of me for buying hops instead of growing my own. Tempting thought, but there are so many varieties... :D
Next, I will either make a Christmas brew or retry making cider.
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The biggest expense right now is buying enough plain brown bottles (not the twist-off ones). With 100x 12oz bottles, 5x 64oz growlers, and 10x 22oz bottles, that only allows for about 3x 5gallon batches at any given time. I can produce this stuff a lot faster than I can drink it. All that cider is taking up 5 gallons worth of bottles too. Not sure if that will ever pay off. It costs me about as much to buy empty brown bottles as it does to buy full ones... but the ones filled with beer seem to be cheaper (thinner glass).
I've only had problems with reusing a couple of breweries bottles. New Belgium uses thin bottles--broken a few with my capper. Had good luck with the local stuff like Portland Brewing, Widmer, Deschutes. Full Sail does twist-offs on their 12oz bottles...I know that some people can get those to work, but I don't even try. I've moved to using as big of bottles as I can, and EZ-caps if possible. I've got a couple cases of 16oz cobalt blue EZ-caps, along with a case of 32oz EZ-caps. 9 or so cases of 22's also expedites things. Bottling with 16/22/32 plus a handful of 12's cut the time it took to bottle a batch significantly.
One thing to think about is setting up a RSS robot on your local craigslist in the forsale and free stuff sections for something like "homebrew -wii -psp -xbox". People are always moving from bottle to kegging, or getting out of homebrewing altogether, and dumping their equipment, including bottles... true story is that I picked up 6 cases of clean 22's for free. I've seen cases of EZ-caps for pretty cheap on occasion.
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Ooooh, good tips. Thanks!
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Regarding cider... I've tried it in the past from juice with mixed results, like what sounds happened with yours. After my girlfriend and I enjoyed a couple bottles of perry this past spring, I made a mental note to do some research and watch for the pear season this fall. At the same time, a co-workers's dad got into winemaking pretty hardcore, and brews exclusively from concentrate kits. I'd talked with her about those kits, and we sampled a bottle of grigio...so she surprised me with one of the Vinoka/Spagnols Perry kits for my birthday. It's basically 6L of apple concentrate that you hydrate back up to 6 gallons, then add a bottle of pear concentrate/flavor when bottling. It's still too early to tell, but I have much higher hopes about this.
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Yeah, although the local fresh cider over here is really fantastic, it surely contains wild yeast strains and probably still has bacteria if it isn't heat-treated really well. I think my cider failed because of inadequate heating and/or a poor seal on the fermentation bucket.
I was planning on trying again with concentrate or a combo of that and juice as "turbo cider". Those commercial apple juice products are probably UV light-pasteurized. I'm not much of a pear fan, but perry does sound good.
PS. The Five Star brand Star San sanitizing solution seems to be a good product. Its a "no rinse" sanitizer too. Additionally, at very low concentrations (foam left on surfaces), it actually acts as a yeast nutrient. Umm... when undiluted it also eats through paint pretty quick and probably a lot more. :-[ My hands have never been smoother though. Good bye, dry skin! ;D
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I have a cider that should be mature in about 1.5 weeks and my bock-ale that should be ready in 4 weeks. I'm running out of my amber ale. Hurry up! ;D
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be closer, and I'd "help" you get rid of it... lol
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I'm still waiting for my bock-ale to mature. It was still "green" beer a couple weeks ago, although it reminded me of Duvel beer. Going to try again in a week or two.
The cider I made ended up tasting a bit like apple-stem, which is probably what you get when you use cheap apple juice as the base (some are reputed to be very good, but not in the US). I think it was still a success in that it fermented and that the yeast settled out in the primary and secondary like crazy. There is very little trub in the bottles too, so you can pretty much pour out the whole thing into a glass. I'm going to try it again with quality local cider (and juice concentrate added), using campden tablets (sulfiting agent) and the same yeast type.
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The bock-ale turned out very nicely, it just needed more like 2 months to mature in the bottle. Very tasty. :)
I've got a new cider brewing as planned, made from Braeburn, Pink Lady, and Fiju ciders from a local farm. I added a little brown sugar and some of the juice concentrate.
Next up is either an oatmeal stout (non-dairy) or a strong brown ale.
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Well... I decided to do a Hefeweizen instead of a dark ale. Its brewing right now, with a healthy-looking active yeast. I limited the boil time for most of the "weizen" dry extract I used to just 10-15 minutes, so its supposed to keep it to more of a golden color, rather than brown.
My "good" batch of cider is still in its secondary fermentation. I hope that one turns out to be good...
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Okay, I'm bottling my "good" cider tomorrow. I did a gravity check, and it was close to 1.000, which should make it a very dry cider. Just like with the previous batches I've made, at this stage, it has a pleasant apple aroma, but a harsh flavor (this one seems spicy and acidic, reflecting the apple varieties flavor). I'm thinking that this batch will turn out well once it settles and matures. I'm not even going to crack open a bottle until its aged 2 months.
The cider I made from mostly Tree Top brand juice has actually improved nicely after 2 months of bottle-aging. It still tastes kind of artificial though, which is appropriate, I guess.
For those of you who were not present in LOTRO when it occurred, my batch of Hefeweizen turned into a bit of a beer volcano. ;D I made it a bit too strong and filled the fermenter too full. (Yes, beer can be "too strong." :P ) There was foam and yeast byproduct (the dark heads) shooting into the airlock chamber and fizzing out the top of the airlock lid. I moved it into the bathtub in case it was going to blow out the whole airlock. Thankfully, it didn't blow its top and there was very little to clean up after. The force of the volcano seemed to expell or force to the side the dark yeast byproducts that some brewers skim from the top of the head during the initial fermentation. That should make the hefeweizen have a cleaner taste, so this may have all been for the best. I've already racked it into the secondary fermenter, so this should be about 3 weeks away from being ready to drink.
The slow maturation time of my previous two batches (and one of my current) led to my reserves running low (oh no!!!), so I need to pick a new beer for my next batch. Any suggestions? No? Looks like it'll be a porter then. :)
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I bottled my Hefeweizen the other day. It's supposed to mature quickly in just 2 weeks, which is the same amount of time it should take to fully carbonate. In its current state, it tastes a lot like Paulener brand Hefeweizen (not a good one in my opinion), but with more of a banana flavor. This probably won't live up to my favorite local hefe, the one from the Ram brewpub. Of course, beer tastes a lot better when its not flat and at room-temperature. ;D
I used something like 50% wheat malt in this batch, which is fairly high. I think a lot of other hefes are more like 30% wheat. Those probably have less of the wheaty tobacco smoke kind of flavor.
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Quick update: The hefeweizen actually turned out really well. It changed dramatically after being bottled for two weeks. It tasted better with a little lemon though, but that is normal for most hefes.
I brewed a strong porter, but used a yeast strain (Wyeast 1968) made for ESB that is notoriously tricky. I also dry-hopped it, so it took much longer to get the hop pellet bits to settle out of the beer. This was a strong one, so I'm still aging it. It had a strong diacytl odor (think fake movie theater butter), which was supposed to have been eliminated by the long fermentation time I gave it. I'm hoping that will mellow in time. Since this beer was well-hopped, it should actually age well. Its been in the bottle for about 2 weeks now. I'll give it a try within the next month or so.
I'm currently about to finish brewing a blackberry pale ale. Its lightly hopped and had 4 lbs of blended blackberries added in the secondary fermenter. Its in tertiary now. I'll bottle it this weekend. It should be drinkable as soon as its carbonated in the bottle...
Next up: definately an Amber Ale. This was my favorite so far and begs a revisit...
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I tried to Bottle my blackberry pale ale last night... until something went wrong. The flow from my bottling wand (spring loaded stem that attaches to a hose connected to the bottling bucket) seemed pretty weak. I figured that the valve in the bucket was clogged, since the liquid seemed fairly clear in the hose. Nope. The wand itself was clogged. I have to remove it and fill some growlers I had at hand. Tried to fill some 12oz bottles, but it was too foamy. I ended up throwing out about 2 gallons since that part ended up being kind of pulpy. I think blending the blackberries was a mistake. I've got 5 growler jugs and 2 12oz bottles out of the batch, which was only about 4.5 gallons anyhow.
I tasted a bit, and it wasn't great. The aroma was very nice, but the flavor was on the sour side (from the berries, not from anything bad).
I also tried one of my porters, since it was carbonated by this point. It was okay. I really really want to make a NORMAL amber ale now. I've had enough with experiments for a while. I can make an amber ale that is ready to drink in just a month, better after 2 months...
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Amber Ale:
5.5gal batch
7.0 lbs dry light malt extract
1.0 lbs cracked crystal malt (120 degree L)
1 packet safale US-05
2 oz Cascade Hop pellets (bittering)
1 oz Northern Brewer Hop pellets (bittering)
1 oz Cascade Hop pellets (aroma)
Thoughts? Should I add another grain adjunct for mouthfeel or something? :-\ I'm trying US-05 to see how it compares to WLP001 (White Labs American Ale Yeast).
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A little bump on the homebrew thread for Carbine, and the links I promised him.
Here's one of the local shops for me, and their information page: http://www.mainbrew.com/pages/infosplit.html (http://www.mainbrew.com/pages/infosplit.html). I'd read through the "First Batch of Beer Rundown", that should give you a good idea of the extract-brewing process. They mention a Starter Kit. Most, if not all, homebrew shops I've been to have these, or something similar. It's going to have all the equipment you'll need, except maybe a giant pot for boiling, but they'll have suggestions for what kind of pot to use, and where to get it. Also, you might check on craigslist in your city, since at least here in Portland there is a constant churn of people buying equipment, trying it, and deciding it's not for them and unloading their equipment.
One suggestion if you're thinking about taking the plunge and starting: check at your local shop and see if they have a demo day, or if any friends do it, see if you can watch them brew a batch. Reading through the instructions, it might be intimidating, but actually seeing it is another thing altogether. It's much easier than you might think. I've shown friends how before, and their reaction is usually something along the lines of "That's it?"
Further down that info page is stuff about wine and mead. Both can be fun and easy. There is also information about all-grain brewing. This is what I do, but for the first eight years or so I homebrewed I did extract brewing. All-grain gives you a little bit more control over what styles you can make, but it's definitely not noob-friendly in terms of equipment or work/time investment. You can make some terrific brews using extracts, though!
And sorry about the power drains. Spiders gonna be spiders, though.
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(Hello!)
Seems like most starter kits give you a 5-gallon plastic or glass carboy and a 6-gallon plastic bucket with or without a spigot. I like to use 2 plastic (PET) carboys (one 5 and one 6-gallon) and just save the bucket with spigot for bottling. I don't recommend using those buckets for fermentation. The lids don't seal very well, and they aren't very reusable.
I rack the wort into a 6gal carboy for primary fermentation, rack to a 5gal for secondary, then rack to the 6gal bucket for bottling. High gravity 5-gallon batches seems to like the extra room during primary, less likely to get gunk stuck up in the airlock. ;D
I convinced some work friends to brew a batch with me over here. I just bought a condo in Redmond (WA) and have some extra space for home-brewing now. I wish I had the space and gear for all-grain though. Someday...