15 Tips
One of the great things about the craft and hobby of brewing is that there is generally no single right way to go about it. While the overall principles are rooted in science, the way we as brewers guide the brewing process is a matter of how we apply the equipment and materials at hand to the procedure.
As brewing has progressed, many of the technological advances that have made their presence known in the commercial brewing arena have filtered down into the homebrew hobby. Much like their commercial counterparts, most homebrewing setups tend to have their own little customized quirks that are particular to the brewer, setup, location, or equipment used.
1. Kick the bucket.
Most homebrewers begin the hobby by using food-grade plastic buckets or pails as fermenters. While these can give great results, many homebrewers later switch to glass carboys. There are many advantages to using carboys, but ease of handling is not one of them. A five-gallon glass carboy full of wort can weigh more than 40 pounds. While there are many devices on the market designed to make carboy handling easier and safer, for many homebrewers a retired plastic fermenter can be one option that is overlooked.
Most plastic buckets have a bail or handle, and the diameter on many is sized perfectly to hold a five-gallon glass carboy nestled securely inside the bucket. The bucket handle provides ease in moving, while the plastic sides not only help protect the fragile glass from any errant strikes or impacts, but also help provide a degree of insulation that can aid in temperature control.
It is critical to remember that while this method is very convenient, you should never rely solely on the handles of any plastic pail or any carboy-holding device to provide absolute grip. Always use care and attempt to support the weight of the load from beneath the carboy, not by the neck or by the handles only.
2. Fermentation’s a drag.
Another great trick for moving full carboys or fermenters from one household location to another is as simple as using an old rug or blanket. Placing the fermenter on an old blanket provides for absorption of overflow or unexpected spills. In addition by grabbing the free end of the blanket and pulling it like a sled, it is easy for one person to slide or drag a fermenter from one room to another without actually lifting it.
Best results for this method are obtained on cement or hardwood floors, but the same ease can be had on certain types of rugs and carpeting as well. As always, any time you are moving a heavy glass fermenter, exercise care.
3. Make a keg ice chest.
Many large glass carboys (6.5 or seven gallons) that were originally designed to hold acid have Styrofoam carriers that are specifically designed to insulate and protect the carboy during shipping. Cut a small circle out of the top of the carrier. Not only does it still work as a carboy insulator, but it makes an excellent insulating ice chest for Cornelius-style kegs. This also allows easy access to the quick-disconnect fitting on the top of the keg. This is an ideal setup for those summer and fall picnics and barbecues.
4. Slip into soapy precoats.
When using a propane-powered outdoor cooker, it is not unusual to end up with a substantial layer of stubborn soot stuck to the sides and bottom of the mash vessel or kettle. While this is not a permanent condition, cleanup and removal of all of the soot can pose a messy challenge, resulting in sooty handprints throughout the work area and house.
All of this easily can be avoided by lightly coating the bottom and sides of the pot (outside only!) with a liquid dish soap prior to the brewing session. While the soot, which is usually a result of incomplete or inadequate combustion, will still form on the kettle, it will be a breeze to remove afterward with a little bit of hot water and a scrub pad. And the pot will not be permanently stained or require any difficult scrubbing or abrasives.
5. Use this slick capper trick.
The crimping cup on most quality bottle cappers, regardless of style of capper, is made of stamped steel. Because caps are made out of a similarly hard metal, capper cups often show signs of wear after a short time. This results in sloppy crimps.
To extend the life of your capper, prior to the next bottling session apply a light coating of cooking oil, grease, or petroleum jelly (such as Vaseline) to the inside of the crimp cup. This will ease the effort needed to crimp the caps onto the bottles and will go a long way toward extending the life of the capper. A light coating of lubricant also will allow the capped bottles to release easily from the capper.
Keep in mind that a little goes a long way; the goal is to have a light coating of lubricant on the outside of the caps, not running down the sides of the bottles.
Excess use can result in contamination that will affect the beer inside the bottles, possibly resulting in beers with off-flavors or poor foaming and head-retention capabilities.
6. Dunk the frozen doughnut.
Keeping fermentation temperatures cool in the middle of summer without a refrigerator dedicated solely to brewing can be a challenge. Inexpensive temperature control often can be achieved by draping the fermenter with wet towels. Allow the moisture to evaporate over the course of the day to provide some level of cooling.
This can further be enhanced by a trip to the nearest Tupperware outlet. Purchase a plastic mold used for forming Jell-O. Fill the plastic mold with water and place it in the freezer. The result is a frigid doughnut that can be set on top of a plastic fermenter or placed over the neck of a carboy, allowing ice-cold water to run down the sides of the fermenter as the ice melts. Just refill the plastic mold each time you remove an ice ring. This provides a continual supply of frozen rings for the duration of most normal fermentations, even during the hottest weather.
7. Rack ’em.
Siphoning beer from one vessel to another can be a challenge, but a number of simple tricks can ensure that your next beer transfer goes smoothly. It is not unusual for bubbles to form at the highest point in a siphon. They can accumulate until eventually the flow is broken and it is necessary to prime the siphon and start over.
This is because CO2 that is dissolved in solution in the fermenter comes out of solution due to the drop in pressure inside of the siphon. Flow easily can be maintained, however, by quickly pinching and releasing the siphon tubing directly upstream of the bubbles, causing the flow to stop for an instant. When the flow resumes, the annoying bubbles should travel down the siphon tube into the receiving vessel. The trick is to do this before the annoying bubbles accumulate to the point where they stop the flow of the siphon.
8. Mix your prime.
To bottle condition and carbonate beer, it is standard procedure to dissolve a measured amount of priming sugar or malt into solution, and then mix the solution with the finished beer prior to bottling. You can make sure the priming solution is completely and evenly mixed in by adding it to the bottling bucket prior to racking or transferring the beer.
The transfer will usually result in enough turbulence to mix the priming solution evenly throughout the batch, resulting in consistent carbonation levels in every bottle.
Just remember that excessive foaming or splashing can result in unwanted oxygen becoming dissolved in the wort. This causes stale flavors or off-flavors in the finished beer.
9. Purge oxygen.
Brewers with carbon dioxide bottles and tap systems can take further steps to help prevent oxidation or staling of beer. Prior to transferring any beer into a sanitized secondary fermenter or keg, place the output hose from the CO2 bottle into the vessel. Allow the CO2 to run for a minute.
Because CO2 is heavier than air, it will settle into a blanket, in the bottom of the fermenter or keg. When the beer is transferred into the vessel, any remaining oxygen will be purged through the top of the vessel as the liquid level rises. This leaves a blanket of CO2 gas in contact with the beer.
Oxidation is not limited to finished beer. Brewers who take advantage of purchasing in bulk can prevent the quality of their ingredients from staling by gently purging sacks of unused malt or hops with CO2 prior to putting them back into some form of air-tight storage for future use.
10. Test with pediatric titrations.
Titration is a process whereby a known amount of a compound is introduced into another known volume. The results are used to calculate measurements for a larger volume. Put in practical terms, when using spices, flavoring additives, or essences it can be difficult to know exactly how much to introduce into a batch of beer to get a known result.
A lot of guesswork and the resulting bad batches of beer can be eliminated by performing some simple tests using a small tasting glass, a sample of similar homebrew or commercial beer, the flavoring compound, and a children’s medicine dropper or syringe, which is available over the counter at most pharmacies. Such droppers are usually calibrated pretty accurately and allow for precise metering of a solution one drop at a time.
By introducing a flavoring compound into a known quantity of beer and recording the amounts until the desired result is reached, you can accurately calculate how much flavoring substance to add to the entire batch of beer. This eliminates the guesswork and the risk of ruining a full batch by adding too much flavoring.
In addition such a device makes it possible to dose directly into the bottle at bottling time. That way you can achieve several different results to be bottled from one single batch of homebrew.
11. Defy gravity.
Sooner or later it happens to almost every all-grain brewer: the dreaded stuck run-off. Brewers using a tiered type of brewing system in which the hot liquor tank is located above the mash tun during sparging have a quick and easy fix at their disposal. Simply route the sparge water hose directly into the output of the mash tun and open the valves. Gravity will cause hot sparge water to flow into the mash tun under the false bottom, resulting in a loosening or underletting of the mash bed.
After a brief recirculation to reset the filter bed and clear the run-off, it is usually possible to continue sparging at an improved rate with little or no loss of heat or run-off.
12. Use your marbles.
When dry hopping with whole hops, the hops usually will clump and float on top of the fermenter, resulting in reduced contact with the wort and a loss of efficiency. Place the raw hops loosely in a nylon or cheesecloth hop bag, then add several glass marbles. The bag and its hoppy contents will sink to the bottom of the fermenter. This allows maximum wort contact and extraction.
The glass marbles also can be sanitized easily prior to being added to the fermenter. Simply sanitized them in the same way that you treat any other type of brewing equipment, and the glass will not react with the beer to create off-flavors.
13. Let it settle.
While most brewing literature stresses that one of the most critical times for sanitation and possible contamination is immediately after the boil and prior to introducing yeast, this is one point when a brewer can improve the quality of his beer by doing nothing for 10 minutes.
Cover the brewpot as soon as you turn off the burner. Sanitary temperatures will be maintained while many of the proteins and hop particles stirred up during the boil will settle to the bottom of the pot. Doing this leaves the wort crystal clear.
These compounds can result in inhibited fermentations, poor yeast performance, hazy beer, and unusual off-flavors, so it makes sense to allow them to settle and separate out. The still-sanitary clear wort can be chilled and transferred to the fermenter for the introduction of yeast and a subsequent healthy fermentation.
14. Create a filter screen.
For brewers who siphon the wort from the brew kettle into the fermenter or who have brewpots with a spigot on the side, recipes that contain large amounts of hops, fruits, or other solids can be a nightmare to transfer. These large particles can block the end of the drain, pick-up tube, or siphon, which results in no flow.
A quick fix to this situation can be found as close as the household cleaning aisle in the local supermarket. Some brands of scrubbers used for cleaning pots and pans are made of spun or woven copper wire or strips. Place one of these scrubbers loosely on the end of the pick-up tube. This prevents large particles from flowing into or blocking the ends of the siphon.
It is important to use a scrubber made of copper, because plastic and other materials can react with the wort to create off-flavors. In addition make sure the brand you have selected is a scrubber only and is not filled with cleansers or detergents!
Simply allowing this device to touch the boiling hot wort for a few minutes should be adequate to ensure sanitization and a subsequent smooth transfer. Just make sure not to use the copper scrubber in beer, because it oxidizes beer. You also can use stainless steel scrub pads as racking filters for wort and beer if, for example, you have fruit in the fermenter.
15. Enjoy a splice of life.
For do-it-yourselfers who make their own wort chillers out of copper tubing, there will probably be a few short pieces of copper scrap left over. This scrap can serve as a useful tool to help splice together sections of 3/8-inch siphon hose. Just cut any leftover copper tubing into sections of about 1 inch. The pieces are also the perfect diameter to place in the hole of most drilled stoppers to allow hooking up of a blow-off tube during fermentation.
By incorporating some of these tricks into your brewing regimen, you can enjoy smooth, trouble-free brewing.
