Brewing Question
 

First post, so be kind.

My brew buddy and I made a extract octoberfest labeled as okay to brew at ale temps. I verified with the LHBS and they assured me this was okay. So we set out with absolutely no idea what we were doing, made close to a hundred mistakes, but in the end it smelled/tasted glorious, we cooled to 55 degrees, pitched the yeast, sealed it up, and about 12-14 hours later had activity.

I subsequently read a book, found this site, realized i made more mistakes than i had previously thought and am going to try a all grain recipe here in a few weeks. Where this confidence has come from i have no idea. It is like an obsession has grown in me, we are making our lauter tun this weekend, and next week brew number 2!!!!

My question is this, after brew batch number two do i wait, taste a beer, and try to learn from my mistake, or just keep brewing?

In all cases, in all questions and under all circumstances the proper (nay, only) answer is:

Keep Brewing

Keep brewing. Make different things and do different things and read a lot and drink a lot of different styles if different brands of the same style. Take good notes and when you do taste your brews you can try to identify what does what and what you did correct and what you may need to figure out how to do better.

I personally kept brewing (3 batches) before tasting a complete batch. 1st and second batch taste better and better. Third is in secondary. It's too addicting to wait. I learn and improve as I go.

Have you read www.howtobrew.com yet? I think it's a must read and I keep a paper copy handy so I can refer back to it.

Yes i did, that is when i realized many of my errors. I just wish i would have read, but i was a little giddy. I mean we had 4-5 beers, had a grill going in the background, a turkey fryer (fire), a big pot of future beer cooking. Little things like warming the extract, hydrating the yeast, we sterilized the cook pot (then as it was cooking i was like, hmm wonder if the boiling water means we wasted our wash), i mean instead of pouring we siphoned the beer out after cooling. I read 'pouring' and i was like sh*t that would have been easier.. For a college educated son of a shop owner i thought i would have more common sense. I have rebuilt motors, hydraulic cylinders, but did not think that boiling water would sterilize a pot. I had fun, if its drinkable it will be better, if it is drinkable and tastes good even better yet.

Ever since i brewed that little extract kit i was like, i am going buy grain and do this. I have been scouring for recipes, and reading like crazy. Hopefully it goes well..

Yeah, Mr. Beer is a gateway drug. Same with the other extract kits.

I have noticed a positive correlation between having several HBs while brewing and mistakes. Fortunately the yeasties and time seem to make almost any brew palatable. Having a few while firing up the grille next to a flaming turkey fryer may be sub-optimal. Don't want to get injured and have to stop brewing for a while. That would be a drag.

Doesn't sound like you made any mistakes so much as did things a little less efficiently than you could have.

LoL, Hey my Weber was a good ten feet from the turkey fryer/brew pot. And you must drink beer while making beer. I think that if you are making beer whilst not consuming it, you throw off the universe's beer balance, who wants that? We had a 90 minute boil, plus we had to heat 4 gallons of water, plus cleaning everything. It was a good 3.5 hour process, 4 beers 3.5 hours is just about a perfect ratio.

I don't like to drink and brew... It throws me off my game... I treat this as a professional process somehow.

My problem is that I keep changing and upgrading my process so fast that no 2 brews are quite the same, therefore I'm always in adaptation mode. If I ever reach a "steady state" (engineering joke lol), I might start to be able to relax and start drinking a few pints....