TOP TEN HOMEBREWING HACKS: Tips and Tricks for Beginner Brewers

on this episode of doing the most we're talking about the top ten homebrew hacks for beginners a lot of folks make their way to our youtube channel looking for home brewing content which is awesome that seems to mean that the hobby is on the incline a lot of those folks that land on our channel are beginner brewers which we love so to help you all out I want you to learn from the mistakes that I made when I was a beginner Brewer so we've put together this top 10 list of things I wish I had known when I started brewing in the beverage for this episode is a barley wine Boucher I'll put the original recipe for this in a card and in the description number 1 stars then in a bottle as you began your home brewing journey you probably learned that sanitizing is important and the best way to sanitize is to use a no rinse sanitizer likes Tarzan there's plenty of other ones out there I prefer stars in and for most uses you can just dunk your equipment or bottles directly into the stars and just swish them around but for some applications it's kind of nice to have stars in in a spray bottle one of the added benefits is it's not gonna gas out very well provided that this is properly sealed maybe with some plumbers tape sanitizer in a bottle is great for those applications where it may be difficult to dunk things or rinse things and sanitizer you just easily missed it on rub it in and in a couple of minutes you're good to go number two mason jars are your friend now it actually took me a few years to learn this one and I really came around to the idea when I started using more advanced yeast nutrient schedules particularly in mead making when I learned that the nutrients like fer made and go firm are very sticky they arrive in a bag like this opening and closing that bag pouring it out of the little little pour spout that you've cut in the bag is very messy and you'll learn over time that a nice sticky residue of nutrient will will aggregate on the outside of the back skip all that put anything that's loose in a mason jar seal it up nice and tight one of the great things about these is they stack pretty well and it keeps everything very well contained number three buy two of everything now I say buy two of everything I don't mean buy two of every expensive thing in your home brewing kit but what I really mean is if it's economical buy two of everything I learned in this lesson the hard way when I was going to bottle some wine and my bottling wand broke so then I had to messily bottle wine by pinching off the the tubing and transferring it bottle to bottle which is a real pain and creates a mess so had I had to bottling ones that wouldn't have been a problem bundling ones are like five six bucks apiece just get two or get a stainless steel one I'm always in favor of stainless steel but again if it's economical just get two and that goes for other things like sparkle oyd Sparkle weight is pretty expensive to get just like a little 1 ounce bottle by a pound of it it's like 15 bucks and it will last you seemingly forever my bag has number 4 your bottling wand can be a wine thief so you've probably seen a wine thief it's it's kind of like a turkey baster type of thing and it's used to draw wine or any kind of homebrew up out of the fermentation carboy and put into another container like graduated cylinder if you're taking a hydrometer reading but in a pinch like say you wanted to taste a little bit of a 1 gallon batch this works just the same way that needs to be cleaned but let me show you what I mean when you were a kid did you ever put your straw down inside your drink put your thumb over it and lift it up and out same kind of concept with your bottling wand you can stick it in pump the stopper a few times and draw some liquid out easy as that I've got sanitizer in my mead so this is kind of a weird little hack but if you need it say you just want to grab a quick taste and see how something's doing your bottling wand is your friend and of course be sure to sanitize it number 5 schedule your racking z' when you need to rack something you need to have it moved typically many days in advance at least 24 hours in advance unless the lease at the bottom is just incredibly well compacted even then moving it more than like 10 or 12 feet could create problems even if you've got an ice compaction at the bottom of your fermenter scheduling your racking z' helps avoid these foibles so for example in a recent video I was racking a Chardonnay before driving that Chardonnay 5 gallons of it all the way across town I knew when I was gonna probably want to be moving it so I made sure to place it on the elevated surface I was going to be racking from well ahead of time that way I didn't get into a spot where I need to rack it but it's not elevated and moving it stirs up all that leaves so schedule your racking --zz know when you're gonna be needing to rack your brew from one vessel to another so you can be prepared for it when that time comes it can be a real bummer when you're going to rack something and you realize it's two rooms away on the floor so schedule those out make sure it's moved to an elevated surface ahead of time and you'll have no worries number 6 ditch the bubbler those of you who have been following the channel for a while know that I have a preference for silicon airlocks and perhaps not weirdly I get a lot of comments and messages from people asking about these airlocks you can find them on Amazon I will put a link in the description but these are a breathable silicone button it's a two-piece little contraption where the valve is held on with pressure from how it's seated into the bottom of the bun part and so this creates a very tight seal where air bad little buggies can't get in but co2 can get out so I prefer these because these require no maintenance and they're incredibly reliable and I've got a whole video on that on our Channel now I was a beginner home brewer once myself and I remember watching the bubbles rise and pop out of my bubbler airlocks and it it is a very rewarding feeling to know that your fermentation is doing what you hope it's doing the best I can offer is sometimes these whistle when the pressure is really high which can be kind of interesting if it happens at like 2:00 a.m. but in the long run these are gonna save you a lot of time and concern over these these have to be topped up stuff gets in them from below stuff gets in them from above just a real pain go with these and for those wondering these fit 5 and 6 gallon carboys but I've also had luck getting them into the mouths of those one gallon cider jugs that you get from like sprouts or Whole Foods so totally awesome they cost quite a bit more than these about double seven dollars versus like three dollars but I totally think that they're worth the investment get to the bubbler number seven rinse your empty bottles I don't know why it seems to have taken me a long time to learn this one but rinsing your bottles after you empty them rather than when you need them is the smarter way to go and there's not really much more to say on this if you pour a bottle into a glass rinse the bottle immediately rinse it a couple of times give it a couple of good shakes and put it away you will save yourself trying to get sticky gunk out of the bottom of that bottle in the future I promise you even more next level most 12 ounce beer bottles fit pretty well into a large flat rate usps box put a trash bag into the box line the box with your bottles cinch up the trash bag seal up the box and away this will keep stuff from getting in your clean bottles and you should only need to sanitize them when you need them any newly clean bottles can go back in that trash bag and cinched back up the caveat that you want them to be completely dry when you put them in there no mildew please one two three four five six seven eight number eight freeze your fruit I'm always kind of surprised when I see a home brewing picture and somebody's got completely fresh fruit chopped up in there fresh fruit will ferment fine and eventually it will ferment completely but you're gonna have a lot better time with juice extraction when you're fermenting from frozen and then thawed fruit the benefit is as Alton Brown says frozen fruit is frozen at the peak of freshness so you're getting perfectly fresh fruit that's been flash frozen the little ice particles inside the fruit will shatter most of the cell walls in there and help release the juice once it's thawed sprees your fruit freeze your fruit thought out today you're brewing and then pitch it into your fermentation vessel it'll definitely speed things up and you won't feel the need to be sitting around chopping up fruit because it'll kind of just fall apart once it goes in there freeze your fruit bonus tip wholesale stores like chef supply stores often sell frozen fruit in their freezer sections and they sell it in huge quantities in plastic bags and you can buy it much cheaper than you would buy it at your local grocery store just a heads up number nine reuse your yeast a lot of times we get done with primary fermentation we rack it off into our secondary vessel slosh that yeast slurry up and dump it out in the garden but if you're a new home brewer you know that yeast it's not expensive but it's not cheap either and if you like a yeast we use it we've got a video on yeast washing I'll put that in the description and in a card and it's not that difficult there's several ways of doing it I like ours because it's simple but these are my yeasty friends I've got different strains that are washed saved I got these little vials off of Amazon at any point I can throw these into some water or some juice with go firm and I can bring them back to life easy peasy very easy they're strains I like no reason to pay a bunch for more yeast like for example for example this hot had yeast it's a fixed rain it's not cheap this was like 11 dollars for one packet for one six gallon batch so I washed the yeast and now I've got three more that I can pitch and bonus tip if you really want to cheap out just make a lemonade wine like Skeeter pea and mix all your ingredients up on top of that yeast slurry and of course we've got a video on that too and finally number 10 and I'll warn you this one may annoy the creative types out there make batch labels now I'm not talking about those fun and fancy labels that everybody likes to make for their first batch you've seen the posts on social media first batch just went into fermenter what do you think of my label we've all seen it you know you've seen it and I'm a creative type my day job is primarily branding and graphic design so I get it it's it's it's a fun creative pursuit however those things can be a pain in the rear to get back off of the bottles so I have learned the minimalist art of creating batch labels a batch label can have your fun little winery or brew house logo on it and it contains blanks for you to fill in my batch labels have ABV when it was bottled and what the style was i order my batch labels as return address labels on vistaprint and the reason i do that is this semi-gloss paper that they have has a very delicate adhesive that sticks great two bottles works great in and out of the fridge even with some condensation but you dunk that sucker and oxy cleaner stars in for a couple of minutes and that label slides right off I know it isn't fun I know it isn't sexy but it tells you what's in the bottle and it comes right off when it's time to reuse that bottle and I can tell you it saved me plenty of headaches over the years but I do appreciate some of the lovelier labels designed over the years make batch labels so that's it our top ten homebrew hacks for beginner brewers I hope you learned something in this if you did let me know in the comments or if you've got a riff on one of the hacks or a hack that you've developed yourself also let us know in the comments I am always eager to learn creative ways of cutting corners while home brewing and still making something delicious our website is doing the most on organic an find us on Instagram and Pinterest at doing the most ok make sure to friend us on Instagram we'll friend your back we love looking at all the DIY doing the most kind of content on Instagram these days super fun very inspiring I know this video is a little bit of a departure from our usual but I've been building this list in my head for a while and it felt like it was time to finally put it out into the universe thanks for watching if you want to see more content like this hit that subscribe button and we'll see you next time

Channel: Doin' the Most Brewing

Views: 194,045

Keywords: beer, wine, cider, mead, howto, brew, homebrewing, home brew, hacks, tips, tricks, beginner, amateur, novice, starsan, spray bottle, labels, oxyclean, dishwasher door, kveik, voss, hothead, hornindal, lutra, polycarbonate hydrometer, tips and tricks, homebrew tips, homebrewing hacks, homebrewing tricks, advice for beginners, make beer at home, make mead at home, how to make mead, how to make wine, how to home brew, home brew beer, home brew cider, mead at home, honey wine, meadmaking, dointhemost

Id: FvaI8FcR3AE

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020