Tilt - Floating Wireless Hydrometer

"Designed for home brewing, the Tilt is a wireless hydrometer that lets you instantly read your brew's specific gravity and temperature on your compatible Apple iPhone/iPad or Android smartphone/tablet. Any Bluetooth 4.0 device will work. You can then optionally save the data automatically to a cloud service, such as Google Sheets.

Our goal is to help homebrewers brew better beer. The Tilt allows you to test the specific gravity and temperature of your beer while it's fermenting, without ever having to open your fermenter or pour out any of your precious brew. This makes brewing more consistent and easy to track."

Source: Here

Brewing Shirts

Bottling Shirt

Keg Shirt

Barely Shirt 1

Barley Shirt 2

Beer Bottles

Brewery

Beer

Hops

Beer Caps

Find Shirts: Here

21 Ways to Open a Bottle of Beer

Debunking the Myth of Yeast Respiration and Putting Oxygen in Its Proper Place

Originally Published by Tracy Aquilla in Brewing Techniques (Volume 5, Number 2)

"Through it flies in the face of popular wisdom, yeast does not go through a respiration phase in the early stages of fermentation. A careful look at yeast metabolism and reproduction reveals a common misunderstanding and points the way to more sophisticated applications of oxygen in the brewery.

Fermentation is perhaps the most interesting and exciting part of brewing beer. There is something fascinating about watching yeast in action, and being close to the process contributes immensely to my enjoyment of my beer. No matter how well we do our part in preparing bitter wort for fermentation, it is the yeast that turns it into beer. For this reason alone, it is important to understand and appreciate what these microorganisms are really doing inside our fermentors. Most of the popular brewing literature, however, fosters a misconception about yeast and fermentation. This articles sets the record straight.

Most of the brewing literature indicates that brewers’ yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae and S. uvarum) required dissolved oxygen for a brief period of time after pitching so the cells can respire and grow, implying that yeast needs oxygen to bud and must respire before it can ferment wort. It is true that aerating or oxygenating wort is generally beneficial to fermentation, but it is untrue to say that yeast requires oxygen to reproduce or that yeast uses oxygen to respire during fermentation. The misunderstanding may be subtle, but it is a misunderstanding nonetheless. Gaining a clear understanding of the truth about how yeast works not only sets us on sound technical foundations, but has practical applications as well. This article briefly discusses yeast metabolism, clarifies the role of oxygen, and suggests some practical applications of this more refined understanding of fermentation processes."

Read the rest of the article: Here

5 Liter - 12 Bottle - Brewing Experience (Facts & Pearls)

Hello,

So I have been brewing for over four months now with the Go Pro Small Batch Brewing Kit:

Here is what I have learned and I hope it helps you if want to get started to brew beer cheaply.

1. The "Little Big Mouth Bubbler(LBMB)" holds about 4.5 liters. This comes to the top line and leaves enough air room for good fermentation.  Trub and yeast will typically take up about .5 liters in waste.  This leaves about 4 liters to bottle with.  Adding a little liquid with fermenting sugar in the secondary should allow you to bottle 12 bottles of beer at a time :)
2. The LBMB is a joy to clean because of the wide mouth.  There have been some negative comments posted on the quality.  I have not experienced that and I now own 4.
3. I have purchased a small stainless steel pot that has worked out perfectly for me.  See Amazon link above.  If you fill the pot to the lowest handle rivot, you are starting with exactly 6 liters of water.  With 1/2 hour boil, you will loose about 1 liter. Leaving 5 liters of wort.  That allows for some waste to hit the 4.5 liter mark in the Little Big Mouth Bubbler.  Also 5 Liter brewing makes the math much easier :)
4. I find that a 30 minute mash @153°F or 67°C (partial mash or BIAB) and a 30 minute boil is all I need for these small batches. 30 minute mashes have been validated by others and they seem to work just fine.  30 minutes provides just the right amount of hop addition flexibility.
5. ***Very important to watch the boil and prevent boil over because this leaves little clearance. You just need to catch the first sign of "hot break" and take the pot off the heat and then put back on and you will be fine.***
6. Right now I find Safale US-05 fermenting at 64°F degrees x 1 week is clean and dependable.  Carbonate in bottle x 1 week then refrigerate x 1 week and you have good beer in under a month :).
7. Start to finish including measuring and clean-up is around a 2 hour process :)  If one only used extract then I am certain the entire process from start to finish could be under an hour!
8. Expect 80% brewhouse efficiency and 60%(LME)-70%(All Grain) attenuation with this system.  
9. 1000 mg of grain/extract will produce about 50 PPG in 5 Liters averaging 5% ABV (4% LME to 5.5% all grain). This translates to 1% ABV per 200mg of grain or 250mg of LME.  How cool is that!  
10. Your mileage may vary a bit because of all the brew variables (ex. technique, grains used, yeast choice and fermentation temp.) but you should come close to my stats above.
11. I am going to make a video soon to show the process from beginning to end.

Cheers!

Jim

BrewBarrel

Launch of Kickstarter Campaign to Fund the Most Revolutionary Way to Brew Beer

Brewbarrel was developed by three students at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). TUM is home to one of the oldest and most famous departments of brewery sciences. All the Brewbarrel founders met during their studies. Even though they love German beer, they felt it lacked variety. Co-founder and CEO Dominik Guber recalls: "One day, we found ourselves standing in front of the beer shelves of our local supermarket. We asked ourselves why there is so little variety." From there on, they used their knowledge of brewing and natural sciences and went back to the drawing board: "We wanted to create a fast and easy way to brew customized beer at home. Therefore, we had to completely rethink and reinvent the process of home brewing." - BrewBarrel

See here for most popular styles people pick.

Go Pro 1 Gallon Beer Brewing Kit

I decided to brew 1 gallon batches of beer to learn with.  This way I can brew more often and learn faster.  After reading reviews and checking out the different options I went with Northern Brewer's GoPro System: