I'm about a month into my ownership of this kit and I am very happy with it so far. My fourth batch is fermenting now, I've been actively fermenting almost since the day I received it from Amazon/Makebeer.net.
Since receiving the kit, I've brewed the
Coopers Australian Lager Beer Kit
that came with the kit, a
Complete Coopers Brewery Stout Beer Kit Package
, and a
Complete Coopers Brewery Mexican Cerveza Beer Kit Package
. In the fermenter now is the
Complete Coopers Brewery English Bitter Beer Kit Package
. I found the Australian Lager to be a bit "cidery" tasting, but my wife and friends said it was better than most of the beers they've ever tasted. The Stout is awesome -- deep, dark and rich flavor. The Cerveza is also good, a nice mild beer.
An earlier reviewer mentioned how difficult it is to get the lid off once you get it on tightly enough to seal - I agree. It is difficult to remove, though certainly not impossible. It has raised plastic tabs that can be leveraged along the with handle indentions to remove the lid without too terribly much trouble. That same review also mentioned the dispensing valve as a minor problem area. Again, he was correct. I'm not sure if it is the valve or the tapped threads in the fermenter, but a good seal of the valve does not require a super tight fit. Note that I said it seals well even without a tight fit. The fermenter does not leak at all. That's a very good thing. I've had no trouble keeping the valve in place when I needed to test the specific gravity of the beer of fill bottles. It twists a little, but not so much that it matters.
The good parts about this kit far outweigh the bad. For one, the lid on the fermenter is clear. That doesn't sound like much, but as a new brewer you will want to see what is happening (frequently in my case), and you can't do that with a white bucket and white lid as most basic starter kits include. In fact, I would say this is the best part of the kit. That may sound ridiculous, but imagine being a first time baker and not being able to peek into the oven to see if your cake was cooking - for up to seven days. I find the brewing process fascinating to watch.
Another great part of the kit is the included bottles. This kit includes enough to bottle your entire first batch, and they are large and very high quality PET (plastic) bottles. None of the kits that I've seen for sale at homebrew stores include any bottles. Beer in plastic bottles? Yes, and they work BETTER than glass bottles. Glass breaks, plastic does not. Glass bottles can explode if you put in too much priming sugar during bottling, plastic will just get harder to the touch. The brown plastic of the bottles also blocks most of the harmful light rays that can cause your beer to become skunky. They impart no flavor to the beer and are impermeable to gases escaping or entering. These bottles are the same type that are used to bottle most soda pop, except that they are brown and can hold around 24 ounces (750ml).
The kit also includes a nice long stirring spoon, an airlock, a hydrometer (to measure the specific gravity/potential alcohol), and a thermometer. Again, everything you need to brew your first batch of beer.
What will you need to supply? Chlorine bleach, or another sanitizing agent (such as C-Brite or StarSan), a pot large enough to boil about a gallon of water, and nearly six gallons of tap water. The rest is in the kit.
If you catch the homebrew bug like I did, you will need more bottles, a bottle capping device and bottle caps. Make sure you mention to your friends that you are now brewing your own beer! I did and within a few days I had a couple hundred bottles, a capper and even a gross of caps, all for free. I'm not usually one to talk about my hobbies, but the mere mention of home brewing and people are full of questions!
UPDATE December 31, 2011:
Over a year after I first bought this kit and I haven't puchased commercial beer in a year. I have 'graduated' to different fementers (
6 Gallon Better Bottle PET Carboy
) and I now brew kits from Austin Homebrew almost exclusively, but the Coopers kit is where it all started. I don't currently use the fermenter from the Coopers kit, but I do still use the PET bottles and the hydrometer.
I can tell you with complete certainty that after a year of brewing beer on my own, I can make beer that is as good or better than you can buy at any price and I'm doing it for less than half of what you'll pay at retail.
I may not be using the Coopers fermenter, but I still think it was one of the best purchases I ever made because it was the one that got me into homebrew!
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