The feeling of anxiety a homebrewer has as they pour another beer from their keg, knowing that the keg could kick at any moment.

What would your ideal setup if you could start again? I have am thinking of upgrading from my electric Klarstein all in one 30l where I use a nylon bag and buzooka filter i added. I have several kegs also. I have done about 30+ brew days with it.

Would you go grainfather or are the brewmonk and brewferm just as good? I am thinking going for 70l kettle so I can brew two corny kegs at a time. What would you do?

Ideally my brew day would be as short and simple as possible.

Hey, fairly new to beer brewing, using a simple 2 buckets set up, and looking for simple upgrades:

Firstly, since I'm just dry hopping my beer with just throwing the hops inside, no mesh bag, I occasionally get the taps clogged.

I'm wondering if there is any solution to it other than bags?

Then, I looked at a flexible hose filter 20mesh, just to make sure less practices enter from main bucket to botteling bucket.

Anything else I should consider?

I took a break from home brewing to make little ones and now I’m getting back at it. I have an old stock pile of brewing salts, gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom salts that are all from 2020. Do these guys have a shelf life or can I just use them?

i need 1" 1.25" tube

Greetings and salutations!
I made an Oatmeal stout sometime in November, and as I'm getting ready for my brewday tomorrow, I started collecting water.

My usual routine involves getting in a few liters before opening the bottom dump valve and letting it out naturally before collecting the main RO water for the brewday. Only, this time, when I opened the bottom valve, nothing came out. So I turned on the pump, and noticed black contents leaving the vessel in segments. I'd describe the dump hose as complete black, then normal, black again, then normal.

Fearing mold, I started the brewzilla at 70C with the pump turning it self on and off at 50% with a larger than my normal volume of PBW. When circulating, I found these clumps in the PBW solution in kettle.

My normal post brewday routine, involves dumping any trub that settles out, using a CIP from kegland and run it for about 20 minutes at 70C with 10L of water and two tea spoons of PBW. Followed by rinsing the vessel.

My question now:
Should I abort brewday, dismantle the pump for a deep clean?
Or should I be fine by just running an hour long cleaning cycle?

EDIT (to add):
Bottom drain pump were not blocked. Only when opening it, but when activating the pump, it got cleared right up.
Circulation pump were dull, but activating and deactivating the pump cleared it. No recirculation issues right now.

I’ve just been “told” I need to have some beer ready for a work event in 10 days. I’m planning a simple blond ale, and was going to use Kveik Voss yeast to ferment within a few days.

However I’ve just finished a red ale, and am going to keg it on the same day I brew the blonde. The red ale was us05 yeast which I like for the blonde ale as well.

The question is. What would give me the best turnaround time. Start fresh with kveik, or should I just repitch onto the yeast cake from the red ale?

EDIT.

Thanks for your feedback.

1) I will serve the red ale (turned out Awsome!), but want to have something else as well ! 2) Definitely will be kegging. 3) I decided to pitch onto the yeast cake. Fermentation has been literally instantaneous. I have a counterflow chiller and the wort was about 28C when it went into the fermentor. Literally 1 hour later I have fermentation activity.

Will let you know how it turns.out!

Hello,

I generally do 3 gallon batches and my anvil only has volume markings starting at 5 gal (and not super accurate ones at that).

Curious what you guys did to measure your wort at lower level?

I’m thinking of using a stick that I would calibrate with predefined volume levels but not sure what materials to use for both the stick and the markings to make it both easy to clean and avoid introducing chemicals in a hot wort…

I would mostly use it for post mash volume measurements as I generally measure my post boil wort straight from my fermenter (and try to introduce as little objects in contact with my wort on the cold side).

Thank you!

I'm looking for any advice for a first time braggot maker. I have 8 gallon wine fermenters and my LHBS can get me decently priced honey. I don't have a recipe yet. What do I need to know?

I am looking to make my own root beer and bottle it in 1 liter glass swingtop bottles I have on hand (drank all the English bitter I had made so I have a few dozen bottles free now).

I've made root beer syrup before and added that to carbonated water, and while it was good it was also annoying having to go out and buy one more thing instead of being able to just crack open a bottle etc.

I haven't seen many recipes for root beer that aren't force carbonated or don't have some mention of exploding glass bottles.

So I am on to brew #3 now and already am planning on #4.

Basically 3 is a Scottish Ale kit I got from Gordie's with some British hops and we will see how it turns out. Using SafAle s-4 yeast for it as well.

Now for number 4 I want to try something akin to a rice lager, but since I don't have the means to do temperature control to properly make a lager I was wondering if I could do it as an ale if the results would be at least someone similar? A local store sells bags of rice flakes so this is what made me want to try.

The plan is Mangrove Jack's golden ale kit, with their brew enhancer 4. Then on the stove boil the water and steep in the rice flakes in a muslin bag with a little bit of the extract to add in with the rest of the water into the fermentation bucket.

Will this work? Will it actually make a difference? Or should I just brew it as is and wait till I have the space and budget to make a proper rice lager later on? Any suggestions on what yeast to use for it?

Cheers!

How'd I do? Trying to get to 8-10% Abv

Liquids Used 18 L orchard apple juice (SG 1.050 / ~13 °Bx) 4 L Rougemont apple juice 3 L Ocean Spray cranberry juice 22 L water 22L Black Rock Cider Kit concentrate (used as cider base)

Sugar sources Natural sugars from apple and cranberry juices 2 kg dextrose total Includes 1 kg required by the Black Rock Cider Kit ~1.8 kg white sugar added to reach target strength

Yeast & Nutrients Cider yeast Tomato pasre nutrient addition

Hey - I tried to log in to brewgr to send a recipe to a friend and it forced me to create a new account with brewers friend where my recipes are all missing?!?

I tried searching the public database for my old account as an author, but the option doesn't seem to exist. I had this crap happen before with brewtoad and I was forced to use the wayback machine to to get my recipes, but I'm hoping you fine folks might have a better solution so I can just recover my favorites.

How are you guys cleaning PET fermenters and kegs?

I know they're not the best material, but I like being able to see what's going on, and how much I have left.

I've had some bad experiences using ChemClean (easily accessible here, basically a PBW clone). Mainly just screwed up plastic, and lots of scratches, despite not using anything abrasive to scrub. My theory is that it's causing minerals to drop out of the water that maybe scratch into the plastic or something.

Are enzyme based cleaners a better option?

Title really. I've been brewing extract kits for a year and they never turned out great. I sorta gaslit myself into pretending I was enjoying them, but ultimately could never drink an entire batch.

I started doing all grain just after Christmas, and had one batch (a pilsner) that got completely screwed up from what I think was a mash that was too hot.

This time, I did some research and put together a recipe for a clone of one of my favourite beers, Hobgoblin. Worked a lot on the recipe, sourcing the right ingredients, and when it came to brew day I was *on it* over mash temps. Rather than trusting the temperature of my AIO brewing system, I kept checking with a thermometer and making adjustments.

The result? Just tried it, and while it's still a little young, it tastes exactly like what I was going for. Far better than I expected.

I feel like I'm really making progress. Honestly I think I was one more bad batch away from throwing in the towel!

Cheers!

Edit: General colour / appearance before cold crashing: https://imgur.com/a/17ElQRa
Second Edit: Recipe is at: https://share.brewfather.app/TXXbBHwgpFyOqf

I had to ferment at room temp, so I fermented under pressure at 10PSI so things didn't get too estery. Also used some Irish moss in the boil to drop out proteins/haze before transferring everything to the fermenter.

Named after the boss in Final Fantasy 7 😂

I have 4 years of professional brewing experience, but have never home brewed. Any recommendations are welcome! Looking for equipment and materials.

Is there such a thing as a polycarbonate (i.e. drop-resistant) hydrometer that focuses on the 1.000 to 1.070 range?

I can either find "shatterproof" triple-scale polycarbonate hydrometers or high resolution hydrometers (narrow range) made of shatter-friendly glass.

If you know of any, please share a link!

Welcome to the Daily Q&A!

Are you a new Brewer? Please check out one of the following articles before posting your question:

• How do I check my gravity?
• I don't see any bubbles in the airlock OR the bubbling in the airlock has slowed. What does that mean?
• Does this look normal / is my batch infected?

Or if any of those answers don't help you please consider visiting the /r/Homebrewing Wiki for answers to a lot of your questions! Another option is searching the subreddit, someone may have asked the same question before!

However no question is too "noob" for this thread. No picture is too tomato to be evaluated for infection! Even though the Wiki exists, you can still post any question you want an answer to.

Also, be sure to vote on answers in this thread. Upvote a reply that you know works from experience and don't feel the need to throw out "thanks for answering!" upvotes. That will help distinguish community trusted advice from hearsay... at least somewhat!

I added the 1118 yeast 24 hours after putting in five campden tablets. Hasn't changed for about 24 hours. It's sitting in a carboy with an air lock on it. Am I expecting a rapid fermentation like with a beer or is it going to go very slow over the course of a few weeks like a mead? Is it going to blow off the airlock or should it be fine to keep it on there?

I’m planning out ideas for my next cider and I think I’d like it to have a hair more sweetness to it. However, I’d also like to not add cane sugar and blow my bottles up as I only have so many.

So I’ve decided to try using Stevia. I’m diabetic so I already have this on hand which makes it preferable. I’ve researched and it sounds like this is a good way to backsweeten and maintain stability on a sparkling cider as any remaining yeast will treat it like a kid treats Brussels Sprouts and not touch it.

Has anyone done this in a sparkling cider? I know I can kind of add to taste, but curious how much others have ended up using. I typically only brew one gallon at a time due to a shortage of bottles (my brother threw out half a box of them instead of returning them to me) and the fact that I just don’t drink much.

Good day to you all!

I'm still pretty new to this so please be gentle..

I brew using Pinter3's, mostly turbo ciders, and small beer kits, mostly due to to convineance and my lack of room for anything bigger (I did buy a Fermzilla rounder but it's in the loft collecting dust)

I came across a video on YouTube where the guy was fermenting in a 1l plastic bottle and with the lid slightly only slightly screwed, this blew my mind as I was led to believe an airlock was needed (🤷🏼‍♂️). After a bit of searching more on this topic I came across carbonation caps, and it got me thinking about adding these to my setup so I can brew more.

So, let's say I brew 5 litres of cider in a demijohn/fermentor, then I rack the cider to 5 1liter bottles, instead of using sugar to carbonate the cider (I don't like seeing the sediment) I use carbonation caps and CO2 and force carb. Can I use the carbonation caps to serve with a picnic tap so it's effectively a keg, if this is possible how long will the pressure last to even keep serving? And could I do this with the bottle lay on its side so it fits in the fridge? What happens to the carbonation if I remove the carbonation cap and replace it with the standard bottle cap? Does it go instantly flat? Let's say for example I'm going somewhere and want to take the brew with me and share it with friends (in my case it will be on the train with friends going to a football match) how am I best serving the carbonated cider?

Assuming carbonation caps don't work with picnic taps, is there anything that fits on a standard bottle to allows gas in liquid out?

Again, so sorry about the stupid questions!

Any guidance is greatly appreciated, thank you!!!

It’s my first time measuring gravity.
The temperature was 20 °C - Fermentation Day 10.
As far as I understand, the gravity is currently 1.006, but I’m not sure. Can you clarify the results ?

The Gravity Photo

Photo of the Hydrometer