Okay, I apoligize. Like I said I'm in a bad mood
So, if an OP says "how should I dispose of my beer, I didn't hit my exact FG"?, then you should first tell him where to dump it, and second give him the option to keep it and taste it and see how it is, but never tell him he's crazy for throwing away good beer? Doesn't make sense to me.
Well, that's more of a factual correction. The premise is that missing a FG makes an undrinkable beer and the "heart" of the problem is "I made a beer that missed the FG what do I do now" in which case the answer is "It's okay; missing a final gravity isn't a problem".
At the "heart" of this OP question is "I want to make smaller batches of beer; can I" in which case the answer is "yes you can" and as a secondary "but 5 gallons of beer might not be as much as you think". But that *is* secondary and it *is* opinion.
I think it's pretty clear that the guy is new to the hobby and uncertain. Most of us offering him alternative thoughts to his plight hardly seems detrimental to me. It's of an encouragement than anything else.
Yes, it can be but it can also be discouraging as though one's concerns are simply refused to acknowledged.
I generally don't like to get into debates about what is the "proper" behavior, but you really need to relax my man.
Yeah, I do.
The OP clearly expressed that he thought that 5 gallons was too much because he does not drink that much and was worried that he would get bored with a single beer. Now, many of us attempted to point out that this was false logic because he would not be limited to a single beer.
He would still have five gallons of a single beer which to his view is too much.
As for your suggestion that we should answer the question first, I disagree. If the premise seems flawed, pointing that out is actually MORE helpful than simply answering the question.
It depends on the context. But saying "I think five gallons is too much for me" is *NOT* a flawed premise. It's an opinion. And a valid one.
My point is that if there is a simple *correct* answer (*everyone* here knows that you can scale a five gallon recipe to one gallon) and legitimate albeit non-universal opinion, you should answer the question. If someone ask "How do I secondary" you should say "Well, if you really want to the instructions can be found" before you say "You don't need to secondary and I don't think you should so I'm not going to tell you how and instead tell you not to secondary and growl at you every time you bring the subject up again".
As any reference librarian knows (and far far too few tech support people) there's actually a lot to properly answering a question. There is, as you state, actually getting the question out when the asker might have misconceptions ("I need a book on carpentry to fix a toilet") but there's also leading the query ("I want info on two stroke engines" "Oh, no. Four stroke engines are better.")
I know most of us are trying to be helpful ("Oh, no. Trust us. You will *totally* love brewing 5 gallon brews *so* much more than 1 gallon batches. EVERYONE does") but it can *really* come of as arrogant and heavy-handed leading by the nose which nobody likes.
Anyway, like I said, I was in a bad mood. And I missed that some had answered the question early on so my comment "2 pages and no-one answered the question" wasn't valid after all.
). AT that point, the idea of 2 cases of beer seemed like a TON to me. Now, on the other hand, I pretty much have a pint every night and will have two or maybe three some weekend nights. My wife is now pregnant, so I am drinking the beer almost by myself, and 5 gallons just doesn't seem like that much beer.
