marcownz747
Certified Cicerone, YPG vet
We all have them. Cheap workarounds for things we haven't yet invested in. "No I don't". Yes, you do, you liar. "But I'm rich". Oh, sorry.
Most of us are debating our next upgrade. For some of us it's a 10 gallon pot to get into all grain. For others it's an oxygenation stone, so that we can perfect that triple decoction Doppelbock. But the fact is, we all have something we want... and we all have some inexpensive way of working around our lack-of-that-thing for now.
I want to know what your workarounds are.
I'll start with some of mine:
1) The Poor Man's Beer Gun. Since I do mostly kegging, I haven't invested the money in a beer gun. I don't like bottling. It's messy, it's a pain, it's time consuming... and for the price of 4 cases of new bottles, I can get a new keg. But on the occasion that I do a brew (Beer, mead, or braggot) that I want to shelve for a couple of years in my cellar... I need a way of filling my bottle. For that, I use the poor man's bottle filler. It's not as ineffective as opening your Cornie into a bottle, and it's not as effective as using a beer gun... but it gets the job done. Using a rubber stopper and a racking cane, you can fill a bottle under pressure... kind of. Here's a video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pWISuhSC7s[/ame]
2) BB Gun CO2 canisters. No, that's probably not the correct name. I only know that the kids around here use small CO2 canisters to fill their BB guns. Well... you know how oxygen is bad for beer/mead/wine which has finished fermentation? Well... when somebody is done with fermentation, but wants to check on their beer/wine/mead for a gravity/taste/acid test... it's pretty useful to displace any added air with inert (well, inert enough for yeast which has finished fermenting) gas. At the winery I work at, we have a separate container of CO2 with a CO2 spray gun attached. At home, I haven't invested in such a device yet. So, instead, I use an empty (sanitized) keg pressurized with CO2... and when my kegs are all full (as they usually are), I use a BB gun CO2 canister and a CO2 cracker to diaplace oxygen. It's better than nothing and WILL put you above those who won't do anything to replace oxygen after fermentation, but it's not something I would do when trying to win a national/international competition.
So let's hear it. What are YOUR workarounds? If you see one that you find useful already use, like that post. If you have a more effective workaround to a previously listed one, please share it.
Most of us are debating our next upgrade. For some of us it's a 10 gallon pot to get into all grain. For others it's an oxygenation stone, so that we can perfect that triple decoction Doppelbock. But the fact is, we all have something we want... and we all have some inexpensive way of working around our lack-of-that-thing for now.
I want to know what your workarounds are.
I'll start with some of mine:
1) The Poor Man's Beer Gun. Since I do mostly kegging, I haven't invested the money in a beer gun. I don't like bottling. It's messy, it's a pain, it's time consuming... and for the price of 4 cases of new bottles, I can get a new keg. But on the occasion that I do a brew (Beer, mead, or braggot) that I want to shelve for a couple of years in my cellar... I need a way of filling my bottle. For that, I use the poor man's bottle filler. It's not as ineffective as opening your Cornie into a bottle, and it's not as effective as using a beer gun... but it gets the job done. Using a rubber stopper and a racking cane, you can fill a bottle under pressure... kind of. Here's a video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pWISuhSC7s[/ame]
2) BB Gun CO2 canisters. No, that's probably not the correct name. I only know that the kids around here use small CO2 canisters to fill their BB guns. Well... you know how oxygen is bad for beer/mead/wine which has finished fermentation? Well... when somebody is done with fermentation, but wants to check on their beer/wine/mead for a gravity/taste/acid test... it's pretty useful to displace any added air with inert (well, inert enough for yeast which has finished fermenting) gas. At the winery I work at, we have a separate container of CO2 with a CO2 spray gun attached. At home, I haven't invested in such a device yet. So, instead, I use an empty (sanitized) keg pressurized with CO2... and when my kegs are all full (as they usually are), I use a BB gun CO2 canister and a CO2 cracker to diaplace oxygen. It's better than nothing and WILL put you above those who won't do anything to replace oxygen after fermentation, but it's not something I would do when trying to win a national/international competition.
So let's hear it. What are YOUR workarounds? If you see one that you find useful already use, like that post. If you have a more effective workaround to a previously listed one, please share it.
