Brooklyn Brew Shop Hard Cider Kit - (Your Choice)
Sold by: Wine Country Connect, LLC
Sale Price: $34.99 (Includes Shipping)
List Price: $50.00 (Includes Shipping)
Discount: 30% off List Price
Brooklyn Brew Shop Hard Cider Making Kit (Without Bottling & Capping Set)
(1) - Brooklyn Brew Shop Hard Cider Making Kit
or
Sale Price: $49.99 (Includes Shipping)
List Price: $80.00 (Includes Shipping)
Discount: 38% off List Price
Brooklyn Brew Shop Hard Cider Making Kit (WITH Bottling & Capping Set)
(1) - Brooklyn Brew Shop Hard Cider Making Kit
(1) - Brooklyn Brew Shop Bottle Capper & 50 Caps
(1) - Brooklyn Brew Shop Beer Bottle Set - Includes 10 Reusable Bottles
Lots of glass bottles here. Or are they plastic? Are they guaranteed to not be cracked after delivery?
Seems like a reasonable price for the package.
Can I brew beer as well ?
Not a great deal - that entire kit can be purchased at any local homebrew shop for less. AND you still have to supply your own cider.
The 1 gallon carboy runs about $6, and every other item in the box is gonna be about $2-3 each.
It’s less terrible once you add the Bottling & Capping set, which is actually a good deal itself for $15. But you gotta buy the whole thing…
You can brew/ferment whatever you want in the carboy. All of the equipment in the kit will work for beer as well as cider.
This offer only includes cider yeast so you would have to purchase your own beer ingredients (and yeast) separately.
Yes, their beer kits are the same, with the exception of the included ingredients. As someone else posted, you will need to buy your own ingredients and sanitizer for your kit for beer. You can also order 1 gallon brew kits & sanitizer packets direct from Brooklyn Brew Shop.
FYI, the beer kits can be prepped on the stove top, but you will need to provide your own pots, strainer, and a funnel.
Do they give any tips on where to get unpasteurized cider? From what I’ve read that’s one of the most challenging parts to brewing hard cider.
Here in Michigan, we’ve got cider mills all over the place so it’s easy to get fresh cider this time of year. The closest place to me has it for about $9 a gallon.
However, you should still be able to ferment pasteurized cider as long as it’s free of preservatives.
I would pass on this style of crimper; There is a learning curve and you’re likely to break lots of bottles.
I bought a crimper that’s just a pull down lever. No learning curve, perfect crimps, no broken bottles.
From one brewer to another - If you’re interested in fermenting anything, start saving and rinsing your glass bottles (regular, not twist tops). They’re usually free with every beer purchase!
Agree with others - if you want to do this, it’s far cheaper to hit up a local homebrew store and get a gallon jug, a stopper, an airlock, sanitizer, and ale yeast. If you get a capper and caps, you’ve still spent less than the cheaper kit.
As far as this capper is concerned, I’ve used one for closer to 15 years and have never broken a bottle.
Pro-tip: keep one small plastic soda bottle around and fill it with your fermented cider along with the glass bottles. When it gets hard to squeeze, the bottle carbonation is done and it’s time to refrigerate.
Pro-tip: 22 oz bombers mean fewer bottles to clean and fill.
Pro-tip: Trader Joe’s frequently has ginger ale in 750ml bail top bottles - these are great for this kind of thing.
Pro-tip: you can use bleach and water to sanitize your equipment instead of iodophor (or other sanitizer). It just takes a little longer.
Wow I never knew they had a kit for this. This is actually the first time I have ever contemplated purchasing something from Gourmet Woot.
As others have said, yep!
Beer has a few more steps than brewing cider. Most people brewing beer do > 1 gallon batches, 5 gallon is pretty standard. It’s easy to get hooked on homebrewing, my only advice is to avoid the Mr. Beer kits.
Call around. Sometimes homebrew stores carry it. Pasteurized cider works well if it is UV pasteurized, I wouldn’t buy anything from a grocery store.
If you’ve got a really cold chest freezer or live in a part of the country that gets really cold you can further fractional/freeze distill the cider and make your own applejack.
The drawback is you end up going through a lot of cider for what you end up with.
I bought one of these kits about 5 years ago and it works fine though the plastic cap that holds the airlock easily cracks over time.
All the bottles are glass. We love glass. And yes, if you get anything broken, we’ll absolutely replace it for you. If you ever run into problems, email us at info@brooklynbrewshop.com
Unpasteurized juice will ferment great, but it can definitely be tricky to track down. This time of year, however, it’s a lot easier. Call your nearest ciderie or orchard and see if they can put some unpasteurized juice aside for you when they’re doing a pressing. Most apple people are also cider people, so they are typically happy to help. Same goes for farmers markets. Ask if they can put some aside for you to pick up. We’ve had great luck with doing that.
So unpasteurized cider is great but totally not necessary. Ideally, look for UV pasteurized cider (it’ll be on the label–Simply Apple is a very common brand). What slows down fermentation is potassium sorbate, which is used as a preservative in lots of juice.
Even apple juice/cider with potassium sorbate will ferment. It’ll just take longer.
If you have any other questions, please let us know at info@brooklynbrewshop.com
Wood and screws tend to be cheaper than a table too 
Not to put down the joy of putting on pants, driving to a store and piecing together something kinda like this yourself. There are a bunch of pieces in the Hard Cider Kits. We make these kits in America. And there is enough sanitizer and champagne yeast (which we like for cider because it’s dry and bubbly) for 3 batches.
And if anyone is doing some early holiday gifting, this is a bit prettier than a strange sack of random parts… unless you also like to make your own dazzling ribbon bows… Which actually sounds pretty cool. And not at all terrible.
Email us at info@brooklynbrewshop.com if your cap is cracked. We’ll get you a new one. It’s very important, however, that your email includes further details on this applejack.
We love recycling–especially when it comes to bottling beer/cider.
As far as the capper goes, we really never break them with this model. We’ve used other mostly plastic “double-lever” cappers and certainly have. This one though is great, and it’s unchanged as a piece of machinery for the past 30 years. We have some old ones and quite a lot of new ones, and one works as well as the other.
Bench cappers are great, but they’re big. This one can fit with all your other brewing stuff pretty easily. It can even fit in the Cider Kit box when you’re not using it. So especially for space-conscious folks, this capper is the best blend of being compact but also being intensely solid.
But this being a forum currently centered on the topic of brewing, it’s probably preferred that we agree to disagree. Must keep the natural order of things in place
Absolutely. Everything in this kit is totally reusable and will work for beer. It also comes with enough sanitizer for 3 batches. Be it beer or cider.
You’ll just need ingredients (malted barley, hops and yeast). The yeast in this kit is champagne yeast, which gives you a dry, bubbly cider. It’d be better to have ale yeast for beer.
We have a bunch of all-grain ingredient mixes for making beer on our site. They typically run $15, and they work with our Hard Cider Kit (the one you see right here).
If you have any other questions, please hit us up at info@brooklynbrewshop.com