Handy Gadgets

[deebee]

Have you discovered any tools that were designed for another use but are handy for brewing?

Last year my wife bought some portable pot plant holders from the nursery. The design is a small platform a few centimetres off the ground and just big enough to stand a large pot plant on. At each corner is a reasonably heavy duty castor. The idea is that you can move very heavy pot plants around the home without doing an injury. I quickly commandeered one.

I put my fermenter on it and can easily move it from the kitchen (where I make up the brew) to the study for fermenting (the most consistently cool room in the house) to the laundry for bottling or racking. The fermenter glides along easily and there is no sloshing of brews or rupturing of internal organs. It also lifts the fermenter off the ground enough to take a gravity sample from the tap without lifting the fermenter.

Would be easy to make but it only cost $30, not much more than the parts used to make it.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

hmmmm gravity sample from the tap. . .

uh huh uh then you rack by means of this now wort and bacteria encrusted tap???

I would (do!) take SG samples from the top by means of a turkey baster/winethief typ gizmo

seriously, taking SG samples and then racking/bottling from same tap is a recipe for disaster!

Jovial Monk

 

[johnno]

I've only ever done it that way and i havent had a problem yet. I usually take an OG reading then dont worry bout it till im ready to bottle from the secondary a couple or so weeks later.
Isn't the alcohol present in the brew by this stage supposed to prtotect against bacteria?

 

[Gough]

Yep, same here Johnno, so far so good. I usually spray the tap liberally with Brewshield before racking/bottling just to be on the safe side though.

Shawn.

 

[deebee]

Good point JM. I generally clean the tap with some orthophosphoric before racking.

 

[big d]

same here no probs so far.well maybe the occasional ant.point taken though.
might have to name a brew anti-ant ale

 

[Linz]

I'll add my hat to that too.
Though I do give the tap a GOOD spray of Terminator mixed in a spray bottle.


As for Handy Gadgets........Just the Ehiem fish tank filter to recycle the cooling water

 

[big d]

just thought of something im yet to try but its a variation on jason y,s posting on ag brewing where you use a scrunched up bit of foil with holes punched in it to place over the grain bed when adding sparge water.
how about using if it fits those pre made/formed foil basting dishes or whatever there called that you find in woolies/coles etc.
recon some of the different sizes may fit and work a treat.
im going to check out the aisles on days off.

cheers
big d

 

[Linz]

I want to know more about the containers in Maccas that hold the sundea chocolate fudge sauce. They look like a 9-10 litre air/hand pump version of a corny keg. imagine...a proper way to serve real ale at home

 

[PostModern]

hmmmm gravity sample from the tap. . .

uh huh uh then you rack by means of this now wort and bacteria encrusted tap???

I would (do!) take SG samples from the top by means of a turkey baster/winethief typ gizmo

seriously, taking SG samples and then racking/bottling from same tap is a recipe for disaster!

Jovial Monk

I'd be more concerned about breaking the CO2 blanket in the headspace by sampling from the top than I would using my iodophor squirter up the spiggot before and after taking gravity readings and again 20 mins before racking.

 

[Murray]

Simple solution is to clean the exposed surfaces of the inside of the tap immediately after taking a sample. I liberally spray with 70% metho, which is an industry standard disinfectant.

 

[PostModern]

It's not JM standard tho. JM - the unconventional

 

[Murray]

It's not JM standard tho. JM - the unconventional

No, of course not . To be fair, I agree with his point that crusty taps are no fun.

 

[PostModern]

No, of course not . To be fair, I agree with his point that crusty taps are no fun.

Sure - but plonking a turkey baster into a fermenting beer? Just more things to sterilise. I reckon spraying the tap with iodophor/70% metho before the reading prevents any bugs in the outlet of the tap from finding their way into the tap mechanism. Another spray after the reading removes the beer residue and prevents any nasties from taking hold in the outlet. Maintaining another piece of sterile kit is overkill, IMHO.

 

[GMK]

Handy Gadgets

I use an inline irrigation filter as my prekeg/prebottle filter.

Excellent for filtering the hops out from Dry Hopping.

 

[deebee]

Thanks GMK for shifting the thread back on track.

 

[wedge]

i'm thinking about getting 50mm pvc, plus end cap, then drilling heaps of 1mm holes in it, work it like a inline filter but less chance of blockage.

 

[Linz]

My filter choked on the hop pellet residue. Does it normally slow down to a trickle,GMK???(BTW first time use last night with variable tap below it)It did its job though

 

[fingers]

sorry for breaking the thread chaps, I just wanted to see if the picture came out. Have just discovered how to do it.

 

[fingers]

Oh well, back to the drawing board. (sigh)