BeerBorg

What are some everyday items that you've found useful in brewing? I read one thread about the paint stirrer/wort agitator and another about using wall paper water trays for sanitization of tools, and I got to thinking what else would be useful for a relatively new brewer like myself? I'm looking for stuff beyond the obvious items like timer, food scale, can opener. If someone has a complete list of all that stuff, I'll add it and maybe we can get a running list going?

Paint stirrer / Wort Agitator
Wallpaper tray / Sanitizer tray

I use a sanitized turkey baster to do a FG test on my 5g batches. Didn't have the money for a wine thief at the time and still not sure it's worth it.

I was going to order a bottling bucket but after looking around it was so much cheaper to get a $6+/- bucket from Lowes and a $5 spigot and drill a 1" hole in the bucket. (I happened to have the 1" drill bit).

brewin bull wrote:I use a sanitized turkey baster to do a FG test on my 5g batches

+1 to this. It's what I did when I didn't have a spigot.

+1 on turkey baster...
I also at times use a large china cap, lined with cheesecloth to strain wort
I use a heat resistant silicone spatula for stirring wort, and using a formula, I made markings on it to show different units of measure, every 1/2 gal, one side is 8 gal pot, other side is for 5 gal pot

Let us not forget using 1 gallon paint strainer bags as hop/spice bags, and 5 gallon ones for BIAB grain bags!

Silicon coated wisk so you don't scratch the LBK.

Tubing and a slimline for batch priming.

TWO hydrometers for when the first one commits suicide.

Buckets, lots of buckets.

Stainless steel 3" tea balls.
Stainless steel 1/4Cup & 1C dry measuring cups.
Stainless steel turkey baster
Stain... you get the idea. I hate the thought of an infection because of some scratched plastic
SS Can opener
SS whisk
SS spoon
4 quart aluminum cup
Palmolive pure & clear dish soap
Pyrex liquid measuring cups
Flashlight
10 gallon Sterilite tubs
small wastebasket liners
22" Wallpaper tray
Chlorox wipes
Oxyclean Free
Palmolive pure & clear dish soap
Kitchen scale


Seriously, I love the tea balls more than the paint strainers for hop boils / dry hopping, and I only do LBK size batches so not multiple ounces of hops. The 1/4C measuring cup is a near perfect 55g of table sugar for my batch priming. The flashlight is to help me see the dang marks / water level when topping off the LBK.

I use the Sterilite tubs to wash my LBKs in, because to be honest my basement/utility sink is pretty groady. And when not using for washing, I condition my latest batches in them, just in case one explodes (has never happened), it would be contained and SWMBO wouldn't kill me. I also line the cases of my beer with the wastebasket liners, again, just in case for containment.

Chlorox wipes because I clean, clean, and clean some more. Then wipe it all down. Then clean some more... The Palmolive is to clean my aluminum, that isn't friendly towards Oxyclean.

Lots of other stuff, but I wouldn't really call them everyday items.

I cut an empty gallon jug of water in half. The top flipped over is a nice funnel with a handle that fits my pot and makes pouring hot wort into the LBK a breeze. If you leave the top screwed on, it can be used as a grain scoop too. The bottom becomes a tub for storing extra PET bottle caps, muslin hop sacks, or other small things. I have a lot of these as I use cheapo (.65/gal) Publix spring water in the gallon jug for my water. I also use them whole as a container for my one-step (22g per gallon) and when I make up some StarSan. I also have some filled with tap water and placed into the old freezer part of my fermentation chamber (side-by-side frig + STC-1000) to help as a heat sink to help keep temp swings down.

Old frig used as a fermentation chamber.

I bought 200 simple glass marbles to use as weights in my hop sacks when I dry hop. Cheap, easy to sanitize, and I don't care if I accidentally throw one away with the hops. These are 'cat eye' marbles. 4 or 5 do the trick.

Old dollar styrofoam cooler fits my stock pot perfect for insulating it while doing partial mashes / steeps.

Domino Dots (1/2 tsp size) perfect for bottle priming.

Paint stirrer for aerating wort (cheap $4 coffee 'frother' on the way to try)

Paint filters (1 gal and 5 gal) for PMIAB and hops etc.

I use a cheapo indoor/outdoor digital thermometer with a min/max memory for monitoring temps in my fermentation chamber

Blue paint tape for all kinds of temp labelling. Works great with simple ballpoint pen.

Monty

I keep all ‘brewtensils’ in a Rubbermaid container. Some items have been mentioned in other posts.

Silicon coated/Plastic whisk – Prevents scratching in both LBK and Ale Pail. Great for aerating wort.
ONE PIECE spatula for getting LME out of cans – 2 pieces have places for nasties to hide. A one piece with no deep corners make it easy to clean.
4 inch strainer and 5 inch funnel (strainer fits into funnel) for pouring wort into LBK.
12 inch strainer w/long handle for 5gal Ale pails (just sit strainer on top of pail)
½ sheet cake pan – I put a newspaper on the bottom and set the LBK on top. Any foam-over/spillage contained.