Monster Brew Home Brewing Supp Mini IPA Bookshelf Brewery

This was the first kit that I decided to make my own beer with. Using extracts seemed like cheating to me so I wanted to start with all grain. There's nothing wrong with extracts, I just like doing things from scratch. This is a much slower and difficult process than an extract kit. I wouldn't recommend this kit to someone that can't find 4 hours of free-time to devote to brewing a 12 pack of beer. It is a great way to learn without worrying about ruining a much larger batch. The kit includes everything you must have that probably isn't already sitting in your kitchen. It worked fine but there were a few things I wish I would have bought with it. The kit included a 1 gallon carboy, rubber stopper, airlock, siphon cane, 3 or 4 feet of vinyl tubing, hose clamp, thermometer, c-brite sanitizer, unknown variety of hops, a bag of mixed varieties of crushed barley, a pack of Safale US-05 dry yeast, and fairly well written instructions. The instructions tell you what to do step by step very clearly, but they don't tell you why you're doing what you're doing. I didn't do any research before starting and didn't realize how crucial it was to follow every detail, so I ended up making a few mistakes through the process. It is an all grain kit, so you'll have to mash the barley (hold it at a steady ~150-160F for about an hour) before you can start your boil. I had a very difficult time doing this in a pot on an electric stove. I would recommend getting yourself a 5 gallon igloo cooler for about $20 or something else that can hold temperature for an hour to mash your barley. You will also need something to sparge (rinse the sugars from the grain with 168F water) with. I ended up using a metal colander (normally used to strain noodles) in another pot which worked okay, but now have a false bottom in my Igloo Cooler which is a lot easier. Another thing that you will need for sure is a big pot that is capable of holding well over 1 gallon if you don't already have one. Everything went well until bottling. I sanitized well enough but screwed up and rinsed the bottles with tap water. I ended up with a twelve pack of drinkable but slightly musty, strange tasting beer because of an infection. If I could do it all over again though, I would still start with this kit.

The media could not be loaded.  I received old ingredients in the American Wheat kit, but it was worth the price for the hardware alone. I purchased this mainly for the gallon jug, stopper and airlock. The price wasn't much more than that combo elsewhere on Amazon. The tubing, racking cane, thermometer and other items were nice bonuses.My yeast packet was dated best by 3/16 and it's 10/16 now and I just received this on 10/7/16, but it worked great when I pitched it in the wort. It started quickly and has just about finished the primary phase of fermentation just a little over 24 hrs after pitching.The hops smelled a little muted when I opened the bag to split them into bittering and aroma doses. After adding the bittering charge at the beginning of the boil I smelled the glass they were in and it smelled cheesy, like old hops. I reasoned that maybe all the aroma would boil off and only the bitterness would remain. Still, I substituted 4 grams of a hop from my freezer for 1 min. aroma charge.It seems the price on this one kit is low in order to get rid of some old product. I'm okay with that. You'll have to decide if you are in order to get some decent brewing equipment.

The kit is a decent all-grain starter kit, however, there are several "necessary" items not included in this kit that other kits have. After doing more research on beer brewing this would not have been my first kit. The most important part, "pitching the yeast" was not very detailed in the instructions. The yeast package instructions said one thing and the "mini monster" instructions said another. Wish the instructions were a little clearer, my beer is still fermenting, it didn't have a drastic CO2 release at the beginning, but there has been CO2 bubbles in the airlock, so not sure if yeast is still active.Items you need to buy in addition to this kit to make life so much easier.- fine mesh strainer (get the 10.25" one works great over a larger boil bot)- coarse mesh brewing bag (also known as BIAB, brew in a bag, makes clean up so much easier as well as straining)- funnel- star san (because c-brite isn't as good, essentially substitute c-brite for star san)- PWB cleaner (for cleaning pot after brewing because even with a brewing bag soap and water isnt enough)- bottle brush (for cleaning the 1 gallon carboy after fermentation)- auto siphon (makes siphoning into bottles easier)- hydrometer (to check readings and see if beer is on track...google is your friend)

Product arrived in a timely manner as per usual with amazon. I excitedly opened the contents of the box and everything is in good shape with no damage, unfortunately my excitement faded slightly after realizing that there was no thermometer. Mind you this isn't the end of the world as i do have other types of thermometers around the kitchen, but i was looking forward to having a designated thermometer for this new endeavor. The instructions seem thorough and written for someone new like myself and all the important things were in place. Guess this is what i get for buying a product on sale, get what you pay for right? Hopefully this makes some amazing beer that will make me forget about the forgotten thermometer.

I can't speak to the quality and function of this kit, but I bought it as a gift and I'm kind of disappointed because it came in a cardboard shipping box with a black and white print out of the front of the box pictured here pasted to the outside. The instruction book is also a black and white facsimile of what is pictured. I am giving this as a Christmas present so I'm now challenged to figure out how to present it nicely. If you're buying this for yourself this wouldn't matter, but I wish what arrived today actually looked like the photo above.