Before anyone who wants to create his own brewed beer can start doing it, he must own the right microbrewery equipment. If now is your very first time to do it, you must do it the simple way. The first item that you need to have is a brewpot. Ideally, your pot should be able to hold 3 gallons of liquid at the minimum.

The next microbrewery equipment that you must have is a fermenter, which must hold at least six gallons for every five gallon batch. This is the proper measurement that will allow space for the formation of foam during the fermentation process.

During the fermentation, you would need important microbrew equipment, which is a food plastic bucket. You will also have to get an airlock to be used for the fermenter; this will permit carbon dioxide to escape and at the same time keep out the air.

In order to properly transfer the beer from the fermenter, which means not allowing air to get mixed into the beer, you have to use a special siphon hose.

A bottling bucket is also an important microbrewery equipment that will facilitate the process. Such buckets are quite the same as the fermenter, albeit the former have spigots underneath, this will permit bottles to be filled up directly. Buckets actually make the bottling process a more orderly and less messy process.

Lastly, one important microbrew equipment is the capper. This device works in sealing the bottles. Remember as part of the brewing process, you have to get quality bottles, caps or kegs in order to properly store your microbrews.

For more interesting articles onbeer lageringand microbreweries in general, do visit our Microbrewery System blog.

Writer, Abstractor and Blogger.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/home-brewing-articles/microbrewery-equipment-what-you-need-for-your-home-brewing-hobby-821636.html

Popularity: 16% [?]

This week we take a look at instructions for all grain beer brewing using a single step infusion mash setup. Infusion mashing with a Gott type cooler, will unleash the full power of all grain brewing while keeping it simple.

Are you an intermediate brewer looking to make the leap to 5 gallon or 10 gallon all grain brewing? Do you want to learn how to brew all grain beer? Dont be afraid of the mashing process. The vast majority of all grain brewers use a one step infusion mash to create outstanding homebrewed beer.

To use a one step infusion mash, you need some basic all grain brewing equipment. This includes a 7-9 gallon brew pot and a 5 gallon or 10 gallon Gott type water cooler with a false bottom. I personally use a Phils false bottom (9 diameter) in my cooler and drain using a hose that runs through the removed tap for the cooler. A properly sized stopper replaces the water tap as shown in the photo.

The infusion mash process is remarkably simple. Crush all of your grains in a mill first. The grain should be finely ground, but the husks of the grain should be relatively intact as the husks act as a filter in the grain bed. Next, heat a pre-measured amount of water, called an infusion, to a target temperature and mix it with the grains. This infusion step (mashing process) breaks down complex sugars in the crushed grain and converts it to simple sugars that can be fermented by yeast.

You can use one of many spreadsheets, online calculators (ex: here) or a brewing program such as BeerSmith to calculate the temperature and amount of infusion water needed for the mash. Make sure you use the correct equipment settings and total grain amount in the calculation. If using BeerSmith, make sure you have your equipment set up to include the water cooler as your mash tun and choose a Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out as your mash profile. Use a target step temperature of 154F, which is an excellent mid-range temperature for your first infusion mash. For BeerSmith, the Preview Brewsheet button on the toolbar will display step-by-step brewing instructions including the amount of infusion water to add.

Heat the recommended amount of infusion water to the temperature provided by your calculator or brewsheet. Slowly alternate adding water and grain to your mash tun until you have all of the water and grains mixed together. Insert a thermometer so you can track the temperature against your target step temperature. Close the top and let your mash temperature settle for 5-10 minutes.

Slowly mix your mash every 10-15 minutes to keep the temperature even and avoid hotspots. The mash mixture should reach a steady temperature close to 154F. If it is off by a significant amount, you can add a small amount of boiling or cold water to achieve the target temperature. Leave your mash mixture in the cooler for at least 45 minutes to assure that the sugar conversion is complete.

After 45 minutes, sparge the mash with hot water to extract the sweet wort that will be your beer. Sparging is nothing more than rinsing the mash with hot water to extract the sugars and create wort that you will later ferment to make beer.

Heat several gallons of water to 178F and slowly add it to to the top of your mash tun while drawing wort from the bottom of the grain tun using your false bottom and collect it in your boiler. The wort coming from the mash tun will start out cloudy with bits of grain and husks, but will soon run clear. Take the first few quarts of wort from the tun (the first runnings) and add them back to the top of your mash tun.

As you continue to sparge, it is important to keep the flow rate slow to maximize the sugars extracted. Lautering a 5 gallon mash tun should take at least 40-50 minutes to collect 6 gallons of wort. From this point forward, the process used to brew your beer is the same as it was with extract brewing. Add hops, boil the wort for 60-90 minutes, cool it quickly to room temperature and add your yeast to ferment your beer.

Switching to single infusion all grain brewing is a great way to gain more control over your beer, and requires only a little bit of additional equipment (a large cooler, false bottom, and full size brew pot) and time. The single infusion mash provides a great starting point for those transitioning to all grain. Take the leap, and enjoy brewing your first all grain today!

Popularity: 54% [?]

The four most important areas for proper use and care of your kegerator are cleanliness, maintaining proper temperature, using appropriate CO2 pressure, and safe operation of your unit. If you take care in the first three areas, you should be able to enjoy problem free beer. However, if any of these three are neglected, your beer could easily be ruined. If you ignore safety concerns, damage to your unit, and injuries to yourself, could be the result.

Proper Cleaning

You need to thoroughly clean every part of your kegerator that touches beer. This includes the coupler, pressure regulator, beer lines, and spigots. These parts should be cleaned every time you change kegs, or every three weeks, if your kegs last longer than that (and shame on you, if they do). When you disassemble and clean each component, make sure you use a cleaning solution designed specifically for the use. Most household detergents will leave a residue that will ruin your beer. In addition to using a beer line cleaning solution, you should scrub each component with a brush.

Failure to maintain a proper cleaning regimen will allow yeast, calcium, mold, and bacteria to build up in your lines and on other components. Any of those four items will ruin your beer upon contact. Each time you re-assemble after cleaning, its also a good idea to put appropriate lubrication on the o-rings and check all of the parts for wear or cracks. If you want to be very diligent about cleaning, there are pump style cleaning systems available that circulate the cleaning solution through your system. This type of system is much more efficient than hand cleaning.

Maintaining Appropriate Temperature

The correct temperature for storing or serving draught beer is 38 F. A consistent temperature range of 34-38F is required for optimal beer. Temperature variances outside of 34-38 range will have a negative effect on your beer.

When draft beer gets warm, it’ll become foamy. Foam is created when the CO2 “breaks out” of the beer or is released. An increase in temperature of just 1 is enough to create foamy beer. A keg that is too warm can also create a cloudy pour with a sour taste. Worse yet, if the temperature goes over 50F, bacteria could breed, and ruin the keg.

If the beer is kept too cold, the carbonation will not be released, and your beer will be flat and taste stale. Beer will freeze if the temperature falls to 28F. Once beer has been frozen, it’s ruined.

There are steps you can take to help maintain proper temperature. First of all, locate your kegerator away from any source of heat or direct sunlight. Secondly, locate your unit in a location with proper air circulation and at least an inch of clearance on all sides. Don’t place your unit in a built-in or recessed area, unless your kegerator was specifically designed as a built-in unit. Make sure that you monitor your temperatures. A popular method is simply keeping a kitchen thermometer, or meat probe in your kegerator. It’s also a good idea to periodically check the temperature of a freshly drawn beer.

Using Correct CO2 Pressure

The pressure regulator is the key part to make sure you have correct pressure. There are two basic types of regulators, single gauge and double gauge regulators. Single gauge regulators measure the pressure in the keg, which is the most important reading. The double gauge regulators have an additional gauge for measuring the CO2 tank pressure. The dual gauge regulator is preferable, because it will alert you to a CO2 bottle getting empty, but it isn’t necessary.

The correct pressure is critical, and improper settings will noticeably change the quality and appearance of each pour. The average pressure setting is 12-14 PSI, and will vary slightly by type of beer, and even keg to keg of the same beer. We like to start our pressure off at 13 PSI, and fine tune from there. If the pressure is too low, the CO2 will “break out” in the form of small bubbles in the beer that will make it go flat. If the pressure is too high, you will experience an extremely foamy pour with more head than beer. It’s also a good idea to let a new keg sit for 24 hours, so both the temperature and pressure can stabilize, before making your first pour.

Safe Use of Your Kegerator

The most critical safety issue with kegerators is the proper handling and use of the CO2 tank. Many of these items are common sense, but failure to heed common sense with CO2 cylinders could result in serious injury, and being a finalist for the annual Darwin Awards.

First of all, never attempt to refill a CO2 bottle yourself. Finding a local refill source is typically easy to do, and not very expensive. Secondly, the cylinder must always be connected to a regulator or not connected at all. Be sure to connect a regulator to your bottle before opening the cylinder valve. Never connect the cylinder directly to the keg. Never throw or drop a CO2 bottle, or place it near sources of heat. Extra cylinders should be stored in a dry, cool location that is well ventilated. If you suspect or detect a leak, ventilate to best of your ability and leave the area.

Additional safety issues include not using an indoor rated unit outdoors, making sure your unit has adequate ventilation so it doesn’t over heat, and whenever possible, do not hook unit into an extension cord. If the desired location of your kegerator does require an extension cord, make sure the cord is a 3 wire, grounded cord, and has a UL rating higher than your unit.

Kegerator Use and Care

Deluxe Beer Line Cleaning Kit

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/home-brewing-articles/how-to-properly-use-and-maintain-a-kegerator-773097.html

Popularity: 24% [?]

As I am looking at all of my options to enhance my brewing setup to be all-grain ready, the second option in helping me separate grain from wort in my mash tun is a Bazooka Screen (This appears to be a trademarked term of the Zymico company-you may be able to find alternatives under the term mash screen).

There is some debate on our site and elsewhere that the screen works better than the false bottom. There is definitely a price difference. False bottoms (most prices I saw are >$30 as of 1/9/2009) are more expensive than the screen (most prices are <$20 as of 1/9/2009).

The other factor that I am using to base my decision is the compatibility with another component I have to buy, which is a ball valve spigot that I want to fit onto my cooler. I will write a post on the spigot later.

The screen may be the winner.although it would be interesting to get the false bottom for educational purposes and compare it to a screen. Hmmm.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Another piece of equipment to convert my cooler into an efficientmash tun is a ball valve spigot. I need to replace the spigot that the cooler came with, which isnt made for long pours. My thumb knows too well.

There are many spigots that are made specifically for cooler conversions on NorthernBrewer.com. They are all under the heading of weldless so I should be able just to remove the factory-installed spigot and install the ball valve spigot.

The one I have my eye on has a half inch barb at the end of it so that I can attach tubing to the end of it. When transferring wort to my kettle, I would like to avoid as much hot side aeration as possible.

I think with the screen and the spigot (the screen attaches nicely to the spigot), I think my mash tun would be ready to go.

Popularity: 24% [?]

The first step you need to take before becoming a homebrewer is to buy a beginners homebrewing kit. The photo below depicts what said kit looks like:

If you want toget a head start, visit these sites where you can purchase a kit right away.

You can get the kit pictured above by visiting the Northern Brewer Starter Kits page.

When I got started, I bought my kit by ordering from selecting this kit from
Beer-Wine.com page.

Theres a new brewing supply store in MA and you can buy a kit by visiting DIY Brewing.

Sanitizer and Bottle Brush

These items, highlighted in the picture below, are used to keep your other equipment clean.

The white packet is sanitizer. Any piece of equipment that will come into contact with your brew should be sanitized* before brewing. The sanitizer in the packet is most likely in a powder form. To prepare and use the sanitizer, follow the directions on the packet.

*Sanitized is different than clean

The bottle brush is used, you guessed it, to clean the inside of your bottles. You will want to clean your bottles well to avoid contaminating your beer.

Bottle Capper

I am sure you have seen bottle caps before, but the black device with the two handles is a bottle capper. Although it looks like a medieval era implement of torture, its a very kind and gentle tool that allows you to top your bottles with caps.

When I first got my kit, I thought it was going to be difficult to usebut I found it to be very easy. There is a magnet in the middle of the capper that holds the cap in place. Once you line up the capper with the top of the bottle, you pull down on the two handles and voila your bottle is capped.

Hydrometer

A hydrometer is used to measure the specific gravity or density of a liquid as compared to water.

If you look at the photo, there are two things highlighted. The plastic cylinder on the right is used to pull a sample of your brew. The other item, the glass tube with the black tip, is placed inside the plastic cylinder and allowed to float in the sample.

The glass tube has a weight at the bottom of it and scale visible near the top. When the tube comes to a stop after floating in the liquid for a few seconds, you can line up the top of the liquid with the scale on the tube. The reading on the hydrometer tube can be recorded as your worts specific gravity before fermentation.

For your reference: Water has a mark of 1.000. My maple porter had a measurement of 1.080which means my wort was denser than water due to the addition of a lot of malt and maple syrup. Note: We actually didnt use a hydrometer to get this reading. We used Mike refractometer to get this reading. These are more expensive devices but make measuring specific gravity a whole lot easier.

Taking a reading before and after fermentation can give you an idea of how much alcohol is in your beer. Even though a hydrometer doesnt help you to make beer, it can help you to better understand your beer.

Bottling Bucket

The item highlighted above is a bottling bucket. You can tell its a bottling bucket by the spigot that is visible near the bottom.

After the beer is done fermenting, you can transfer the beer (also known as racking)to this bucket so that it can easily be transferred to bottles for future consumption.

The bottling bucket allows you to get the beer off of the yeast and allows you to add some priming sugar to the beer before you put it into bottles. Plus the spigot makes it easier to get your beer into bottles if you let gravity help you out.

In the photo, you can see more plastic tubing. This tubing has a special valve at the end of it that only allows liquid to flow through it when the valve is pressed against somethinglike the bottom of a bottle.

It makes bottle filling easy and less messy.

Racking Cane

The item that is enclosed with the red rectangle is a racking cane. Its a tool that allows you to transfer your beer from one vessel to another. Mostly likely as a beginner, you will use the racking cane to transfer your beer from the fermenting bucket to the bottling bucket. As you get more experienced and you buy more equipment, you may use it to move your beer to a secondary fermentation vessel or into a keg.

The cane part (the cylinder) generally hooks on the top of your bucket. The end of the cane has a rubber tip that allows beer in enter the cane indirectly. Here is my really crude drawing of how beer flows up the ranking cane tip.

With this tip, the possibility that the yeast sludge that has settled on the bottom of the bucket wont get sucked through the cane and into wherever you are sending the beer.

This kits racking cane actually has an auto siphon on it. It allows you to start a siphon without having to start on withyour mouthwhich isnt really optimal. To work the auto siphon, you would push on the plunger on top of the cane to force air out of the bottom. When you pull up on the plunger, beer gets pulled in and your siphon should start. Pretty sweet!

Fermentation Bucket

The white bucket thats highlighted with the red rectangle is the fermentation bucket. Once you are done boiling your wort in your brew pot, it gets poured into this bucket for the fermentation process.hence the name.

These buckets are made of food grade plastic, which means its plastic that has nothing in it like dyes that are harmful to people. A beginning brewer should keep in mind that if he or she uses the bucket to store things like chemicals or other nasty things that are harmful to people, then the bucket is no longer food grade. So, to be safe, only use your fermentation bucket to ferment beer, and not to mix oil-based paint.

Buckets you get in a kit can hold at least 6 gallons of liquid, so you will have plenty of room to brew a 5 gallon batch of beer.

It comes with a cover that seals tight on top with a hole to insert an airlock (Thats the funny squiggly plastic thing on top of the bucket with the red cap in the picture). The airlock is an important piece of the fermentation bucket, since it allows carbon dioxide to escape but keeps the outside air out.

If you didnt have an airlock, then you would run the risk of air getting into the fermenting beer through the little hole in the coverwhich can bring in wild, weird yeast into the mix and result in off flavors.

If you didnt have an airlock and the cover didnt have a hole in it, all the carbon dioxide the yeast produce during fermentation would build up and you would haveyeaha beer bomb. BOOM!

There are a few different styles of airlocks. There are other types of fermentation vessels, but for the beginner the bucket works just fine.

Beginner Brew Pot

There isa very important piece of equipment all beginning homebrewersneed tohave: A brew pot.

Every brewer, not matter the experience level, needs a brew pot. You need a pot to boil your malts and hops to make your beer.

You could buy a brew pot from a homebrewing supply store right off the bat, but its not a requirementlike the kit is. Most people havea large stock pot in their kitchens that can be used for homebrewing. If you are just starting out,my opinion is that you shouldnt have to invest any more than is absolutely necessary. Believe me, it can get expensive.

Most beginnerhomebrewrecipes only require you to boilan amount of 1 to 2 gallons at the most.When I started,I was only brewing a gallon and a half of wortso I only needed an 8 quart pot. If you have a larger one, thats fine. The picture below depicts a 22 quart pot.

I would stick with stainless steel and one with handles that makes it easy to move.

Popularity: 23% [?]

After carefully crafting a recipe and earning your way to a batch of the perfect home brew that is the envy of the entire neighborhood, it’s a shame to not seal it with a label that symbolizes your unique blend that you worked so hard to achieve.

Yes, the home brew would taste the same regardless of what the label looks like, but it seems unfinished to see the bottled brew with a generic brown appearance and nothing else.

As you have probably noticed, commercial breweries spend countless hours on design in order to ensure that the beer will create identifiable characteristics to the beer drinkers. Obviously, you don’t have to hire a multi-million dollar ad agency to produce a design campaign for your label, but there’s no reason that your tasty home brew can’t have a little bit of your persona added to the outside as well as the inside.

If you are just getting started, then labels for your bottles might seem unimportant, but as you continue to progress and it becomes a serious hobby, having customized labels for your brew can be both fun, and add an extra sense of pride and accomplishment when you serve it to friends and family.

If you are worried about the cost, don’t be! With today’s technology, you can design great looking labels on your home computer if you want to. Many graphic programs that you probably have installed on your computer are more than capable of doing the job. Also, when you buy a package of labels, they will often even come with easy-to-use software and free clip art and photography to use for your designs.

If you are not the creative type, or not computer savvy enough to dive into a graphics program, you could always head down to your local print shop with a simple idea an ask them how much it would be to produce something that represents you and your brew. You’d be surprised at the printing options available these days.

Who knows, maybe designing labels might even turn into another hobby!

Popularity: 36% [?]