Any one out there have Brew Balls?
Worth it?
I saw that advertisement in Zymurgy the issue before this last one and looked them up. One they seem pricey for what they do. Two, they’re giving a pretty broad range of gravity’s (assuming they’re accurate). And three, do you really need that information? It’s pretty obvious roughly where you are in the fermentation process just by looking at the fermentor, the airlock, etc.
They claim that their product is less risky toward contamination. I would be more concerned about contamination from putting my dirty balls in the beer ;D than popping the airlock off for a gravity sample.
I use apathy. Very low risk of contamination from that.
These things look pretty cool
This is where I get to say “If you can’t take a gravity reading without contaminating your beer, perhaps you should consider taking up knitting for a hobby”!
They should be marketing the laziness enabling aspect of this product. You can get a good estimate of the gravity in a few seconds without the ''hassle" of taking a sample and using a hydrometer or counting airlock bubbles ;D
I think it is a really interesting idea. Someone needs to buy a set and see how well they work. 
They are customizable, so the broad range can be narrowed down, but if one really wanted to monitor
without opening the fermenter, wouldn’t the hydrometer itself be just as effective in there. Crud aside it
would probably just “Center” itself in the carboy because of the neck.
"…I’ve got big balls
They’re such big balls
And they’re dirty big balls
And he’s got big balls
And she’s got big balls
But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all!"
AC/DC
Maybe BrewBalls should use AC/DC’s song as their jingle? ;D
I love that one.
I cannot see them work well and reliably. When you put then in your beer, most of them will actually fall to the bottom during fermentation since the CO2 that is bubbling out of solution lowers their buoyancy significantly. You can see that when you are trying to gravity reading from a carbonated sample. If that is not happening then they may float more than they should b/c of the CO2 bubbles attached to them.
Based on that, they can’t be used to monitor gravity during fermentation. Once the beer is still you may have crud on them which changes their weight. And In addition to that, you can only use them in beers that are clear enough for you to see them. Try using them in a RIS.
IMHO, it’s a neat but rather useless idea for brewing.
Kai
Not worth it. For reasons stated above. These probably will be bought by new brewers, who will abandon them after several uses.
Let me correct that. I think they are designed such that the colored marking will always float up. This means that you could see them floating at the surface given that there is no residual Kraeusen.
Kai
So, you’re saying these will be the next “Fermentap”?
Quite likely, but there’ll always be someone who swears by them. ;D
though i don’t do it, i know people that just toss in a hydrometer when the ferment. they can pretty much watch it slowly sink over the course of fermentation. what i don’t know is what happens when your krausen gets all over it so a. you can’t read it, b. its sitting lower in the beer than it should due to the added weight of the beer stone and c. how you get it out without breaking it so you can clean it thoroughly. always seemed like too much of a pita to me. i pretty much just wait a week or two after fermentation appears done to make sure its as low as it’s gonna go.
Which is what you have to do with these balls as well since you need to be able to see which ones are still floating on top.
Maybe Zymurgy could have a “best and worst brewing gadget of the Month” colum.
Kai
[quote]Maybe Zymurgy could have a “best and worst brewing gadget of the Month” colum.
[/quote]
How about a Sticky in the Equipment section?
Were I to waste $20 on these, I would only add those that were close to my target gravity, usually the 10 and 20. The higher gravities don’t seem useful, other than showing that fermentation is occurring but there are plenty of other clues for that.
I’d put my own balls in my beer before I wasted that kind of money on such a useless product. Good thing for me and my friends I’m not into wasting money.