Upgrading Equipment for Home Brewing Barley Wine

"Hi, I'm Mark Emiley on behalf of Expert Village. In this next segment, we'll be covering some of the more advanced or optional equipment that you could be getting. Now, if you are willing to spend a little bit more money up front for some benefits in the long run, here are some pieces of equipment that you are going to grab. You're going to want to get a carboy. In particular, you're going to want to get at least a five-gallon size one and then possible a six and a seven and a half gallon sized one. They are better for the fermentation as they don't scratch as easily as plastic and they'll last pretty much forever. Along with that you can grab a carboy handle which makes it easy to pick up when it's empty; don't use it when it's full. You could also get a thermal strip which will help tell you when you get to fermentation temperature. For this, you are also going to need another stopper and an airlock that's appropriately sized for this. If you do grab a carboy, make sure you grab a funnel so you can pour your wort in nice and easily. This is a hydrometer, it will help you figure out how much sugar and then eventually, how much alcohol is in your beer. It's a very handy tool. You're going to want a nice thermometer so you can measure the temperatures during the different parts of your process. This is a carboy cleaning brush which allows you to get inside there and clean up some of the scum that will form. This is a bottle washer which you can attach to the bottom of your faucets with this special little adapter. And it will make your bottle washing a lot easier. And finally, for holding grains and hops, we have some different sized nylon grain bags which you could be using. This one would be better for a bunch of grains, this one you could do a lot of leaf hops in or a small amount of grains. And this very, very fine one you could actually do pellet hops in. In the next segment, we are going to talk about all the different kind of beer styles that there are."