CByrneIV wrote:You're going to want a propane burner ring so you can brew outside, and closer to the ground; and so that you can boil 5 gallons of water in less than an hour. They astart around $30 and go to arounf $100 for a normal single burner ring; but they're useful for more than just brewing.
The turkey frying kits they sell this time of year are a good source of propane burners for home brewing. Do not use the aluminum pot they usually come with though. It will mess with the chemistry of the wort and won't hold up to the required cleaning. Everything that comes in contact with beer must be either stainless steel, copper, glass, or food grade plastic. In fact, IIRC, trace ammounts of copper are required for good fermentation. A porcelin enamel stock pot is acceptable as long as it's not chipped.
If you don't want to bottle your beer; you can get a kegging rig for about $85 including your first keg. Once you're used to it, kegging generally works out better actually, and is less work; though it's more complicated.
Cornelius Kegs are excellent for this purpose. Also, if you use a keg you don't need to carbonate the beer through fermentation. You transfer the beer into a keg, seal it, and refrigerate it. Under refrigeration, pressurize the beer with CO2 to about 15 psi and keep it under pressure until it reaches the desired level of carbonation, (usually 1 or 2 days). This is how most commercial breweries do it.
