Building Your Own Homebrew Lab: Essential Tools and Techniques

Good morning. This week I’m writing to you from Switzerland - we are staying in the beautiful town of Bad Ragaz, nestled in the Alps. While their neighbors cast a shadow over Switzerland in terms of wine (France/Italy) and beer (Germany), Switzerland produces excellent wine and beer, and we will be on a mission to taste as much as we can.

-Brandon Copeland

Building Your Own Homebrew Lab: Essential Tools and Techniques

If you're serious about improving your homebrew, building a “mini lab” is a great way to up your game. It might sound a bit intimidating at first, but with a few essential tools and a little know-how, you can monitor and fine-tune your brewing process like a pro.

A great homebrew lab begins with some simple yet effective tools. A hydrometer or refractometer will help you track your brew’s gravity, allowing you to monitor the fermentation progress and determine your beer’s alcohol content. These gadgets are inexpensive and give you an accurate read on how your yeast is performing.

Next up, pH strips or a digital pH meter are a must-have for anyone looking to really dial in their mash efficiency or ensure the right environment for yeast during fermentation. If you find pH is out of the normal range of 5.2 to 5.6, you can add minerals like Gypsum and Calcium Chloride to lower the pH or baking soda or Calcium Carbonate to raise the mash pH. Keeping your pH in check can greatly improve your beer’s overall flavor and stability.

Healthy yeast means better beer, and maintaining yeast vitality is critical. Investing in a stir plate and flask to create yeast starters can make a big difference, particularly for high-gravity brews or lagers. A microscope is also a fun addition if you want to get really geeky and count yeast cells for optimal pitching rates.

While not as flashy, good record keeping is essential to improving your brews. Make sure to track everything—from temperatures and gravity readings to how long you left that hop addition in the boil. Over time, you'll build a wealth of knowledge about what works (and what doesn’t) for your brewing style. If you’re looking for an online tool to do this, Brew Sessions within Brewgr are a great way to do this for free.

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Beer Trivia Question

🍺 In honor of the second weekend of Oktoberfest, what is the Guinness World Record for number of full beer steins carried by one person?

Read to the end to find out if you're right!

Brewgr Recipe of the Week

Chimay Bleu

Chimay Bleue is a clone recipe of a Belgian Dark Strong Ale famously made by Chimay in Belgium. I would be really interested to attempt to recreate this famous beer, and I think this is a great shot at that. The only difficult part will be finding yeast that matches the strain Chimay has been using since the 1940’s for this brew…

Credit: Browniebuck

Poll Results: Have You Visited a Hop Farm?

As expected, most people have not visited a hop farm but the majority of you (myself included) would love to give one a visit. A few of you wrote in to share that you have helped out on different hop farms in the Williamette Valley of Oregon and Upstate New York - very cool! We have a great community of homebrewers with all different backgrounds and I love hearing from you all.

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And the Answer Is...

🍺 Oliver Strümpfel carried a remarkable 29 steins in Abensberg, Bavaria a distance of 40 meters, with the steins weighing the equivalent of 69 kilograms (152 lbs). I wonder how tragic the fall was when he inevitably attempted 30 steins at the same time directly after that…