Best $$$ You've Spent

[Thirsty Boy]

Good quality camlocks - for five years I reckon 50% of the energy i spent on a brewday was spent tracking down, swearing at and fixing leaks in my brewery.... mostly disconnects. Worth every damn cent to look at the foor and see it bone dry.

 

[Wimmig]

My keg system (kegs x 4, fridge, taps, tank etc). $0.00. From the stim payments. Money well spent.
My BM. Brings my brewing to a constant, easy process ***hugs***

Next....

Morebeer ultimate conical fermentor. With a 20l BM & morebeer kit, that's <$3500 for pico scale microbrewing.

 

[pk.sax]

I was looking the other day, 245 dollars I spent to bring in 3 545pc taps + 3 ss shanks. Best beer dispensing tool ever.

Close seconds, false bottoms for MT & kettle. Also, 30 plate chiller ~109 bux. A lot less stuffing around with the chiller vs chilling cubes and pool etc.

A bit of a third, march pump I bought off bay for $100. Made it possible to brew on the balcony in a 2-tier setup.

 

[wbosher]

$34 on a huge beer fridge...which after taking a look, wifey decided that it should go in the kitchen instead.

 

[Stubbie]

Definitely a fermenting fridge, and the fermentation temperature control it provides.

 

[QldKev]

My kegging system. I got sick of bottling and was going to pull the pin on homebrewing altogether. With a bit of a push from SWMBO I bit the bullet and got one. Made brewing fun again and got me more motivated to get a fermenting fridge and finally into AG.

QldKev

 

[felten]

A ballvalve setup for my kettle, saves me from ******* around with boiling wort and tearing my hair out trying to get a siphon going. My previous siphon setup was a little ghetto though.

 

[user 384]

My kegging system. I got sick of bottling and was going to pull the pin on homebrewing altogether. With a bit of a push from SWMBO I bit the bullet and got one. Made brewing fun again and got me more motivated to get a fermenting fridge and finally into AG.

QldKev

Ditto. Kegging took the hasle out of packaging/serving, which let me focus on the fun of brewing.

 

[Bada Bing Brewery]

My 3 roller monster mill. I did 2 brews cranking a marga by hand ....... it was a close as I ever want to get to real work, never again.
cheers
BBB

 

[bignath]

The three things that revolutionised my brewing....'cause i can't just pick one.

Each one of these radically changed the quality, and ease of brewdays..

1. Grain mill.
Without it, i would still have to order on line, long distance recipe by recipe to get my grain. Closest decent shop to me (as far as i know) would be Grain and Grape, BrewAdelaide, or Beerbelly.
Currently giving my business to Beerbelly as i have family in Adelaide and am up there fairly regularly, and Amanda has always given my exceptional service.
Having a grain mill allows me to buy in bulk when i travel back to Adelaide, saving me a shitload of coin in the long run.

2. Temp control
Without it, my beers were a bit hit and miss. Nowadays, strict control over temps gives my consistent results, repeatable every time.

3. Refractometer
Allows me to keep an eye on, and track my boil off vs gravity giving me an idea of how i'm going on brewday. Love the small sample, can take a reading any time during the boil to guage progress.
Also use it (with a conversion chart or software) to check specific gravity. Haven't owned a hydrometer for several years now.

These three things literally changed my brewing experience for the better. All of the other brewing acquisitions i have work arounds for if they fail, but without these, i'm pretty much rooted.

 

[Bizier]

I have chosen to forget how much better life is with kegs.

So I nominate HERMS, because you have to be spectacularly incompetent to stuff up your mash.

Right now I have rye flour in my mash and it is recircing away. That said, not long ago I did implode my FB when I got a bit cocky.

 

[jyo]

I did implode my FB when I got a bit cocky.

Mmmm, that does sound...um...


For me, it would have to be my grain mill. It's great waking up and deciding what you want to brew on the day.

 

[TedAu]

1. Kegging set up. I wouldn't have got back into brewing without it.
2. STC 1000 wired up to a free fridge. Ferment temp consistency rocks.
3. Star San. A splash of boiling water and a spray of star San is most of my cleaning theses days.
4. No sugar and no dextrose.

The bottom 3 are what I tell anyone that asks about getting into brewing, the top one is just cause I'm lazy.

 

[bruce86]

What if you want to brew a big sexy belgian TedAu? you will need to use some sugar of some form.

 

[3GumsBrewing]

Can't pick just one, probably in order -

Fridge temp control
Kegs
BIAB bag and Crown Urn
Mash temp control
House with garage for all this stuff....

3G

 

[Bribie G]

Two kegmates from CraftBrewer. The second one is just plain without fonts etc but is the fridge that God ferments and then lagers in. The thing about kegmates is that they are made for beer, being short and wide and only around $400. They hold 3 kegs, or 2 cubes on top of each other, easily take a 60L fermenter or a standard fermenter plus a cube mounted on the compressor hump.... the combination is endless and with a fridgemate you can run it from -1 up to fermenting temperatures. They are very energy efficient with little wasted headspace compared to tall domestic fridges.

Walk into the Good Guys with $400 and their bouncers would chuck you out.

The thing about domestic fridges is they are made tall and thin to fit into fridge "holes" in kitchens and to save your back when hunting for the butter, but the cheaper ones are quite unsuitable for anything we do as home brewers.

 

[Bizier]

Mmmm, that does sound...um...

In your endo

 

[Spork]

Pretty much what Big Nath said.

Temp control.

Grain mill.

Refractometer.

Also keg setup. Couldn't see me sticking with this hobby if I had to keep cleaning bottles.

Extra bonus with the mill - I get to meet other local brewers who don't have a mill yet, and they often throw me a beer / jar of pickles / something for the privellage of using my mill.

 

[kegs23]

my esky, fits my 9L keg and gas bottle only 35 bucks ,but now i want a hard shell esky with wheels

 

[JDW81]

My miniature schnauzer brewing assistant, not mans best friend, he's a brewers best friend.