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HOMEBREWING
UPGRADING BREWING EQUIPMENT
Every first time brewer will find their thoughts quickly turning to bigger brew pots. While using a pot large enough to boil all five gallons of wort will improve your beer, there are two major drawbacks that must be addressed before you invest your money in that 10 gallon stainless steel copper bottom hinged lid dual purpose home brewing caldron. How will you heat it and how will you cool it?
Unless you have a restaurant grade stove in your kitchen or one of those propane burners used at clam bakes, you probably don't have a heat source that can efficiently bring five gallons of water to a boil in less than a few hours. It is even possible to damage your conventional stove in trying.
The propane burner is your best option, but it also poses some problems. You should never use propane in your house. Propane gas is heavier than air and if you have a leak in the gas line you may not know it until it is to late. This means that you will be brewing in the garage or outdoors. If your garage is like mine, it is not the most sanitary place on earth. You will need to take exceptional measures to prevent contamination. Outdoor brewing can be fun and will always attract curious neighbors, but it to has certain problems too. The brew pot will be open, or partially covered most of the time. A canapé, or porch roof is a must, especially in areas populated by birds. Keeping the pot hot on very cold or windy days will be difficult so a wind break may also be needed. 
Regardless of where you brew, or how you brew, always make safety your first concern. Boiling wort is nothing to take chances with. If you have ever had a boil over, you know the wort has a mind of it's own and it will stick like super glue. A five gallon batch can weigh as much as 60 pounds. Make sure that your stove or burner can support the weight. Be sure that there are no fire hazards in your brewing area and make sure that everyone around you knows that you are the only one who should approach the brew kettle. 
If you have brewed a batch of beer you can appreciate the time it takes to cool the wort down to pitching temperature. In partial boil brewing you have the benefit of adding chilled water to the primary fermenter to aid in cooling. Full wort boils still need to be cooled as quickly as possible to reduce the chances of contamination. This requires a wort chiller. The most practical wort chiller for the home brewer is an immersion type. This is a 25 to 50 foot copper coil which is boiled along with the wort and then attached to a cold water supply which travels through the coil and extracts the heat. The discharge from the chiller coil is boiling hot water so safety must come first. Commercial breweries actually use the heated discharge water to start the next batch of beer or for cleaning the brewery.
You can reclaim it's energy too. I've even heard of homebrewers using the discharge to fill the washing machine. Where ever you direct the boiling discharge, be sure that the outlet hose is secured and will not spray. My first experience with a wort chiller killed most of the grass around my patio.
BREWERY FRESH
GLASSWARE
 
Now that I've taken all the steam out of your brewing enthusiasm, how do I get you back? I know you want to make better beer, so here's the next logical upgrade to your brewing system. If you are using single stage fermentation, the best investment you can make is to add a secondary fermenter. All you will need is a five gallon glass carboy, a drilled rubber stopper, and an airlock. The investment is less than $20, and your beer will improve greatly. Secondary fermentation provides many advantages, not the least of which is flexibility in bottling. Single stage fermentation requires that you bottle your beer within 7 days of brewing to avoid yeast bite. By transferring (racking) the beer to a secondary fermenter you can hold off the bottling for as long as two weeks. The time your beer spends in the secondary fermenter allows it to mellow and clear. Hops can be added to the secondary fermenter (dry hopping) to enhance the aroma and flavor of the finished beer. The advantages and options go on and on. You don't have to buy the brewery to make better beer.
TWO HANDED BOTTLING
I can't count the number of bottles I've filled in my time as a home brewer. I have even less recollection of how many I've emptied. My memory banks are reserved for those exceptional brew I want to drink again. Every one of my bottling experiences has been the same and they have all been plagued with the same problem. What to do when I have to use two hands while one of them is trying to control the bottling wand. 
I have always connected the bottling wand to the spigot on my bottling bucket with a 2 or 3 foot siphon hose. My left hand pulls bottles from the bottling draining tree and my right hand pokes the wand into the bottle. When the bottle is full the left hand moves it along and places a cap on it. This method works just fine up to the point that I have to move any greater distance than my leash to the bottling bucket. All of this is being done while fending off my two brewery cats, Babs and Nuisance. They can't stand to see any human engaged in any productive or efficient endeavor. 
Well, here's the answer to my bottling blues. It's a tip I learned from one of our wine making customers and it makes so much sense that some of you may have figured it out already. Place the bottling bucket high enough so that the spigot is at about eye level. Attach a three inch piece of siphon hose to the spigot. Push the bottling wand into the other end of the hose until it touches the end of the spigot. Now, by lifting a bottle over the stationary wand, the bottle can be filled and you can move anywhere you are needed. I have found that the Fermtech gravity valve bottle filler works a little better that the spring loaded red tip type.
copyright 2004 J.R.Leverentz
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