BeerBorg

We are always looking to buy new gadgets and gizmos for brewing. Brewshops and online sellers offer more toys than we'll ever be able to purchase. This is the time of year we're putting those items on our lists or just looking to buy them for ourselves. So, how about a list of those things you might have picked up that just didn't quite work as advertised or maybe ended up collecting dust on brew day.

I bought a digital refractometer from Morebeer a few years back http://www.morebeer.com/products/hanna- ... 96811.html . It looked handy as hell. One drop... no matter the temp... and a quick digital readout of the current gravity. I calibrated and recalibrated and recalibrated, but the readings simply wandered. It seemed much more accurate with the mead I was doing at the time, but could not duplicate beer readings. I shipped this to a fellow MBF member in NC to let him try it out for a month. He ended up sending it back. I ended up asking permission to advertise it on the GotMead website and sold it there to a seemingly very happy member.

A second item that is now no more than a dust collector is my rotating sparge arm. It worked well enough. I just never upgraded to a larger more complex process that would have included fly sparging. Batch sparging works just fine and this gift to myself just sits on a shelf.

I bought a bottle brush that hooks on a drill. Had sponge-like material. Ripped. Manufacturer sent a new one and tips on how to use. Ripped even quicker. And didn't clean well. Returned it. I find regular bottle brushes don't last more than a few hundred bottles, but I rarely use them now that I've cleaned ~25 cases. Product is called Clean Bottle Express by Third Coast Design Works.

Hop balls! Essentially a tea infuser! The darn things seemed like a good idea at the time! You couldn't use more than a 1/4 oz in the piece of garbage. I was pretty green to brewing at the time. What do I know!

Don't buy super cheap hops; they are only cheap if nobody wants them.

5.2 pH Stabilizer
BeerSmith 2.0
Plastic cap (fits 1G carboy) for air lock
Joy of Homebrewing
Whirlfloc

RayF wrote:Hop balls! Essentially a tea infuser! The darn things seemed like a good idea at the time! You couldn't use more than a 1/4 oz in the piece of garbage. I was pretty green to brewing at the time. What do I know!

I think I still have a couple of these... and I couldn't agree more.

HerbMeowing wrote:5.2 pH Stabilizer
BeerSmith 2.0
Plastic cap (fits 1G carboy) for air lock
Joy of Homebrewing
Whirlfloc

What do you have against whirlfloc?

What's wrong with BeerSmith?

Honestly, I have Beersmith2 but never use it. I have actually never used it on brew day. I do recipe creation/modification using BrewMate. I do brew day calculations still with Promash and have for years.

I do use Whirlfloc with every brew.

Whamolagan wrote:
"What do you have against whirlfloc?

In my experience ... Irish moss if a more effective product.

A Whirlfloc trub cake is less dense than the one with Irish moss ==> loss of clear wort into fermentor.
May not be a great concern with a 'standard' batch size but it can be at smaller volumes.

RayF wrote:
What's wrong with BeerSmith?

Not BeerSmith ... BeerSmith2
In this day and age ... the user interface is horrendous.

HerbMeowing wrote:Whamolagan wrote:
"What do you have against whirlfloc?

In my experience ... Irish moss if a more effective product.

A Whirlfloc trub cake is less dense than the one with Irish moss ==> loss of clear wort into fermentor.
May not be a great concern with a 'standard' batch size but it can be at smaller volumes.

Got it. I don't do small batches so not a concern of mine. I also filter the wort before chilling and transfer into fermentor.

HerbMeowing wrote:RayF wrote:
What's wrong with BeerSmith?

Not BeerSmith ... BeerSmith2
In this day and age ... the user interface is horrendous.

How much time did you spend with it? I personally love it, it has so many options and things you could not do in Regular Beersmith

too each their own I guess

Stinkfist wrote:

HerbMeowing wrote:RayF wrote:
What's wrong with BeerSmith?

Not BeerSmith ... BeerSmith2
In this day and age ... the user interface is horrendous.

How much time did you spend with it? I personally love it, it has so many options and things you could not do in Regular Beersmith

too each their own I guess

+1

I love BS2. Since I got my new setup, and it is in Celsius, I can easily convert from F to C