Another easy way to remove hops from the wort on the way to the fermenter. Not necessary, but if you have some cash to spare, it s a help. When you start adding specialty grains, you ll need to crack them so their flavors and color can be steeped into the water. You start from whole grains, and make your own. I m just an intermediate brewer, so I ll stop here.
Brewing is fun, and easy.
If you really love beer it s the next step. For a breakdown of steps, I recommend picking up Charlie Papazian s New Complete Joy of Homebrewing . I also got some good info from Homebrewing for Dummies . A lot of people have a problem with the cheesy icons and corny humor in the Dummies books, but there s some great stuff in there if you can get past the Dummies format. There is no right way or wrong way for most of the steps, if you read three books you ll get three different methods.