It's been years for me... but this is similar to was the equipment I had,,

http://www.cwinemaker.com/beginners.html .



In addition to the equipment shown, you also need a big stockpot to cook the wort, alot of strong bottles, and a cool place to store the bottles (like a basement).

I brewed some beer years ago. You can make some really good stuff, but it's not worth the effort if you ask me. You don't save any money and it's no better than a good microbrew, which are easy to buy now. The brewing part isn't bad, but everything (including tubes, bottles, etc.) needs to be scrubbed perfectly with bleach or you can spoil the whole batch. The brewing part mostly involves a few hours watching the pot and stirring over a very low flame, a bunch of waiting, and the transfers from pot to plastic tub and then into the bottles. It's cool to bring homemade beer to a party, though. There are plenty of stores and on-line sources for equipment. By the way, don't bother if you have an electric stove -- it's too easy to burn the wort.

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What a drag it is getting old. -- Stones

I used an electric stove - no problem. But you're correct that it's ALOT of work cleaning the bottles, tubes, bucket, etc.

It's like lots of other hobbies. You can get as far into it as you want to. I brew starting from malt extract, which is a sweet, sticky syrup that some purists poo-poo. But I don't want to get into it farther, doing my own mash, and such. So what I have is: A big soup kettle for boiling the wort, two food-grade plastic buckets, and some other assorted stuff: tubing, racking cane, capper, hydrometer, and such. My process is somewhere in the middle of the complexity scale, because I want to be able to control my process a little more than the prefab canned mixes allow, including the choice of yeast and hops, as well as the specific gravity of the wort, and the types of sugars present for fermentation.



I buy mine at a local place that caters to this hobby. I'm sure that you can buy online, but I don't because I don't have to.

Let's see...here's one: http://www.austinhomebrew.com/

Enter 'homebrew supplies' into Google to see more.

[quote[Are there special temperature needs?[/quote]

I'll assume that you mean to ferment. Yes, there are, but they aren't very hard to conform to if you are making ales. Lagers are harder, because they ferment cold, and unless you can dedicate a refrigerator to it, it's kind of hard to make lagers. But ales will ferment at room temp.



My batches are 5 gallons. This is a little over 2 cases.



Alas, only the yeast knows that. But about two weeks to ferment (some batches go longer, some finish earlier), and then at least two weeks in the bottle. The longer in the bottle (to a point), the better. It will change as it ages in the bottle.

You can be drinking it a month after you start, but two months is better, IMO.

Hope that helped.

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"You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious."

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong." -- Richard Feynman

Homebrew Adventures (www.homebrew.com) is an excellent place to poke around and learn. I've been brewing for 5 years, but haven't done much in the last year or so.

You can make as easy & quick or complicated and time consuming as you want. I prefer doing it from total scrath (all-grain). Takes almost all day, but with patience and experience, you can easily churn out beer that far surpasses almost anything out there.