Many homebrewers will go spend money on new homebrewing equipment, fancy homebrew bottles, and expensive homebrewing supplies but will overlook the most important piece of homebrewing equipment. A homebrewing journal.

There are many ways to keep a homebrew journal. Some people start a homebrewing blog, some buy fancy journals from homebrew shops, and others use a simple notebook. My main homebrew notebook was stained and dirty and had been through many different mishaps. It had a bottle stain on the cover from an over carbonated beer over flowing on the cover. I can no longer find my oldest journal and even though I was using beer brew kits, I still feel like something is missing from my journey.

I used the journal to copy down the beer recipe, note brewing temps and boil over’s, and review the taste of the beer. Additionally I would make notes before drinking the first beer. I would write about color, clarity, taste, smell, and give the beer an overall beer rating.

After 5 moves and 3 states in the past 5 years I have sold my brewing equipment. After moving a refrigerator, 10 Cornelius kegs, kettles, bottles, fermenters, CO2 tanks twice I determined I would replace my equipment for less than it cost me per move. I am in process of designing my new system, on the cheap. I will still have my most important tool, my second brew journal.

When I fire up the brewery next time I will be using BeerTools to keep my journals.

Basics of Homebrewing Beer

The normal batch of homebrewed beer is five gallons in volume, which is enough for 2 cases, or 48 12 ounce bottle of beer.