Today we’re going to tackle a not very glamorous but vitally important topic: keeping your back healthy when you brew. A 5-gallon (19-liter) batch of wort or beer weighs a little more than 40 pounds (18 kg), not including the bucket, carboy, or keg. A 6.5-gallon (24.6-liter) glass carboy will add another 15 pounds (7 kg) or so, which means you could end up carrying around as much as 60 pounds (27 kg) when you move that carboy from Point A to Point B. Here are a few ideas to ensure that Point B isn’t the E.R.
1. Use ball valves and pumps (or gravity).
Some of the cheaper among us continue to rely on the lift-and-pour method of wort transfer for no particularly good reason. Please do not follow our example. You might be able to get away with this for 5-gallon batches, but unless you’ve recently medaled in a strongman or strongwoman competition, moving up to 10-gallon (37.8-liter) batches necessitates an investment in some ball valves.
Ball valves pull wort from the bottom of the brew kettle and rely on either gravity or a pump to move it to your fermentor, and you should be able to install one in your existing kettle for around $30. The trouble with using gravity is that your source vessel must always be higher than the destination vessel, and that still means moving liquid. Pumps let you keep all of your vessels at a single height: Just plug in the pump and let the electric motor transfer the wort for you.