Brewery essentials

What ever your brew space, whether its in the back of the garage, in the laundry or in a dedicated brewing area, there are some stock items that are not imperative but certainly come in handy to have available.

Sanitizer and cleaners

Hot water over 80 degrees C will sanitize in 30 seconds, but sometimes hot water is not suitable in a home brew environment, certainly destroys plastic fermenters and takes a lot of power to produce and can be dangerous. It is therefore common to use a foaming food grade sanitizing agent like Starsan or the Aussie version Stellarsan.

Containing Phosphoric acid, it is diluted 1.5 ml to 1 litre of water , is food grade and non toxic at that dilution and no need to rinse the foam. I've just finished a 500ml bottle i've been using for 4 years, so it goes a long way.

At $8.50 for 500ml its worth having. In stock at Habit six

Powdered brewery wash is my cleaner of choice in the brewery. Predominately Sodium Metasilicate and some fillers at about $12 for a 1kg tub, is used for all equipment cleaning and beer lines in the kegerator. Heaps safer than caustic cleaners, easy to use and cheap as chips. Stellarclean is the Australian version and in stock at Habit six.

Whirlfloc is a fining agent usually sold in tablet form, Fining is the process of clarifying beer to remove haze causing protiens. Whirlfloc when added to the end of a boil will coagulate the proteins and other particulates in the wort and dropping them to the bottom of the kettle.

10 Tabs $4.00

Whirlfloc is a blend or Irish moss and purified carrageenan, both extracted from seaweed.

Half a tablet in a 20 or so litre boil introduced in the last 10 minutes is adequate to help the haze causing materials to drop out helping you to get a clear finished product.

Gelatin is also used for fining beer usually added to the fermented wort at cold crash stage. Gelatin is derived from animal collagen usually the skin and bones of cows and pigs, traditionally used to make jelly, when introduced to a wort will cause yeasts and proteins to clump together and settle out helping to give a clear product.

Islinglass also a protein based fining agent derived from fish bladders.

If you're wanting a vegetarian option,

Bentonite is a clay based fining agent.

Polyclar a synthetic fining agent especially helpful in removing tannins.

Biofine a colloidal solution of Silicic acid in water.

For those who drink with their eyes, another way to have a clear beer is to run it through a filter. Between 1 and 5 Micron filter will get you a drastically clearer beer taking almost all particles out of the brew.

1 micron will even take most of the yeast out so those who bottle prime need to be aware of that. There is disagreement amongst brewers that a filter will also remove hop oils and "flavor" from a beer but I only filter Pilseners and a few light lagers so have not noticed. I must admit the comments I get on a crystal clear Pilsner are worth the effort, though cleaning the filter afterwards is a real pain.

Campden tablets are either Sodium or Potassium metabisulphate. Metabisulphate releases sulphur dioxide when mixed with water and acts as a sterilizer, a preservative and an antioxidant. Used widely in brewing and wine making. It has the ability to reduce chlorine and chloramines in water and the ability to make yeasts inactive to stop a fermentation. It also scavenges oxygen so can be used in small amounts in a packaged brew to keep it free of oxidation for a longer shelf life.

Jewelers scale. The kind you see in drug dealer movies or diamond thief movies. Really handy when measuring out small amount of salts, or cocaine or hops for a brewday and cheap and robust enough to be thrown about. Got them in stock for $10

Lactic acid. My acid of choice for lowering pH in mash and sparge. A tiny bit goes a long way.

There are many other handy things to have in stock that include salts, dextrose, dry malt extract, lactose and maltodextrine. Then eye droppers, small medical measure cups, tubes and carb caps, pH meter, hydrometers and lots of glassware, but one will accumulate these over time.

Brew Love.