10 Things I wish I had when I started brewing! PART 3

8. Kegerator – gas cylinder – SPLIT to working line. 

You have a kegerator. You have a gas cylinder and regulator. Why the heck wouldn’t you also have a simple push in two way divider to a long length of flexible gas tubing that terminates in a Gas Ball Lock Disconnect?
I call this a gas working line. The cylinder stays where it lives, locked into place so it can’t topple over and damage the regulator.
The line running from the gas regulator gets cut about a meter out from the regulator.

Attach a simple DM two way divider. Then reattach your first line on one side of the divider and attach the new long length of flexible gas tubing to the other.
Protip: install a push-in check-valve, one each line, to prevent flow back of liquids moving up towards the regulator.
So what does this little fix do for you?
Now you have a gas working line to use throughout your brewery, dispensing area. Need to top up gas on a mini keg? Use the gas working line
Need to stand at the sink and clean out your liquid to liquid transfer line. Use the gas working line.

Need to purge air from a hop doser, pressure fermenter or keg? Use your working line.
Rock and roll carbonation method on a 19L ball lock? Use your working line.

Now you get it. It’s convenient for everything from jacketing your gravity fermentation beverages, to counter pressure bottle filling. Use the gas working line.

9. Kveik

Never has a legend proven itself in real life more than the Norse miracle of Kveik yeast.
What was the legend homebrewers around the world used to hear?
Well, we heard that people from the Norse countries used to say that if you saw a person brewing today in their kettle today you could bring your drinking horn over tomorrow and imbibe.

Most of us homebrewers were like, ‘oh yeah, sure, you could drink unfermented wort out of a dirty old horn. You do you buddy.’

But holy smokes, that just isn’t the case.

Kveik is a heat tolerant yeast, multiple cultures of which can provide ale type fermentation characteristics, dry fermentation characteristics or farmhouse fermentation characteristics.
What I find most amazing about it is that it can be used within your normal fermentation temperature ranges and it will take a normal amount of time to ferment. However, you can also crank up the heat in your ferment chamber to 35C or even up to 40C and the kveik will take out the fermentation in anywhere from 24 to 48 hours on a 5% beer.
To be honest, most yeast will ferment a lot faster when heated. It’s just that most of them will taste like shit afterwards.
The beauty with kveik is that it tastes good after a hot ferment and actually when you get the hang of using it you can really speed up the cellar side processes in your home brewery.

Probably the most forgiving, easy to use yeast for beginners just starting out because all you need is warmth and you can get Kveik yeast to fermentation without a lot of temperature control equipment. Simple
Combined with pressure fermentation equipment like the Apollo 30L Snub Nose or Chubby Apollo, homebrewers are now able to achieve lighting fast grain to glass times, and the record keeps getting shorter and shorter.

My favourite is to just bang some Bluestone Oslo variety Kveik yeast into an Artisan Ale Aussie Draft Fresh Wort Kit on a Sunday. Crank the heat to 35. By Wednesday I’m cold crashing and carbonating. By Friday I’m enjoying the beer.

10. Counter Pressure Bottling Rig - ULTRAFILL

T-type counter pressure bottle fillers have been around for pro-brewers for ages, but tap based counter pressure bottle fillers really didn’t hit big until they became small enough and less clumsy to work easily on a kegerator system.
Botting in itself in a home brewery can be tedious and the results can have some consistency issues. Often bottling introduces oxygen sometimes exposing the beverage to unclean receptacles. Then you’ve got the whole traditional bottling method madness of bottle priming/tertiary fermentation to develop the carbonation where brewers are trying to get residual yeast that are left over after fermentation to do the job of carbonating their beverage. I’m not saying that this doesn’t work. What I’m saying is this is a huge pain in the ass with a  lot of inconsistency issues. Would I still drink the beer, issues and all? Most likely. If I worked that hard to get it into the bottle, I’m damn sure going to take it out again and drink it. But I’d much rather do less work and have a better outcome. Who wouldn’t?

Enter the Ultrafill Counter Pressure Bottle Filler. You can remove the nozzle from the end of your UltraTap beer tap/faucet and screw in the UltraFill. You can attach a gas line connection to the gas ball lock post on the side of the Ultrafill. You can take a clean sanitised bottle, slide it up the telescopic tube of the Ultrafill until it seals on the silicone bung at the top of the tube. You then use the gas on off switch on the filler to purge your bottle of oxygen and bring up the pressure until it is equal to the keg pressure on the tap. You simply use the release valve on the opposite side of the filler to set the pressure. Now open the tap by pulling on the tap handle like you normally would to pour a beer. Simple. To adust the fill speed you can turn the release valve to make it go faster or slower. A bit of foam will gather on top of the fill. Allow the foam to flow out of the valve and have a driptray or bucket to keep things tidy. Stop the pour. Take the bottle off the filler. Seal the bottle with a sanitised crown bottle cap or screw cap. Done.
You can open a counter pressure filled bottle a year or two later and it will still be under pressure and properly carbonated if you sealed it properly.
There is no need to wait, you can enjoy your counter pressure filled bottles immediately or put them down for years. That’s up to you.

Nothing on the market beats it on quality materials or performance. Ultrafill blows away bottling beer guns, clumsy T-type CP fillers and cheap quality plastic CP fillers.
When you’re done filling bottles off your tap, simply wash it dry it and put it away until you need it again.

Perfect for packaging up bottles for entering competitions with your beverages on tap, camping and other portable beer requirements.
If you don’t have a tap, you can still use the Ultrafill CP filler direct from kegs, fermenters and other tap varieties using the attachment accessories sold separately.