what are some tools you cannot brew without and you are thankful the day you bought it. mine would have to be my sanitizer injecter
The first thing that comes to mind is my siphon starter (the racking cane inside of a wine thief thingy).
At first I thought that it was gimmicky, but I love how easy it makes transfers. Not to mention sneaking samples of old mead.
Get one, it’s worth every penny of the ~$12 it cost
Oh, and no homebrewery should be without a spray bottle full of star san. That’s probably about as essential as it gets.
my undrilled bung. :o
No really, capping my carboy for manual labor aeration is critical to my methods. :-[
Stainless scrubbies. Get rid of those worthless green things!
refractometer… no more waiting until just before I pitch the yeast to see how I did.
my other is 4 gallon plastic water bottles. I use them the store grain, others to hold brew water for a day or two to disapate chlorine, I use one for my gravity feed recirculate wort chiller*
- I don’t have a good connection indoors for my wort chiller. I fill a bottling bucket with water and ice and gravity feed to the kettle that is on the floor. The output goes to a water bottle. The first 4 gallons of very hot water is saved for cleanup. From then on I recirculate (lift the output water bottle and refill the bottling bucket) until I get down to pitching temp.
March pump
wort chiller
refractometer
My trusty refractometer, hydrometer & thermometer! ;D
like a jerk, i didn’t have a gravity sample thief, so i was sanitizing and using my auto-siphon to collect 9oz of green beer. once i bought it, i never looked back!
I have to agree with pinnah. But mine is a threaded screw cap for the 6.5. Pick up that bad boy and like the song
says, Shake shake shake!
Refractometer is handy but I could brew without it if I had to.
I would say good brew kettle and wort chiller are essential.
And I guess some kind of fermentation vessel is also needed.
My upgrade to a banjo burner plus windscreen from an SQ-14.
Also, my bucket that stays full of Star-San.
+1 on the SS scrubie.
- Immersion chiller (home made)
- brew hauler (lessens back issues ;D)
- ball valve on my brew pot
- wine thief
Boil kettle and fermenter 
Setting aside things without which you couldn’t brew at all …
I guess I’d go with autosiphon. I don’t use it on brew day but racking would be much more of a pain in the ass without it.
And actually as one who still has yet to experience the joy of kegging I’ll throw in the $2.50 bottle filler.
I’m sure that’s directed at me.
I change my choice to the trusty Barley Crusher.
I used to always use a thief and then one day I realized I could just fill a hydro sample tube with a couple pumps of the autosiphon before I connected the tubing. One less thing to sanitize now.
I still have my original autosiphon from the true brew kits I bought over 3 years ago, great tool
I have an autosiphon, but when I need to take a gravity reading, I just sanitize my hose and start it by mouth.
I have become quite fond of my new stainless steel mash paddle (bro in law made it for me for Christmas), homemade temperature controller, and lollipop thermometer.
For brewing as I do now, not as I began:
Natural Gas ring burners. Never ever ever run out of gas.
Appropriately sized brew kettle (80qt)
Wort chiller (self-built).
Accurate thermometer (super-fast Thermapen).
There are other important tools and equipment but none so much as the aforementioned.