PET versus glass carboys is a comparison that touches genuine safety concerns, and after years of using both materials I’ve formed clear opinions about where each is appropriate.
Fermenting directly in stainless steel — whether a dedicated fermenter like the Kegmenter or a repurposed corny keg — offers genuine advantages for closed fermentation, pressure capability, and elimination of oxygen pickup during transfer.
The FermZilla All Rounder and FermZilla Conical are Kegland’s two pressure-capable fermenters targeting homebrewers who want closed-transfer and pressure fermentation capability at accessible prices.
The RAPT Pill from Kegland is the most serious challenger to the Tilt Hydrometer’s dominance in floating wireless gravity monitors, and having run both through extended parallel fermentation monitoring I can give a genuine head-to-head assessment.
The Inkbird ITC-308 is the most widely used fermentation temperature controller in homebrewing, and the WiFi version adds remote monitoring and control at a modest price premium.
The Plaato Airlock was one of the first digital fermentation monitors to gain traction in homebrewing — a WiFi-connected airlock that estimates fermentation activity from CO2 bubble counting rather than floating in the beer.
The Tilt Hydrometer and iSpindel are the two dominant floating wireless gravity monitors in homebrewing, and having run both through extended fermentation monitoring I can give a practical assessment of where each fits.
Hydrometer versus refractometer accuracy at final gravity is a question with a definitive answer that every homebrewer should understand before making gravity decisions at the end of fermentation.
Plate chillers and counterflow chillers both cool wort faster than immersion chillers and both require a pump to operate, but their maintenance burden is dramatically different in ways that matter for how often you actually clean them properly.
Copper versus stainless steel immersion chillers is a genuine materials science question with a clear answer that most homebrewing discussions oversimplify.