There are a lot of sayings about using the right tool for the right job at the right time for good reason - they are good advice. Having the right tools and equipment can make the brew day a lot easier and help you to produce even better beer.

We spend a lot of time selecting or developing a recipe, brewing, fermenting and conditioning. The final stage is bottling or legging. We want to reduce the contact between our beer because oxygen causes oxidisation, and in beer that comes across as wet dog.

In this case we’re looking at kegging and ways of reducing oxygen contact when you have to syphon.

As home brewers we take gravity readings for a number of reasons:

To check our pre- and post-boil gravity - to see how close we are to our expected numbers and what our mash and brewhouse efficiencies are like.

Prior to fermentation to estimate the amount of alcohol that could potentially be produced.

After fermentation to calculate the actual amount of alcohol in the beer.

What causes hangovers? What are the best cures? Why do we do it to ourselves, swear we'll never do it again the next day, only to turn around and repeat the cycle a week later?

What is your best hangover cure? Let us know in the comments.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. You can always look back and say “I wish I knew that before…”, but wouldn’t it be great if you actually knew it up front. This post outlines my top tips for brewing better, easier, more consistently and more often.

Transferring from fermenter to keg avoiding contact with oxygen as much as possible. We spent time and money to make the beer, so we want it to taste as good as it possibly can.

We do the hard yards by tasting 6 Aussie Pale Ale's to compare them and give you a little information about them and Pale Ale in general. This could have been a much shorter video, but we tend to go off on tangents.

Learning to brew a decent handcrafted beer at home has never been easier. This kit combines all the instructions, essential equipment and ingredients to allow you to make great tasting beer.

Years and years ago there was only one option to make home brew, the beer kit. Now you have the option of extract kits, fresh wort kits and all grain brewing.

The worst part of brewing is the cleaning. Full stop. End of discussion. It’s nowhere near as engaging as brewing, fermenting, kegging or drinking (especially the drinking), but it has to be done. I mean it’s cleaning FFS.

What basic equipment do you need to brew a good beer? Home brewing can be very equipment intensive, but when you are starting out a few basics will get you by – until you get hooked.