Ran across this deal and wanted to share with everyone since I know that several of you are looking to get into kegging. Adventures in Homebrewing (love those guys) have “low profile” kegs for sale for $39 a keg. Four kegs will be $156 and shipping to Hixson was $17.74. That means you can get four kegs delivered for around $44 per keg. Not to shabby.
It looks like these are converted pin locks that have had the lid replaced to include a manual release valve. Site says they have been pressure tested and might have some residue in them.
15 Gift Ideas for the Homebrewing Dad This Father’s Day
So my wife and kids were asking me what I wanted for Father’s Day. I decided to come up with a list for them. While making the list it dawned on me that there might be other mom’s and kids who are perplexed about what to get their homebrewing husband/father. I put together this list of items I have asked for in the past or am asking for now. This is not a comprehensive list and some of the items might not be relevant to your homebrewer, but it’s a start.
Images below are hyperlinks to applicable sites for the items.
Thanks to all who participated or checked out the event this weekend at Sigler’s. We had 5 brews going at one time. Here is a video of the event put together by Rudy.
Wanted to share this with everyone as I was kind of blown away by it. I was shopping on the Great Fermentations website the other day and came across this gem. It uses a magnetized ball (that should be sanitized before putting into keg) to show how much beer you have left in your keg. What a novel idea!!
The $20 price tag made me cringe a little, but then I saw the video. Pretty cool concept. Don’t know that I will be rushing to purchase, but maybe if I win a Great Fermentations gift card at Fugetaboutit again this year….I might just pick one up.
Introduction
It’s been a few weeks since the last article but for the third rendition of homebrewing gadgets I wanted to cover a stirring utensil that I absolutely love. That being said, this review might invoke some discussion because I don’t stir with a spoon or mash paddle. I stir with a whisk. I know, I know. I am sure lots of you are asking “How could you?” or thinking “Brewers use paddles, not whisks!”, but hear me out. If at the end of this you are still convinced I am crazy, then we can agree to disagree over a brew sometime. Just know that if you are drinking a brew I made, it was made using a whisk to stir instead of a paddle.
Background
When we first started brewing it was in 1 gallon batches. We grabbed ordinary kitchen utensils to aid us during our brew days. This consisted of wooden spoons, stainless steel spoons, slotted spoons, spatulas, and regular table spoons. When we converted to 5 gallons, I knew that the mash (mixture of grain and water that extracts sugar from grain that is boiled to make beer) was going to be much larger and would require stirring to prevent dough balls in the mash. Dough balls are pockets of grain in the mash that do not mix with the water and remain dry. These balls are bad because sugar doesn’t get extracted from dry grain and will lead to you missing your targeted final alcohol content in your finished beer. And that is VERY bad! Being the OCD person that I am, I began my quest to find that one perfect stirring utensil for brewing. After much time, research, and suffering (not really, just felt like being dramatic), I decided on a 24 inch stainless steel French whip whisk that some people have coined the “Brewer’s Whisk”.
The described whisk was purchased via Amazon (Prime shipping is awesome), but I noticed this evening that MoreBeer had the same whisk for about half the cost. Here’s the link if interested:
I write articles for a blog site called Sommbeer. I have written a few articles about beer in general and/or homebrewing. I decided that I wanted to start a series in which I reviewed items or “gadgets” that I have found useful in my brewing experience. Then I realized that our club website doesn’t really have anything like this either.
And so without further ado, I give to you the amazing Rubbermaid Bouncer….
Picture of pitcher
Here is a little snippet of the article:
Beginnings
Hidden pitcher
When my wife and I first started brewing, we rummaged through all our kitchen ware to see what we could use for our small (1 gallon) brewing setup. She had inherited one of these pitchers from someone in her family (grandmother, mother, or something like that). We used it to hold our hot sparge water. We also used it to hold wort while we switched pots on the stove top. And we used it to sanitize siphons, tubing, and our bottling wand. I mean we used it A LOT! We used it so much that I convinced my wife we needed to purchase another one. One of them could almost always be found in one of our brewing pics.
How It’s Used
So you may ask, “Why is a gallon pitcher so important and what would I use it for?”. The only way I know to explain it is to tell you how I use it during my brew day. I brew on a 20L Braumeister electric all-in-one brewing system (review for that will come later). With this system, I am typically putting around 30L (roughly 8 gallons) of water into it for brewing. My system is calibrated up to 25L, so I fill the vessel up to the 25L mark and then weigh out the remaining water. So for example, if I am brewing with 29L, I have to weigh out 4L of water (29L-25L = 4L remaining). Why does this matter? Because I use this pitcher to weigh the remaining water. After I have put all the water into my brewing rig, I dry out this pitcher and use it to scoop out my base grains…….
Just figured I would mention this here since we have a few new to the club. Let me know if you like this sort of thing. If so, I will cross post to both sites.
