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This is my home built double stir plate. It is big enough to put 5l mason jars on it. I used a old lego technics box with two computer fans and a built in 12V adapter.  It won’t win a beauty contest but it does its job very well. The magnets were salvaged from an old hard disk. After roughing up and cleaning the surface. I used 2 component glue to stick them to the fans. Don’t mind the extra glue on the sides it was from a previous project. It is preferable to choose standard size 120mm 12V fans. They are fairly common and you can replace them any time if one should fail. First i marked the exact position[…]

This is a collection of my 10 favorite brewing books. Since i got into home brewing, i have read every book on beer i could get my hands on. There must have been over 30 books in total. Some books i really disliked and many were outdated. That’s why i created this list, to give you the best of the best. These book are not just for reading once, you should keep them in your brewery-bookshelf and take them out if you need guidance. When I’m creating a new recipe, i always go back to some of those 10 for reference. I’m always on the lookout for new books, feel free to comment if you have something to add. Designing[…]

I am doing a lot of small 1 gallon batches, so i decided to build a tiny temperature controlled fermentation chamber for them.  With only a small budget, using a compressor fridge was out of the question. There are a lot of second hand thermoelectric cooler boxes on the internet sold for very cheap. I bought 2 of them and added a arduino brewpi controller. I mostly use 5l mason jars for trial fermentation and they fit perfectly. You could also use big PET plastic bottles or stainless steel growler. The chambers work great and the temperature is very stable. They only cost me around 50$ each, diy brewpi included. They are not perfect, because of some drawbacks of the[…]

BIAB is the ultimate simplification of the all grain brewing process. There is just one special piece of equipment you need. The BIAB Bag. There are many different forms of bags. The best one in my opinion is the truncated cone bag. It fits perfectly in your kettle and has just the right amount of fabric. You can throw it in the washing machine or rinse after use. Then hang it to dry and forget until the next brew day. It is not the easiest bag to build. But it is definitely the best to brew with. I already made about 10 of these bags. The first one i built was hideous but is still in use today and will[…]

This is a simple system for making yeast starters. If you don’t have a microscope for cell counting, you have to rely on approximation. I always use http://www.yeastcalc.co/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator for my calculations, it does a much better job than the one at mrmalty. The numbers used for calculations are from Kai, a very respectable scientist in the home brewing scene. A home built stir plate is used. If you believe Kai and you should, this thing does wonders. I ordered my stir bars from ebay but you can make the yourself with a stainless steel screw or a drinking straw with a magnet inside. Remember to use food safe silicone. Preparing Sterile Starters This can be done any time because using a[…]