TOP TEN HOMEBREWING HACKS: Tips and Tricks for Beginner Brewers

In about a decade of homebrewing, I've learned a lot. Usually by trying and failing. And sometimes by looking for shortcuts that don't impact the quality of the end product. For beginner homebrewers, there can be a lot of questions at the beginning. So we made this video help pass along some (relatively common sense) tips, tricks, and hacks for brewing beer, wine, mead, and cider at home.

#mead #howtomakemead #homebrewing #homebrewinghacks #homebrewingtips

[DointheMost]

Comment unrelated: Nintendo Switch friend code is SW-6830-7817-4789 :-)

[darrenlong]

I use plastic milk crates for storing bottles. One crate will hold 25 (long neck) bottles. You can turn the bottles upside down to dry and you can wash and sanitize the crate if you feel the need. Plus they stack as well. And I love the channel, lots of good suggestions and tips

[possum]

Been brewing for 20 years, my best tip, use 1.5 metres of food grade tubing between your bottling wand and the fermenter. All your bottles can sit on the ground in containers and you just move the wand from bottle to bottle. There is no lifting of bottles to the fermenter while they fill. Tip 2 if you have empty bottles, brew and fill them. I drank a 10 year old ginger beer from a bottle and it still tasted fine. Tip 3 experiment. Tip 4 I find the best beers I brewed was when I was not drinking while brewing

[geekUGH]

My last best discovery was for racking .. i used this auto siphons before but i hate to clean this plastic stuff .. so i bought just a stainless siphon pipe .. without the pump it is hard to get the beer flowing without using your mout which is dangerous because of bacteria.. so just put a bigger smaller tube on the end of the tube for your mouth when you suck to get it going .. before you drop the tube in the fermenter detach this shorter tube and you are save .. this really made my life easier

[repentorperish]

BOTTLES: For Years I've ALWAYS, first thoroughly washed and sanitized my bottles, and then stored the bottles, ready for use, each with about half an inch of sodium metabisulphite solution sitting in the bottom, and these special plastic clip-caps I have (pre-sanitised also) that clip over the bottle crown. When bottling, I'll select enough bottles to do the brew (+ two or three extra), unclip my special plastic crown caps from the crowns (and put those straight back into sanitizer solution), collect and retain all the storage sanitizer solution [sodium met.] from the bottom of the bottles (this should be still clean, an so reusable as storage sanitizer), pour about half a cup of sanitized (pre boiled) water into each bottle, swirl it a couple of times, dispose of the rinse, wipe the crown of the bottle round with sanitizer, then I put my measures of priming sugar into each bottle and plop an inverted (pre-sanitized) plastic cup (like a medicine cup / shot measure - I've got a swag of them) over the top of each bottle and line them all up, ready in waiting. After filling each bottle with brew, I sit a (pre-sanitized) crown seal on top, invert the 'shot cup' cover on top, and put it 'back in line'. When I'm done filling all the bottles, I just go along with the crown seal crimper removing the shot-cup protectors, and crimping the crown seals.
Finally, of course, I give each bottle their good shaking before I set them to condition for a few weeks.
Made my very first brew in 1969 (yes, the 'long road'way) when it was still illegal to brew beer, ... which turned out to be totally shithouse, and my dad (who enjoyed his beer) let me know it too, "It would be enough to kill a brown dog on mainstreet" he said. BUT, kept on at it, and not too long from there even dad would drink my beers. And you only get better at it (even though I'm still petty old-school, ie I stick with Sodium met. sanitizing, etc)
BUT, the NUMBER ONE most important advice I could ever give to a newbie contemplating giving brewing a bit of a go is, SANITIZING, maintaining clean and sterile conditions, brewing environs, and brewing equipment, is essential. Just one spore or bacteria you cannot see with your eye can spoil a whole brew, and waste a lot of work and effort.👍

[VCaamano]

I’ve been brewing for 30 years with great success, but I learned new things here. Thanks!

[lawrencegriffith]

Been brewing for 15 years but watch stuff like this because you can always learn something new. Love the labels, will look at your yeast washing, HATE the ditch the bubbler. As much of a hassle as bubblers are, the number of bubbles allows you to gauge where you are in a fermentation. This can be important if you are adding to the wort part way through the fermentation ( it happens ). Worried about clogs? Use a blow off tube. Better than a bubbler of any kind any day of the week.

[_film_flashback]

A hack I developed myself is this: instead of pinching the tube when you're filling bottles without a bottle wand just lift them and the tube up so the neck of the bottle is a bit above the level in the carboy. Liquids will not siphon higher then the level in the starting vessel. so you can have fine-tuned control over how much comes out and it's much more elegant than pinching the tube.

[ryanj.hanson]

When bottling, I prepare a space on the counter above the dishwasher. Then open the dishwasher door and transfer to the bottles right there. Any mess gets cleaned with the next round of dishes.

[brockstanford]

Even better #10, blue painters tape and a sharpie. Slap some tape on everything and write what it is, date, etc. Stays on great and comes off without trouble.

[loveGODlikebeerlivetoserve]

Nice bud. Home brewing for 8, pro-brewer for 5, and still come back weekly to watch and learn from all sorts of people and videos. Appreciate the share👍

[davidwalter]

I would strongly recommend using a blow-off tube during primary fermentation. Also, labels printed on a laser printer won't run when wet, and you can apply them to glass bottles by brushing the back of them with milk. They stay on just fine, and then come off no muss, no fuss in water.

[johno]

My bottling wand failed too but luckily i was able to fix ... in the middle of bottling. Buy 4 bottling wands!! Sorry but Ill never give up my bubbler. Love watching the bubbles

[thomasbaumann]

For the labels here is the Hack I'm using : I print my labels at home and brush the rear with milk to make them stick to the bottles !
Works wunderfully and no problems to get them off :)

[jkuhl]

"Buy two of everything". Can confirm. Had a hydrometer who's paper somehow got moved inside the glass to the point it was 50 or more points off literally reading lower than the lowest reading possible in tap water (where it should be ~1.000 provided it's not overly warm in my kitchen). Thankfully I had a spare when I realized it was broken.

[SpecOpsinP]

A word on sanitizer, StarSan is great however i would recommend an alternative for spray on sanitizer, 70% ETOH. This is widely used in pro brewing because it's cheap and works instantly. All you need is 190* spirit from your local liquor store like everclear or an off brand like Gem Clear. fill your Zep bottle up to the 25oz mark and fill the rest with water. 70% ETOH kills bacteria instantly and evaporates quickly making it rinse-less, give it a try.

[mackinnon]

#10

I just use small coloured stickers.

In my brew diary I assign a batch with a colour, then every bottle of that batch gets a little coloured circle. Then I put the batch info (style, abv) on my kitchen chalkboard with the assigned colour so whenever I have guests over they can see whatever I've got.

[lisacarruthers]

That bottling wand trick - I love you!!!!

[terrywray]

Glass carboys easily fit into plastic milk crates - voila! handles for your carboy!

[stanleygrover]

You are so right ‘ patients is a virtue!