Ratio: Good brews vs Bad brews

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daveooph131

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What would you say you're ratio or perecent of good beers you brew are? I have often wondered if everyone is producing beer that they really like every batch or if there are some that have gotten away. I've brewed about 8 batches now and 2 turned out terrible, the others were good.
 
The only ones I've screwed up have been when I added something "xtra". One was cocoa powder,one artificial blueberry flavoring.
I don't add anything xtra anymore.
 
I've brewed 35 batches of beer in 14 months. Glancing over the list I'd say my ratio is 33%/33%/33%. About a third were what I'd consider really terrific beers that I'd be proud to serve to any of you without apology. Another third were decent drinkable beers, but maybe something just didn't turn out exactly like I'd anticipated. I'd serve them to you, but I'd also probably be offering some sort of qualification. Another third were...meh. Just not all that great and I'd steer you away from those tap handles. Often I'd drink those until I had another (presumably better) keg ready to go and the last 1/3 keg would end up dumped. Sorry Revvy. Life's too short.

I've had 4 batches dumped outright. Four in a row last winter when I switched water supplies. They all ended up with the same harsh Final Net Hairspray flavor. I went back to my other water and all was well again.
 
I brew about 15 batches / yr and most of mine turn out great and I get plenty of compliments on my beers. Occasionally I make a beer that I think is just OK but I still get compliments on it so I don't know if that falls into the good beer or ok beer catagory. I do have a keg at the moment that is about to get the sailors funeral though and it was somewhat of an experimental batch. I find keeping the recipe simple without alot of specialty malts, and shooting for a nice middle of the road bitterness, hop flavor and aroma makes for a good drinkable beer almost every time. I also find great success with S-04 yeast, much more so than with any other strain - liquid or dry.
 
I had a couple batches that were ok, not great. I had one bad batch, about 3 1/2 years ago. I made the "vanilla caramel cream ale" that was on this site, and I didn't like that at all. Otherwise, all of the batches have been drinkable. Some were wonderful, some were ok. So, I'd say that my ratio is pretty good. About 299 batches that all got consumed. The vanilla cream ale got consumed, too- I have it to a friend who eventually drank it all. But that would be the one total failure, in my book.
 
Made a couple of things I don't really care for; most has been good or at least on-style.

Likely 75-25ish. I expect this to improve dramatically as I get more experience. For example, I really didn't know the importance of fermentation temperature until fairly recently. A couple of my beers with off flavours are likely directly attributable to fermenting too warm.
 
Most of my batches have been good. Good enough that I would order a second pint if it wasn't mine. Some have been great - the kind I'd be dragging freinds to the bar to try.

I "lost" a couple batches over the summer due to inadequate temperature control at the time. I still have the beer and while it's still subpar (read: doesn't come out till you're 4-5 beers in) it's drinkable. The one probable dumper is a wit that got way to hot. Not sure how to describe the taste and aroma other than soy sauce wit...
 
Well, out of the fifteen or so I've brewed one got horribly infected and I had to dump it, and I had a Northern brewer cream Ale that I thought was just a bad recipe, but my Mom liked it and I found out if you put them in the freezer just before drinking and get them blistering cold they were drinkable. My best beer that is finished and drank was my first, a Bavarian Hefeweizen from Northern Brewer, but I am almost sure it is going to be eclipsed by the Little Kings all grain kit I got from Austin Homebrew Supply that was my last batch and first all grain. I tasted it at bottling time and it tasted so clean and crisp you would swear it was a lager. Little Kings is a very light beer like Bud Light, but isn't a lager. How I did it without any off flavors is beyond me, what with all that flaked corn and all. When I see how it carbs I should enter it in a contest. I think it will be that good and you get the added benefit Little Kings has the reputation of knocking you on your hinder parts, and I even chose the 1% alcohol boost:drunk:
 
I'd say I'm running at about 90% to the good. Had a few that I drank just to kill the keg for something else.... But most....I'm sad when the keg blows....
 
What would you say you're ratio or perecent of good beers you brew are? I have often wondered if everyone is producing beer that they really like every batch or if there are some that have gotten away. I've brewed about 8 batches now and 2 turned out terrible, the others were good.


I don't think that's anything to worry about. Over time that ratio gets better. My early days had plenty of failures and dumped beer. Now I can brew quality beer pretty much every time out. It's been a while since I had a real 'bad' batch.
 
I've done
2 were awesome, 1 that was good, 1 that was OK, 1 I'm not too happy with, but I'm still letting it age, and finally 3 I haven't tried yet.

I've also got some Apfelwien that needs a year to mellow, but just a trial taste has me making another batch.

The two that I'm not crazy about were a pumpkin and a APA that was kind of an incomplete recipe. Still pretty happy with my average though :)
 
So far I've had 30 great batches, one infected batch and one batch of half cider half beer that... well just don't make half beer half cider. It just doesn't seem right.
 
So far, so good. But I'm not as adventurous as many here. I'm an IPA nut and have been very happy with what I've produced so far. I've done some clones that have been less than stellar though. Bad choice on recipes I'd guess for the most part. <shrug>
 
6 batches in 10 months, I thought I had a flop, but I left it in the keg and 5 months later it's a good beer!

I've only made 1 "OUTSTANDING" beer, per my standards a 9 out of 10. All the rest have been 6-7 out of 10 scores, good to drink but not outstanding.

However that said, my neighbors are happy to see me every time I bring over the keg or beer off the tap. They think I haven't made a single bad beer and say they really like my beer.

Then my folks came out this September. Dad has gone to many many European breweries over the years and is very familiar with most beers that I would consider "Great" beers. He was hesitant to try my beer, saying later that he figured it would be a bad experience. Then he tried it.... after a week of drinking glass after glass every night, he commented on the last day of their visit that I had made a remarkable beer! The best endorsement I've heard. After they left the neighbor came by and said that he had discussed beer with my dad and that he had remarked how wonderful the beer was and was just smiling with pride.

Guess I'm just a perfectionist.
 
Well, it's been a few years, but the first three years I had two infections and one beer that wasn't worth drinking and an 18-lb rye muffin that has set the bar for stuck mashes.

The only problems in the last five years was beer going weird because it wasn't drunk fast enough.
 
Having brewed for about 5 years, we are at 3 bad beers and another 2 or 3 that were technically fine just not that tasty. Because we brew at our house and our brew buddy's house I have lost track of the exact number of batches but it is over 100.
 
I have brewed maybe 5 beers that I have really thought were good. So maybe 5% of my beers are really good. I have had 1 infection in 5 years. Brewing a good beer is very difficult IMO.
 
I've made 14 since I started last January, including 2 apfelweins. The first 5 were coopers, the first and the 5th tasted good, the other 3 were bad. The apfelwein has become drinkable 6 months later. The other 9 batches have been pretty good. Some great, some alright. But I've had a ton of fun and can't wait to taste my first all grain batch in a few weeks.
 
All of my batches other than my partial mashes have turned out quite good to excellent.

I just didn't have the right equipment to do partial mashes, and I ended up mashing too high.

Oh, and then I had to dump 3 batches when the city switched my water source over to one with chlorophenol. So, I had to flush my pipeline.

But in general, if you follow the recipe you'll end up with good to great beer, and everytime has been a success.

I had some noob mistakes, like not getting the bottling sugar mixed in the beer well enough, so I lost a number of really really good stouts to over-carbonation, but the beer itself was good....

Ratio right now is probably 3:1 good:bad due to the partial mashes. If you account for the dumped batches, it's probably more like 3:2, but it was a good learning process.
 
Out of the 8 that I've done, I've had 2 that I would rather not drink. They had a harsh bitterness because my water is high in sodium and sulfate. They really weren't that bad though. The other 6 were good to great.
 
I've had one contaminated batch. One of my early batches also was incredibly harshly bitter and nearly undrinkable. It mellowed a bit, but never enough. Those early years had a good number of beers that weren't particularly bad, but they weren't particularly good, either. I still had a lot to learn.

Nowadays, I'm not ashamed to say that just about everything I brew comes out pretty stinkin' good (knock on wood -- and it's not everything, either). It was a long journey to get that kind of fairly consistent quality, though.


TL
 
i've had 2 batches so far turn out pretty bad IMHO. the rest have been either really good or average (judged entirely by me). most people who have tried them have liked all of the batches so far, but I think I'm over critical of each beer, finding the little things to continue to refine and iron out in future brews.
 
Luckily (maybe) I have a family that will tell me honestly when one of my batches tastes horrible. My first batch was drinkable (almost) but I didn't care I was just happy that I made beer. Since then I've made 2 really nice beers that people ask for, one that I won't serve to guest because I missed what I was shooting for and it has some funky flavours going on. I have a really average cider as well. Being pretty novice at this I can see almost every batch getting better and better. Unfortuantely, I'm turning into a beer snob because of it.
 
I'll go with 1/3rd great, 1/3rd good and 1/3rd crappy but drinkable.

I brew about 25 gallons a month.

I actually dumped 1 batch just after I started brewing. It would have survived knowing what I know know about time healing.
 
10% o.k.
50% drinkable but not up to my liking.
20% bad but chugable.
20% undrinkable.

All probably due to hot fermentation in so cal back in the day.
 
I'll go with 1/3rd great, 1/3rd good and 1/3rd crappy but drinkable.

I brew about 25 gallons a month.

I actually dumped 1 batch just after I started brewing. It would have survived knowing what I know know about time healing.

^^^wow:drunk:
 
Out of 20 batches I haven't had any "bad" batches, just a few less desirable ones. I'd say maybe 18:2 ratio but all were drinkable.
I only altered one batch and that was only to add another pound of DME (so it wasn't much change).
The worst of the beers was one I kegged. Not wanting to throw it out but wanting to use the keg for another beer, I bottled the remaining beer. I have no idea why, but in the bottle it tasted better to me. Better to the point that I actually liked it. Weird.
 
Used to be I had only ever screwed up one beer.

Lately that tally is going up, up, up and up. Something in my kegs, I think. Gonna get me one of those drill keg scrubber attachments.
 
bernerbrau said:
Lately that tally is going up, up, up and up. Something in my kegs, I think. Gonna get me one of those drill keg scrubber attachments.

I may have a similiar issue that I feel may be kegged related? What king of issues are you having?

I've brewed about 80 gallons since starting . I would say first 25 good and drinkable except for 2 that were dumpers.

Other 65 gallons good with 10 gallons awesome. Both of which were Ipas.
 
Since going all grain I'm 5 for 6. 1st extract was decent, 2nd was pretty bad but drinkable, first AG was good.
 
I really don't know yet , to the four other people that tried it
they said it was good ,one wants a refill on the growler already.
I am workin on my third glass tonight ( it keeps gettin better)
and this is my first batch it's an allgrain ipa at first I was not
real happy with it but as so many have said "give it time"....
 
I have brewed about 15 batches over the last year. About 5 were good to really good, 8 were ok to good, 1 was not very good at all, and 1 was so bad it was almost undrinkable.
 
About 20-25 batches so far with one that could've been tossed and one rescue mission in progress. I'd say 5 or 6 have been really exceptional and the rest were average or better.

>80% have been original recipes including several that were rather ambitious in style, recipe or process with almost all turning out as expected.
 
I've had 1 batch out of maybe 20 that was bad and it's because I fermed way too high. It was my 3rd batch of apfelwein I made and tasted thick and caramelly. I dumped the whole batch because it was virtually undrinkable to the point I still couldn't handle it while being intoxicated. I've drank some nasty stuff (earthquake anyone?) and this was hard to keep down.
 
I only have IPAs and Tripels under my belt...never had a bad one, but only about 10-20% have ever been a wow! Still trying to nail down my own recipes for these two so I'm not too concerned
 
I started brewing a couple months ago and have brewed 7 batches. Out of the 4 that I've tasted, I'd say that my second batch was fairly good, the third and fourth are mediocre, and the first one was not good.
 
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