Should You Upgrade Your Fermenter?

Good morning. You know it’s winter when you weren’t aware it was supposed to snow, but you wake up to blanket of white outside. No better weather to brew and drink some great homebrew.

-Brandon Copeland

Should You Upgrade Your Fermenter?

It’s very tempting to just throw all of your money into upgrading your equipment and getting stainless steel everything, a glycol chiller, and a multi-tap kegerator. One day, I would love to have all of those things, but the reality is that I have brewed great beer with a cooler mash tun, a simple brew kettle, and a plastic bucket fermenter or the classic heavy and awkward glass carboy.

The problem with upgrading is that you are trading simplicity for greater control over your beer production. Some people upgrade to fancy equipment with tri clamps and a lot of moving parts, and they yearn for the simplicity of a bucket fermenter. However, it’s hard to admit this when you spent $1,000 dollars on a new fancy fermenter.

There is a middle ground - for instance, Anvil makes a stainless bucket fermenter which is exactly what it sounds like - a stainless steel bucket. It doesn’t have any exciting features, although it does have an add on temperature kit if you do want to try to control the temperature.

This week Brewtools came out with the MiniUni+ fermenter, which is the first time I’ve really considered buying a fermenter with all the bells and whistles. It’s a conical fermenter that can hold up to 30 PSI of pressure and also has a built in cooling jacket for use with a glycol chiller. All of this for $529 is a very enticing deal.

Even though I don’t currently have a glycol chiller, if I’m spending a lot of money on a new fermenter, I’d want one that’s at least compatible and could grow with my setup in the coming years. For the meantime, since it’s only 30.3” tall, it would still fit in my fermentation chamber until I rub enough pennies together to get a glycol chiller.

Beer Trivia Question

🍺 What is the strongest commercially available beer by alcohol percentage in the world?

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

Deal of the Week

President’s Day Sale: 20% Off Orders Over $100 at Adventures in Homebrewing

If you’re making a big purchase over $100, use the code USA2024 at AIH to get 20% off. They often run promotions, and I generally wouldn’t buy anything too expensive without a deal - 22% is the highest I’ve seen, so 20% is a pretty solid deal.

Brewgr Recipe of the Week

Peach Sour

Sour beers are not my favorite - I’ll suffer through them, and I can even understand why they have become so popular, but they just don’t generally do it for me. However, I have never brewed a sour and being a curious homebrewer, would like to dip my toes in the water at some point. This peach sour recipe seems like a simple way to get started - I’m assuming you would add some peach to the secondary?

Credit: Icecreamvillain

Poll Results: Where Do You Source Your Homebrew Ingredients?

This survey was clear cut for most people - if they live close to an awesome homebrew supply store, then that is their go to for most things. However, if they aren’t close by, then most people head online to the big distributors or directly from suppliers. Love to see this - supporting local small business is the way to go!

And the Answer Is...

🍺 Snake Venom, an appropriately named beer brewed by Brewmeister in Scotland, is a startling 67.5% ABV.

The beer comes with the following warning: “We are not responsible for the risks you may take and don't encourage you to be the hard man!”