Ever wondered how much beer is left in your keg without lifting, shaking, or guessing? The RAPT Laser Level Sensor has recently been announced as a ground-breaking way for measuring the contents of your keg or serving vessel. After years of development and testing, this innovative device offers a reliable, sanitary, and versatile solution for monitoring liquid levels in kegs, fermenters, and even large water tanks.
We're big fans of KegLand's RAPT ecosystem. For the uninitiated, RAPT is the range of products manufactured by KegLand that are all internet-connected and upload telemetry information to the cloud-based RAPT Portal. In this post we take a look at a custom dashboard we created to present the data from our RAPT Products with a sleek, modern interface.
In this latest post we wanted to give a quick update on the latest addition to our garage homebrewery - our metal pegboard.
It seems that the introduction of new yeast strains is becoming more of a regular occurrence in the brewing industry, with Lallemand recently announcing the release of their new House Ale strain. In this post we're taking a deep dive into this new yeast strain to find out what it's all about, and what sets it apart from other popular neutral ale yeast varieties.
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Ever had some left over hops floating around in your freezer or fridge, but you don't have enough to make that hop forward pale ale or IPA you've got on your to-brew list? We have, and the next thing we wonder after this is what other hops would pair really well with this other hop that we have lying around.
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Foamy pours can be an incredibly frustrating experience, and trying to figure out (and fix) what's causing them can be just as infuriating. This is something we went through recently so read on to find out the steps we took to troubleshoot and fix the foamy pours that suddenly started happening with our kegerator system.
Beerstone buildup is a common issue for homebrewing using stainless steel kettles like the BrewZilla. This guide explains how to effectively clean beerstone using Bar Keepers Friend, ensuring your brewing equipment stays clean, sanitary and shiny.
In a previous post we covered our process to easily clean beer lines using a simple PET soda/soft drink bottle, a couple of carbonation caps and a T-piece adapter. This has worked well for us for some time but has a couple of draw backs. Firstly, the largest soda bottle size you can typically get is around 3L, and secondly, you need a CO2 gas source to make it work.
Lagers are by far the most popular beer style in the world, so it makes sense that most brewers want to have a go at making one for themselves at some point. But when people begin diving into the world of homebrewing and researching how to make one themselves, they'll inevitably come across advice suggesting to steer clear as they can be more difficult to make than ales.
No doubt as you embark and continue on your beer brewing journey, you'll see the terms "clean" and "sanitise" thrown around quite a lot. It's no secret that cleaning and sanitation are the less glamarous but crucially important aspects of making your own beer - and although the two are closely related, it's good to have an understanding of both these key principles, how they relate to each other and what the difference between them is.
In a previous blog post we covered some of the benefits of pressure fermenting, and in this post we'll address some of the common questions brewers having regarding pressure fermentation to help you understand what you need to get going, and what you can do (or not do) to get the most out of using pressure fermentation for your next batch of beer!
Biotransformation might sound like a buzzword from a sci-fi novel, but in the world of homebrewing, it’s a powerful tool for crafting flavour-packed IPAs. In a recent webinar hosted by Lallemand Brewing, technical experts Eric Abbott and Scott Sharp-Heward broke down the science and shared practical tips that every brewer - from hobbyist to pro - can use to elevate their hop game.
As a homebrewer you'll typically want to know how much alcohol is contained in the latest batch of precious beer that you have fermented, and thankfully the process for working this out is fairly simple.
We're always looking for ways to evolve or improve things in our homebrewing setup, which can be anything from the actual brewing aspect all the way through to serving. In this post, we're going to take a look at our latest purchase to display the taplist for our homebrew kegerator setup.
Our first attempt at an amber lager and we couldn't be happier with the results. Read on to find out more about how this beer turned out.
The pH of your brewing water is a critical metric that can have a significant impact on how your wort and finishes beer is developed. In this post, we're going to dive into managing and adjusting the pH of your water in the mashing and sparging steps.
Fermentation is a fascinating and magical process where yeast transforms your carefully curated wort into beer. This process can lead to some interesting sights and smells, often causing brewers to wonder, "Is this beer infected?"
In this guide, we'll explore the signs (and false alarms) to help you determine if what you're seeing or smelling is normal, or if you might be dealing with an infection in your beer.
Many of today's hop forward recipes call for what is commonly known as a "whirlpool" or "hop stand" hop addition. The idea behind these additions is that they are done after the wort is slightly cooled from boiling temperature at the end of the recipe's recommended boil period.
Cold IPA is a relatively new style of beer - and although it's not an officially recognised category within the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) yet, we suspect it's only a matter of time until it will be added.
Cold Crashing is a really common term and process used by home brewers. No doubt if you're a new brewer you've probably come across the term in homebrew user groups and other articles and are wondering what it means.
If you're new to kegging your beer, this will no doubt be one of the first questions you'll ask. There's a short answer and a long answer to this question, so let's jump in and discuss what the ideal pressure is to set on your CO2 regulator for serving beer from your kegerator system.
This is a common question for beginner homebrewers and it's a very important one to understand. As we well know, fermentation is the process undertaken by yeast that consumes sugars within the wort - and as a byproduct of this, carbon dioxide (CO2), alcohol and heat are generated, along with other flavours and compounds that give beer it's unique taste.
It's well known that temperature is a critical variable when it comes to fermentation - the magical process performed by brewing yeast that turn wort into beer. The process of fermentation is exothermic - a fancy word meaning it creates heat, so for most homebrewers the simple solution to control the temperature during fermentation is to purchase a new or second hand fridge that the fermenter can be placed into, and then controlled with a temperature controller like an Inkbird or RAPT device. The temperature controller will cycle the fridge on which will cool down the fermenter and fermenting wort inside as required.
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We were in the market for a digital refractometer, as we find regular floating hydrometers cumbersome and wasteful in terms of the amount of fluid required to take a sample. We came across this relatively cheap digital refractometer from AliExpress so we thought we'd give it a try. Read on to find out what it's like.
For those new to the brewing scene, some of the terminology can be daunting and confusing. In this post we'll break down some of the common words and phrases you'll come across at various points in your brewing journey into easy to understand terms.
Most brewers are well aware of the importance of hygiene and sanitation when dealing with our carefully crafted products. Sometimes though it's the parts you cannot see and easily clean that are harboring some of the nasty stuff we try so diligently to avoid. That's what we discovered when we decided to tear down our taps from our kegerator for a thorough cleaning.
