The First Thing You Should Upgrade to Improve Your Homebrew

Good morning. Feels like a great day to brew a strong, dark beer that you can drink in a few weeks in complete darkness at 4:30 PM as the days get shorter and shorter. I have my suspicions this is how the Imperial Stout was born…

-Brandon Copeland

The First Thing You Should Upgrade to Improve Your Homebrew

10 years ago, I started as an extract brewer with a simple “Learn How to Brew” bucket kit from the local homebrew store. Extract brewing is a great place to start because there is a low barrier to entry for equipment. You start with pre-made wort, and get to skip straight to the boil. Easy peasy.

The challenge that I found in the beginning was what to do with the beer after it was fermented. The kit that I bought came with a bottle capper and 25 caps to get me started, which was helpful but I still had to source the bottles. Doing what anybody would do on a budget, I started collecting bottles after having some drinks with friends which led to a rag tag assortment of bottles that had to be sanitized and labels stripped.

This led to a series of problems I had not considered when I decided to be frugal. First off, the labels were impossible to get off, and second the mouths of all the bottles were different. Some were twist offs, some were wide, some narrow - and all I had were some generic bottle caps to try to seal them all off.

On top of this headache, the freshly brewed beer is supposed to carbonate in the bottle. You achieve this by using priming sugar and applying the right amount to each bottle for the specified carbonation you are looking for. There is a science to this, and when you are just making it up in your kitchen on the first brew, it’s easy to get it wrong.

To cap it all off (pun intended), you have to wait for the beer to naturally carbonate over a few weeks. This time is so frustrating because you know the beer is done, it’s nice and alcoholic since the yeast did their job valiantly, but yet you have to wait weeks to taste the fruits of your labor.

The Solution - Kegging your Beer

Kegging your beer gives you much more control over your homebrew post fermentation. Having a keg of beer definitely increases the “cool” factor of your operation - trust me, it will blow your friends and family’s mind that you can dispense beer that you made in your kitchen or garage straight out of a tap. This satisfaction never gets old…

Besides just being cool and drastically increasing the amount of beer you will ingest weekly, it also decreases the level of effort involved and improves consistency in your results. You only need to clean and sanitize one vessel, and you carbonate all of your beer to the exact same level which will make it much more consistent than bottling with priming sugar.

You also do not have to wait nearly as long for your beer to be carbonated. Once fermentation is complete, you can transfer to the keg, cold crash for a day, and then force carbonate your beer with a CO2 tank. There are different methods of doing this, but I just generally bump the PSI to 30, roll it on it’s side back and forth 100 to 120 times, and then drop the PSI to 10 and serve once it settles down. You can get instant gratification for your hard work, which is what we all really want.

If you want to go the industrious route like I did and convert a fridge into a kegerator, check out this article on how to go about it. If you’re just looking to buy a premade kegerator that’s designed for homebrewing, then I’d go for a Komos Kegerator with Slimline Torpedo kegs - more on these later.

What If I Want/Need to Bottle?

You could certainly set aside some beer to bottle the old fashioned way and then keg the rest. If you’re done with those days and are willing to splurge on an upgrade, you could purchase a Counter Pressure Bottle Filler like this one. If you’re entering into a competition or just really want to ensure the carbonation is right, this is your best bet.

Answer the poll below to let us know whether you prefer to bottle or keg your beer!

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Beer Trivia Question

🍺 What year was the beer can invented?

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

Homebrewing Equipment Highlight

Slimline Torpedo Kegs

Homebrew kegs for the longest time were all the same - they were used, busted up old corny kegs that had been retired from the soda industry. These kegs would do the trick, but they required some maintenance to keep them functioning correctly, and they certainly didn’t look pretty.

Nowadays, you can buy homebrew kegs new. This includes the original corny keg design - but there are new styles available. My favorite that I recently bought is the Slimline Torpedo keg.

Not only do these kegs look slick, they are brilliantly designed to be stackable even with pressure and liquid lines connected. This means even if your kegerator only has room for one 5 gallon keg, you could buy two 2.5 gallon kegs and install a dual tap on top.

I opted for the insulated sleeve as well which is convenient because then I can just slip the Inkbird temperature controller sensor into the sleeve.

Since the price is about the same for new corny kegs and these Slimline Torpedo kegs, I find it unlikely that I’ll buy another corny keg.

What’s Brewing in the News

Black Friday is right around the corner and deals are starting to come in hot. However, it’s likely that on actual Black Friday we will see even better deals. Below are sites that are already running deals:

• MoreBeer - Assorted deals on over 200 products

• Adventures in Homebrewing - Flat 20% sitewide with code “EARLYBIRD”

• Northern Brewer - 20% off a single item with code “FESTIVE”

Brewgr Recipe of the Week

Sunset West Coast IPA

Recently every IPA or Pale Ale that I’ve been brewing has been a New England style hazy. While I love a thick, aromatic hazy, I have started to yearn more for a crisp and refreshingly bitter West Coast IPA. A simple recipe like this could be the perfect answer for that craving!

Credit: leomoreira

And the Answer Is...

🍺 The beer can was invented in 1935 - the first versions of the can required a key to puncture a hole in the top. If you want to make a scene at your next party, ask your friend for their keys and open your beer the old fashioned way.