Are you just starting out, like I am? I would give this kit a pass. For one thing, it turns out that this kit has more things in it than the beginning brewer needs. It also leaves out a couple of essentials.

Starting with the containers, you need a fermenter and possibly a bottling container. You can get away without the bottling container, but the final beer won’t be as clear. The glass carboy, while it did come in handy for me , is not required and I would recommend waiting until you have a bit more experience before considering purchasing one. The containers contained in this kit are of adequate size for brewing a standard 5 gallon batch. They are reasonably easy to assemble, with one glaring exception – the holes in both of the buckets I received were too small. When I tried to install the air lock, the gasket tore in half and the half inside the bucket fell in my new batch of beer. Yes, I know in retrospect that I should have made sure that everything fit BEFORE getting to a point of no return. But hey, I was excited to try brewing my first batch. That lead me to test installing the spigot in the bottling bucket. The hole for that was too small, as well. Since I had not gotten to the point of bottling, this was not a big deal. The failure of the air lock gasket in the primary fermenter lead me to having to use the carboy. For that reason only, it was a good thing to have.

Having to use the carboy as a primary fermenter meant that I had to use the siphon to get the wort transferred. This unit is not too bad, I suppose. It worked as expected, but the tube that came with it is a bit short for my liking. This is a personal taste, and not a true problem with the equipment. It is a plastic outer and inner tube. I do think it could have been better designed, but not quite sure how. It had a tendency to pull in air when trying to get it started. Once the flow was started, it worked well.

The kit also comes with a hydrometer. This really isn’t needed for a beginning brewer. The kit does not come with a thief, which may or may not make it easier to get a good read on the gravity should you choose to use the hydrometer. Either way, I would pass on this until you have a bit more experience with brewing.

The temperature strip that comes with the kit is laughable. Get an instant read thermometer and remember to sterilize it before you take your readings.

What the kit DOESN’T supply is a good brew pot. You will need a sturdy 5 gallon stainless steel pot to boil the wort in. It would have been nice to have that included rather than the carboy.

Overall, the individual components supplied were of satisfactory quality, except for the problems noted above. It is simply not the right mix of components. Save yourself a bit of money and get a kit without the carboy.

***** UPDATE ******

After brewing many batches, I have added a couple of stars to my original assessment. Not only is the carboy helpful for clarifying the beer, it gives me a place to continue to condition the young beer while starting a new batch. It is also great for dry hopping, flavoring, oaking, etc. I have graduated to all grain brewing, and have even found it helpful to add a 2nd carboy to my equipment roster.

The auto-siphon has become more reliable with repeated use, and all parts (except the temperature tape) are being used on a regular basis.

I still think a different mix of equipment for a beginning brewer is in order (e.g. the aforementioned boil pot), but this kit will work well for the advanced beginner or intermediate brewer.

Great company, excellent starters kit. Strongly reccomend this for beginning brewers. This is my third purchase from Midwest, and I have never been disappointed.

This kit really does have everything you need to brew (except the pot and the ingredients, as noted). The components are very good quality. Brewed my first batch today, and wasn’t lacking for anything. Beer is now starting its primary fermentation in the basement. If you want to get ALL the things you need to brew, minus the pot, I would HIGHLY recommend this kit. As others noted, this does not include a DVD, but there are plenty of videos on Youtube (I had seen there was no DVD before ordering). Also, it shows bottle caps in the picture, but does not come with any. If you buy an ingredient kit (like I did) check to see if that kit comes with caps; the one I bought did have caps.

Home brewing kit was as advertised except that it did not contain an instructional DVD. It did, however, have an instructional booklet, which was okay, but a good instructional DVD would have been nice, particularly since it was advertised as coming with one. The kit did contain all other items as advertized.

This is an excellent beer brewing kit comes with everything except ingredients. Shipped and arrived within a few days. The only problem I had was that the DVD was included, when I contacted the seller they told me that amazon does not allow sellers to individually update the information so they had included a book instead. The book was a great source of information going through each step and giving different basic recipes for different types of beers. I have yet to recieve the ingredients and yeast to start brewing but am pretty sure I have everything I need:).