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I reuse cleaned beer bottles. I have a bench top capper that looks like this, which I think is the most popular and cheapest unbranded capper (though not from the specific store I linked to). I've used it without problem, but the most recent batch of crown caps I bought is pretty hard to use...

I've damaged an auto-siphon (the inner racking cane part) and two bottling wands. They've all developed a milky white coating on the inside (chalky looking) within a few days after using them. The auto-siphon also crazed noticeably. I sanitized them in iodophor (not homebrewing iodophor but...

I pasteurize at home, and getting the bottle out of the water is tricky while wearing leather gloves. Safety first, right? Is there any type of tongs designed to lift up a beer bottle from above? It only needs to lift it a couple inches out of the water so I can grab it with my hand. It doesn't...

I'd like to have the best of both worlds regarding easy carbonation, and shelf life (reduced oxygen). If I add enough sulfites to bind with oxygen, will that prevent yeast from bottle conditioning? If I can do this, would I need to add fresh yeast?

I dry-hopped a batch of mead, but the fermenter had way too much headspace. I only dry-hopped for a day and a half, then mixed with extra sugars and fresh yeast and bottled. There is way too much oxygen in the mead. This stuff will have little shelf life. I can feel carbonation after 18 hours...

I bought a 500 g brick of US-05 from a brewer acquaintance, and want to split it up into 10-20 smaller vacuum sealed bags so I only open each bag a few times and introduce less moisture and contamination. Plus, smaller bags can quickly come up to room temperature before I open them, preventing...

A couple sources told me that flavors and aromas may be volatile, and can be blown off with the CO₂ if the flavor is added during primary. For instance, I understand oak is usually added to mead after primary. Fruit is often added in secondary, as are dry hops. Supposedly these aromas would be...

For years, I've been thinking a vague title meant lack of communication skills. But I often click these posts to see what they're about, or at least mouse over them. Is it possible that vague titles sometimes get more responses, and do people do it on purpose to take advantage of that? Here's...

I assume it will vary by brand, but how long is peracetic acid sanitizer likely to keep its strength after being diluted for use as a no-rinse sanitizer? I imagine it will go bad as the hydrogen peroxide degrades and the equilibrium balance ensures that there is also less PAA in solution. Has...

Employees of some mushroom farms take serious precautions. Shower. Long sleeves. Face masks. Gloves. Long sleeves. No singing. Stationary, sanitized or sterile air. We don't need to use that abundance of care, since yeast can fight. Most of us carefully sanitize containers, bottles, and hoses...

Ordering liquids annoys me, since I always have to pay for shipping. I realized iodophor is sold as a powder, so I decided to make my own. This only makes sense if you want to make several gallons, or if you can get the powder in small quantity. Note that this is not the same as BTF Iodophor or...

So I made my own iodophor*, and was wondering if this sanitizer (and all others) need a surfactant. When you shake up some sanitizer in your carboy or bottling bucket, it would be ideal if it coats the surface and keeps it wet. This is why Star San makes foam and teat dip (bulk iodophor for...

Does yeast need potassium during growth, or during anaerobic fermentation, or both? Or worse, do they want it as soon as possible when pitched? I ask because the popular BOMM mead recipe suggests adding potassium carbonate at pitch to provide potassium and buffering, and I'm thinking about...

A batch of mead was too sour, so my friend and I backsweetened it. When the sourness was reduced, it was too sweet. We added a tea made from meadowsweet (7 g boiled in 200 mL of water) and it nicely reduced the impact of the extra honey. We also made a similar tea from yarrow, but didn't end up...

I found a plastic square jug that's exactly the capacity and shape I want. My engineer friends tell me I can heat/stretch the flat bottom into a cone. I've seen videos that show people adding taps using bulkhead fittings. My question is, since the cone-bottom valve is supposed to dump yeast...

Medical iodophors like Betadine (and teat dip for cows) are made up of iodine complexed with povidone (often written PVP). That formulation is extremely popular. But: BTF iodophor is complexed with butoxy polypropoxy polyethoxy ethanol. IO-Star is complexed with butoxy polypropoxy polyethoxy...

My current stir plate is basically a computer fan. The torque isn't bad, as the fan will try to control its own speed (4-wire fan taking a PWM signal for speed), so power isn't automatically reduced when I turn it to low speed--only when it's moving too fast. There must be some kind of feedback...

Peptone is one of the major organic nitrogen sources used in microbiology, and it's easy to buy or manufacture yourself by using an enzyme to digest protein (soy protein isolate or casein isolate with no lactose). It's not so easy to get Fermaid O in my country, and it looks like it just...