Worst equipment purchases

[VP Brewing]

Blichmann beer gun. Messy, difficult to use and flat bottles. Some can do it, not me.

Amen!

 

[GalBrew]

Amen!

Seriously, I just don't get the issues that people have with this thing. Just chill your bottles down, jack up your carbonation a touch beforehand and fill slowly. Works great. I always use it to bottle for comps and have never had any negative comments regarding carbonation levels.

 

[michaeld16]

Seriously, I just don't get the issues that people have with this thing. Just chill your bottles down, jack up your carbonation a touch beforehand and fill slowly. Works great. I always use it to bottle for comps and have never had any negative comments regarding carbonation levels.

+1

 

[MaltyHops]

* Still not my worst purchase. Out of date kits should be thrown out by lhbs and not sold to unsuspecting and trusting customers.

While it's still not the best to end up with old kits, they are good for making starters (obviously don't add the spent wort) so have their use.

 

[Nizmoose]

While it's still not the best to end up with old kits, they are good for making starters (obviously don't add the spent wort) so have their use.

True but LHBS's shouldnt be selling them as good kits, they should be discounted and clearly labelled as past their use by date

 

[Yob]

those screw type disconnects with the push in connector.. worst buy ever, recently swapped them all out for Barb ones and I'm much happier

 

[Blind Dog]

pin lock kegs. Saved $15 a keg and then spent $40 (plus new disconnects) on each to convert to ball locks with prv lids. Could just about have bought band new Chinese ball locks for that

cheap gas manifolds for the keezer

and probably the filter, although I'm still stubbornly optimistic that one day I'll get it to work

 

[mckenry]

Seriously, I just don't get the issues that people have with this thing. Just chill your bottles down, jack up your carbonation a touch beforehand and fill slowly. Works great. I always use it to bottle for comps and have never had any negative comments regarding carbonation levels.

This is the problem. 'a touch', 'beforehand' and 'slowly' are all subjective variables.
I ****** the blichmann off and bought a font mounted one that grabs the bottle. Now, this puppy works.
.

 

[GalBrew]

Ok, I put my bottles in the freezer for 2 hours before filling. I up my regulator pressure by 4 PSI for 3-4 days before bottling. I then bottle the beer at 4PSI and cap on foam, so I am left with 1/2 inch of headspace.

 

[Rocker1986]

At one point I probably would have said a 1 litre flask. However, while I don't use it for yeast starters anymore, it has found a use as a container to drain wort from the kettle into for checking pre and post boil SG measurements. Otherwise, Brewbrite is probably up there, it hasn't done much aside from encourage precipitation of trub post boil, but I also don't think I've been using enough of it in each batch. Will experiment further with that. All in all I think the one thing I have purchased and rarely used is a hop bag. I used it in one boil back in my extract days, and for dry hopping once, and since then it's just sat there doing nothing. It worked fine but is just a pain in the arse to clean out.

 

[Phoney]

those screw type disconnects with the push in connector.. worst buy ever, recently swapped them all out for Barb ones and I'm much happier

What you mean John Guest disconnects? Seriously?

I find the barbs a mega PITA to put on (especially 5mm ID), if you don't squeeze the o ring tight enough they leak, and if you kink the line close to the barb it can tear a split into the line. JG = plug and play

 

[drsmurto]

FWIW I've had zero issues with my stone in the last two years using the Smurto method:

Never touch the stone. Store the stone and hose in Starsan (made up with distilled water so the pH stays low). When using, hook up hose to tank and turn O2 on while the stone is in the Starsan. Move to fermenter and aerate. With O2 still on return the stone to the Starsan. Turn O2 off, disconnect hose and make sure the hose and stone are submerged in the Starsan. Change the Starsan every month or so, depending on how often you use the stone.

Not sure how that came to be named after me, assuming there isn't another Smurto around the place.

My rules.
Rule #1 - Never touch the air stone with your hands.
Rule # 2 - Never put the stone in a liquid without gas running through it.

My method
Turn O2 cylinder on until I can hear gas coming out. Drop in bucket of starsan to sanitise and adjust flow making sure the hose gets a thorough starsan rinse too. Drop in wort and adjust flow so that bubbles are only just breaking the surface. After set time remove from wort and drop in to a bucket of water then in to the starsan and then wipe clean with a cloth. Turn O2 off, wrap airstone in cling film.

Worst equipment purchases for me were the March pump which I sold without ever using and a hop rocket which I used once before selling. Gravity still works as does a whirlpool addition.

 

[5150]

For me it would have to be the cheap over the side elements from China. A bunch of them blew and they also used to make the keggle very tingly if you touched it, very unpleasant.

 

[Yob]

What you mean John Guest disconnects? Seriously?

I find the barbs a mega PITA to put on (especially 5mm ID), if you don't squeeze the o ring tight enough they leak, and if you kink the line close to the barb it can tear a split into the line. JG = plug and play

Never played with the JG, much inferior the ones I had it would seem.

 

[GalBrew]

JG = plug and play

JG = Tool of the Devil!! :angry2:

 

[mckenry]

Ok, I put my bottles in the freezer for 2 hours before filling. I up my regulator pressure by 4 PSI for 3-4 days before bottling. I then bottle the beer at 4PSI and cap on foam, so I am left with 1/2 inch of headspace.

Thanks Galbrew,
I wasnt aiming at you in particular when I said variables. All those numbers work for you, with your original pressure +4, your line length, bottling pressure etc.
I originally said some can get it to work (that would be you amongst others) but I cant. I tried for a long time. Upping by 20% for 2 days, 50% for 1 day rah rah rah. Any tips I could find, I would try. I was never happy with the result. Then I had over gassed kegs at the end. It just doesnt seem right. Having 6 kegs off the one bottle probably didnt help, but I just couldnt get the carb right in the bottle.
In the end, when I bought the font mounted one, I was no longer looking to smash **** up in anger, when trying to CPB fill. All calm again.

What do you do with your overgassed beer after you've had +4psi on it for 3-4 days?

Edit - So anyway, I might be a moron, but for me, this was a **** purchase.

 

[GalBrew]

No worries, just thought you were right and I should put some more detail to it. I agree that it is a pain in the *** to set up and use, I also have 6 kegs of the one bottle so it get very cramped in there. Once I had bottled, I just dropped the reg down to normal carbing pressure (12ish PSI for me) and pull the PRVs on all my kegs to let the gas out. I would do this once a day over the next week and found that it goes back to normal pretty easily.

I think the most important part is to get the bottles as cold as possible and to fill them as slowly as you can so you can keep as much CO2 in solution as possible.

 

[superstock]

One of those pump syphon thingoes. For the life of me I cant make it work, it would hideously oxygenate and destroy the carefull labored brew.
What is the trick? those dudes on youtube do it so easily! grrrrrrr

Have always had problems with them sucking air down through from the outta tube then tiny bubbles heading up through the inner syphon hose. ( not sure if it's similar to your problem? )
But if I clamp a clothes peg or similar on syphon tubing to slow the flow rate it helps to eliminate the problem, just takes longer...

Are you sure it is sucking air? Or is CO2 coming out of solution at the joint due to the difference in inside diameter? If slowing the flow helps this is what I would suspect.

 

[kennek]

Are you sure it is sucking air? Or is CO2 coming out of solution at the joint due to the difference in inside diameter? If slowing the flow helps this is what I would suspect.

Yes pretty sure. Wort level drops (inside outter tube) and doen't stay at same level as wort in fermenter. Once it drops all the way to the seal (end of inner syphon tube) it starts sucking air.
May try some lube on the seal or even a jiggler as suggested in some earlier posts.

 

[sponge]

Knock off John Guest fittings. Lost a few gas bottles.

Cheap keg QDs would be another for me. Lost 3 gas bottles to different disconnects failing. Replaced with genuine Cornelius QDs and regretting not having spent the extra money from the start..