9 Homebrewing Gadgets to make the brew day easier
Mike and Jesse talk about 9 different brewing gadgets that no one really covers, these are small things, but they’ve become indispensable on brew day to us. The notes below contain affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you anything to use these links and helps support the channel. We’ll never link to products that we wouldn’t buy ourselves, and we aren’t being paid to review these products.
#1 – Small Electric Kettle
Electric Kettle – If you miss your mash temperature, it’s easy to cool it down if you overshot, just add some cold water, but if you ended up missing low, you want to get it up to temp quickly. A little electric kettle will boil up a couple of liters of water in just a few minutes, and the addition of boiling water to your mash can increase it enough. For example, if you’re mash was at 146 but you were really shooting for 152, adding 1.5Q of boiling water will get it right where it needs to go. As a bonus, when you’re not brewing you can use it in the kitchen to make a nice cup of tea.
https://amzn.to/41Q3mdd
#2 – Spray Bottle of Star San
Why mix up a batch of starsan when you just want to sanitize one thing? If you have a spray bottle lying around, the next time you have a batch of star san already made, you can just fill the bottle up, and the next time you need to sanitize something you just have to spray it, no muss, no fuss.
Jesse has a formula for mixing less Star San at one time. 1 Gallon of water with 6ml of Star San
#3 – Portable Fan
The model Mike has is the Ryobi bucket fan, and it really comes in handy. On hot days doing some yard work, or maybe brewing some beer if you’re into that, and you can set this thing on top of a bucket of water, and it’ll blow a cooling mist onto you. Or, if you really need to boil off some water, maybe you collected too much liquid pre boil, you can rig this on top of a ladder or something, and point it across your kettle. Personally, my boil off rate is at least twice, but you’re mileage may vary based on altitude and humidity.
https://amzn.to/3ZlZsH7
#4 – The Hop Spider (and similar gadgets)
If you’re not familiar with a hop spider, it’s a mesh basket, which you can place in your kettle, then your hops go in the hop spider, wort can flow back and forth through it, but the hops stay in the basket. When the boil is done, it’s easy to pull the hop spider out, and it keeps all of the hop material out of your wort.
Link to hop spiders and hop tube.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/stainless-steel-hop-tube-chain.html?a_aid=CoBrewTalk
Hop Bomb (Ball)
https://www.morebeer.com/products/stainless-hop-bomb.html?a_aid=CoBrewTalk
Jesse is a fan of either muslin bags or cheesecloth for his hop additions.
Mike, like many others, are a bit concerned with how much wort actually flows through a hop spider, and generally adds about 5% more hops when using it, good friend of the show Steve uses about 5 – 10% more, and another friend who is also a very experienced brewer (Lefty) says 5% is about right.
#5 – Instant Read Digital Thermometer
You just can’t beat getting an accurate temperature of water, the mash, or whatever, and getting it quickly. An instant read thermometer is exactly what you need!
https://amzn.to/3IZniBQ
An Infrared thermometer is pretty handy too, but note that Infrared thermometers don’t work well with steamy / foamy stuff, it won’t give you an accurate reading, but you can take a reading of the kettle’s side instead.
#6 – A huge whisk!
When you’re mashing, you usually have to slowly pour your milled grain into your strike water, stirring it up the whole while. If you see dough ball, then you have to stop, break up the dough ball, and then continue. If you have one of these huge whisks, it’s really easy, and fast, just dump the entire amount of grain into the strike water, and then work it with the whisk. Dough balls are easy to break up, and you’re mashed in in no time.
https://amzn.to/3kWvoCW
#7 – Refractometer
We like using a refractometer on brew day, because it’s so darn fast! Hydrometers are great, but you have to account for the temperature of the wort, and make sure it’s not sticking to the side of the sample glass,
https://amzn.to/3SRMz59
#8 – Floating Dip Tube
Lets you ferment in a keg, and draw the beer out from the top. It’s even handy for being able to serve clear beer sooner. The beer clears from the top down, and with this dip tube pulling from the top, you can stay above the haze.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/floating-dip-tube-2.html?a_aid=CoBrewTalk
#9 – A Stick
OK, maybe we had a bit too much fun with this one, but seriously, having a sturdy stick laying around on brew day is really handy. You’ve probably seen us use it to wrap up the brew in a bag when draining so that you don’t have to hold it up, it’s also handy for sticking under a kettle or fermenter to tip it ever so slightly.
Do you have an overlooked gadget that no one ever talks about but makes your like easier? Let us know!
