Post Your Ghetto Gear Thread. The < $2.00 Hopper

[angus_grant]

Good luck with the Mosaic IPA. I've still got 4 pounds of hops to get through (well I have to use a decent chunk of them) before purchasing new hops. I should be right for quite a few Lord Nelsons as I only have to buy Citra for that (plenty of cascade to get through).

Looking forward to getting my spare fridge up and running so I can shift yeasts, hops, etc out of the main food fridge. Then I can purchase more hops. Also looking at splitting some liquid yeasts and using them in starters.

None of this has anything to do with ghetto (spare fridge, fridge mate, yeast vials, stir-plate, etc, etc) so I'll be quiet now..

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

At the start of last year, I had half a kg of cascade (cost me about $8) to get through.

Gas up the beer. When it is ready to drink, get a hop tea bag (I grabbed the bleach free, no fragrance aromatherapy ones - or maybe from T2). Pack as many as you need to get 60-90g of hops. Put in the keg with something (sterile) to weigh it down near the dip tube.


:icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2:

 

[pat_00]

A much better idea than just chucking pellet hops in a hopsock into your keg. Tried that

 

[Edak]

A much better idea than just chucking pellet hops in a hopsock into your keg. Tried that

Does this not work?

 

[pat_00]

Might be my hopsock (KegKing), but it isn't fine enough to keep all the litlle hop particles in. There is so much hop debris when you pour a beer it looks like soup.

I've been cold crashing the keg for nearly a week hoping all the hops would fall out of suspension, but no luck. Will probably have to filter it.

From now on, I will only use flowers for keg hopping.

 

[angus_grant]

And for the next instalment of my ghetto grain hoist. I was brewing NIck's Killer Triple which had an 8.5kg grain bill. I realised half-way through the boil that it was way too much for my weany IT arms. So I grabbed some spare pine from my shelf build, zip-tied the uprights to my brew stand and whacked some coach bolts into the top piece. Still had to use my arm muscles because I didn't have a winch, block, lifting device.

My new BIAB bag drains a lot easier than this one so hopefully I won't really need these hoists anymore. My brau-clone will have lifting built-in because it is a bit dangerous lifting a 78 degree bag of liquid and grain.

And yes, I did clean and star-san the g-clamp.

 

[Dan Pratt]

Made a hop back last week. Now to figure out the g/L ratio for my IPA's B)

 

[431neb]

"Avocado harvesting scaffold" redeployed as keg washing bay.



I have a similar one that I hoist BIABs on in the shed.

 

[WarmBeer]

Combination wort-return / sparge arm.

$1.80 in parts, as I already had the conduit and barb.

 

[Camo6]

"Avocado harvesting scaffold" redeployed as keg washing bay.

lafdder.jpg

I have a similar one that I hoist BIABs on in the shed.

Just wondering, does that mean you're successfully growing avocados in Melbourne? I had a nice little sapling but tossed it as I didn't want to wait six years to see if it would produce. And it was growing right where a hop plant could fit.

 

[431neb]

Yep Camo6.

It rated a mention here....


http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/72896-lime-marmalade/

 

[joshF]

Rigged up the sparge arm from my old 3V to incorporate into a single vessel recirculating BIAB system. Couldn't work out how to keep the sparge arm in the middle of the chain/hoist thing so just used a trusty coke bottle lid and 9 cable ties to keep it centred. Pretty ghetto IMO.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

2 pot stovetop method with lauter.

Ghettoz FTW

 

[Dan Pratt]

Rigged up the sparge arm from my old 3V to incorporate into a single vessel recirculating BIAB system. Couldn't work out how to keep the sparge arm in the middle of the chain/hoist thing so just used a trusty coke bottle lid and 9 cable ties to keep it centred. Pretty ghetto IMO.

tops work JoshF.

At what rate of flow do you run the sparge arm at to make it spin? how many litres for the sparge?

 

[joshF]

I'm not 100% sure the flow rate pratty, i just use a little brown pump and a 12V voltage regulator thingy from jaycar. I run it between 4.5 and 6 volts and it gets going pretty well.
I've only done 3 brews with this single vessel BIAB thing now but i've twice used 29L for the mash and then another 8 or so litres for the sparge. Yesterday i tried 31L water for the mash and about 5L for the sparge and still hit my numbers with really clear wort below.

One thing i want to work on though; there's a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom of the stockpot on the hoist so i just need to work out how i can still have all those holes there during the mash so the wort can still flow freely during the recirculating/mashout part, but then i want to somehow plug/close some of them for the sparge so i can slow down the flow. I reckon i could get better efficiency if the sparge was draining alot slower.

 

[pk.sax]

4L mill hopper:

 

[Liam_snorkel]

How did I not think of this before?

 

[angus_grant]

Ghetto shelf support.

 

[sp0rk]

That's brilliant Angus, I'll be doing that to my ferm freezer for sure!

 

[Diggs]

How did I not think of this before?

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1393143671.959625.jpg

I had to look REALLY hard to see the coat hanger, I normally peg to pot handle but would prefer this!