Brewing Resources

Here are some of my favorite brewing resources on the Internet, in case they're of value to you:

NOTE: Unless explicitly indicated below, I do not receive compensation for your use of any of the links below or your purchase of anything from any linked vendors. These are just my recommendations and references I find useful. These items may or may not suit your needs or brewing approach, so I recommend doing your own research and forming your own opinions before spending money on them or using them.

Homebrew shops I recommend:

I've had good experiences at all the above.

Products I am particularly fond of:

iMake's The Grainfather - I've found this to be a reliable system capable of producing award-winning beers in the right hands.
SS Brew Tech - I'm fond of their conical fermenters and own a few
Anvil 4-gallon Fermenters - I have three of these and am very happy with them
Exchilerator Maxx Wort Chiller - a great counterflow wort chiller that's easy to setup, easy to use, and works extremely well
Tilt Hydrometer and Tilt Pi - revolutionized fermentation monitoring for me, provides near-real-time information on wort gravity and temperature, with logging to Brewfather and Google Sheets
Brewfather App - Something like a more modern, multi-platform, web-based version of BeerSmith or Beer Tools Pro. It can handle your brewing supply inventory, equipment profiles, recipes, provide fermentation tracking, and more.
BrewJacket Immersion Pro Fermentation Temperature Control - when I need precise control over fermentation temperature, I use one of these
Williams Brewing Rack and Pinion Capper - no longer available anywhere I can find, this bench mounted capper is hands-down my favorite capper. It can cap a 12-ounce bottle, then a 22-ounce bottle, then a 16-ounce bottle without having to do any more than spin a wheel. It's made of metal throughout so there's less likelihood of failure. I've even been able to cap twist-off bottles with it.

Here are some links I find useful from time to time:

Calculators:

Priceless Brew in a Bag (BIAB) Calculator
Yeast Pitch Rate and Starter Calculator - Brewer's Friend

Comparison Lists and Substitution Charts:

Kveik Yeast Registry - Lists the known strains of Kveik, where they originated, and brewing characteristics for each
Grain and Adjuncts Chart - Provides information about various fermentables, including the flavors they tend to impart in beers.
Yeast Comparison Charts - Information about yeast substitution.
Another Yeast Substitution Resource
White Labs to Wyeast Conversion Chart
Comparing and Selecting Hops - BYO Magazine
Yeast Master List - by David M. Taylor

General References:

6 Tools to Unstick Your Fermentation

Open Source Brewing Control Software

CraftBeerPi - Run a brewery with a Raspberry Pi, open source software, and inexpensive common electronic components
StrangeBrew Elsinore - Run a brewery with a Raspberry Pi, open source software, and inexpensive common electronic components
HoseHead - A pre-packaged control system for CraftBeerPi and StrangeBrew Elsinore

Others:

A Guide to Saisons and Saison Yeasts - Maltose Falcons homebrew club
White Labs "Yeastman" - a tool for looking up a batch of White Labs yeast and learning information about how that specific batch was made

I'll add more as I discover useful things.

Grainfather Specifications for BeerSmith, Beer Tools Pro, and Other Software

Recently, I've been trying to "dial in" settings in BeerSmith and Beer Tools Pro so that I can do a better job getting my actual brewing results to match up to the figures in the software. Below are some of the figures I've worked out with my US Grainfather. Given manufacturing variances and possible measuring errors on my part, these might not match exactly to yours, but hopefully they're close enough that it will help you. BeerSmith Equipment Profile: Brewhouse Efficiency: 83% (based on my experience, yours may vary) Mash Tun Volume: 8 gallons Mash Tun Weight: 8.82 pounds Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.12 Cal/gram-deg C Mash Tun Addition: 0 gallons Lauter Tun Losses: 0 gallons Top Up Water for Kettle: 0 gallons Boil Volume: 6.25 gallons Boil Time: 60 minutes Boil Off: 0.40 gallons per hour Cooling Shrinkage: 6% Loss to Trub and Chiller: 0.53 gallons Batch Volume: 5 gallons Fermenter Loss: 0.40 gallons (yours may vary) Whirlpool time: 0 minutes B

Yellow Label Angel Yeast vs. Typical Brewing Yeast

I currently have my second batch of rice wine fermenting with the "magical" yellow-label Angel Yeast from China, and wanted to share some of the more unusual aspects of using it. If you've never seen or used this yeast, I suspect you're not alone. It ships in a 500 gram package that looks like this: What makes it "yellow label" is that yellow box you see in the upper left corner of the package. This implies that it's yeast for distilling (though you do not need to have a still or distill the output to use it). As I understand it, inside the package is a mix of yeast and other materials which will convert starch into sugar and directly ferment it, without the need for a traditional mash step. This can radically shorten your brewing time. For my most-recent batch of rice wine, I heated 3 gallons of water to 155F, poured it over 13+ pounds of uncooked rice straight out of the bag, let that soak for an hour, rehydrated some of this yeast in warm water,

Things I've Learned Brewing with The Grainfather, Part 2

In the last post, I shared an overview of The Grainfather, recommended equipment to use with it, and an overview of the brewing process. In this installment, I'm going to talk specifically about mashing and sparging. Having brewed over a dozen batches with it, I'm finally becoming very comfortable with the device, the mash process, and how to get what I want out of it. I don't consider myself a "master" of it yet, though. For those who have never done all-grain brewing, I want to provide a quick overview of the mash process itself. Mashing - With or Without The Grainfather The goal of mashing is to turn the starches in the grain into sugars. More specifically, you want to turn the starches into a mix of fermentable and unfermentable sugars that provide the flavor profile associated with the beer you are brewing. A sweeter beer might warrant more unfermentable sugars. A more dry beer will demand few unfermentable sugars. To a great extent, controlling the

Begin Brewing!

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