What unorthodox item have you repurposed for brewing?

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After making a CPVC manifold for my mash contraption, I had a few feet of pipe left over. My boil pot doesn't have any kind of volume markings, so I got out a permanent marker and constructed this sophisticated measuring device.

Behold: Ol' Brewie The Brewstick!

Ol-Brewie-The-Brewstick.jpg
 
A pool, a pool noodle, and some duct tape: wort chiller. I wouldn't recommend this folks. Worked well until one day when it started raining and the pot had floated out into the middle of the pool. I bought a plate chiller right after that.

 
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passedpawn said:
A pool, a pool noodle, and some duct tape: wort chiller. I wouldn't recommend this folks. Worked well until one day when it started raining and the pot had floated out into the middle of the pool. I bought a plate chiller right after that.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8CAyasNwag

You are awesome! I hoping that the video you posted was of you standing at the side of the pool with your Wort in the middle of the pool.
 
A pool, a pool noodle, and some duct tape: wort chiller. I wouldn't recommend this folks. Worked well until one day when it started raining and the pot had floated out into the middle of the pool. I bought a plate chiller right after that.

I like the soundtrack in that video. ;)
 
What do you mean by "worked"? Do you not use it anymore? I think this sounds fantastic, and will definitely be trying this on my next brew!!! Thanks! :ban:

BTW, I think we'd all like to see a picture...

Guess I miss typed, because it absolutely still works. Next brew day, which should be next mid week or so, I'll snap a picture and post it up here.
 
Best thread ever!

I've got a round standing rack that once held bags of potato chips in a convenience store that I plan to turn into a bottle rack, and if the bottle rack doesn't pan out, I'm just gonna drill the base full of holes and make a carboy drier out of it.
 
I haven't done this yet, but if I don't get a chiller soon, I'm going to fill the ice cream container with water, freeze it, then set it in my brew pot with the motor resting on the top of the pot. Plug it in and the motor will slowly turn the ice in the wort.

images.jpg
 
Guess I miss typed, because it absolutely still works. Next brew day, which should be next mid week or so, I'll snap a picture and post it up here.

I've already been conjuring up rigs I can make to hold the mixer in place while I'm cleaning things up... I've also been wanting a pump, primarily for wort recirc, but this may just be the solution I needed! We never use our hand mixer anyways!!!
 
Coffee Urns... ya know the kind that they use at large functions... when I extract-brewed I used two... they stayed at a constent 170 after reaching temprature. so I would turn them on and when the light came on; I added my grains, up to 2 Lbs in one.... It usually stopped in the right range for steeping... I would check it and if needed plug it back in... the other one I would use for sparging water....

NEW PLAN: I just bought a 60 cup one and I am going to try to use in as the heater for a RIMS system.... I have already tested it and it also "sets" at about 170 degrees... I now need to build my copper coil and see if it will actually work...
 
I've already been conjuring up rigs I can make to hold the mixer in place while I'm cleaning things up... I've also been wanting a pump, primarily for wort recirc, but this may just be the solution I needed! We never use our hand mixer anyways!!!

I used the wand-blender/stick-blender type deal last brew. Whips up some serious froth in the wort before pitching. Started further down but once you get it near the surface it really starts injecting O2 in there.
 
How heavy are these when they have fermenting beer? Which size of vaults do you use?

I use the ones for 50lbs of dog food. It will hold a bit over 13g. They work nice for my 11g batches. It probably weighs close to a 100lbs with that much beer in it, but I just put them on the wagon and wheel them around to various parts of the house to maintain temperatures. They also fit in my converted mini-fridge fermentation cabinet when that doesn't work. They make a 20lbs version that will fit 6g. The biggest downside is the cost, I think they run $50+.

The lids are the same screw in gamma seal lids that you can buy from US
plastics for regular buckets.
 
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