apratsunrthd
Well-Known Member
I thought a post like this would be helpful for the new brewers on the site. In the past year, I've brewed at least 40 batches, won gold medals (and a silver) at two large BJCP-sanctioned competitions (300+ entries), currently organize a monthly BJCP-sanctioned competition, and prepared for the BJCP exam. To say it's been a whirlwind year is an understatement!
The most important thing I've learned through all this is I STILL HAVE A LOT TO LEARN. Nonetheless, here are several things that would have made my life a lot easier if I'd known them right off the bat:
For all brewers (extract and AG)
- Full boils equal better beer: I don't really have a choice since I've gone AG, but I wish I'd skipped the kettle in the 'starter kit' and popped for a 9+ gallon kettle and propane burner right off the bat. My full boil beers are consistently better than my partial boils.
- Buy a chiller: Immersion, Counterflow, Plate, whatever. Buy one. Ice baths are not only a major pain, they just don't work as quickly. A good cold break will give you clearer beer with better shelf life and these tools also help shorten your brew day!
- Leave the lid off: I see a lot of people recommending leaving the lid on the brewpot to get a more aggressive boil. Two problems: greater chance of boilover and DMS. One of the major benefits of the boil is that the DMS gets boiled off. Beer that tastes like cooked corn is not good.
- Buckets are just fine. I have yet to have an infection from any of my buckets and they make it very easy to top-crop. You are not less of a brewer if you don't have glass carboys or stainless conicals.
- Buy DME instead of LME: Sure, it takes a little longer to stir in but the shelf life is much higher than LME.
- Beersmith: Buy it, use it, love it. I can comfortably create a recipe from scratch (with a little help from Designing Great Beers), I can tweak recipes, I can make every calculation imaginable, I can keep inventory --the list goes on. It's a bargain at any price.
- Yeast starters are a requirement (unless you're using dry yeast and you should still rehydrate): Using the mrmalty.com calculator, I can be absolutely sure I'm pitching the correct amount of healthy, active yeast when I use a starter. If you learn to time it so you can pitch at high krausen, you'll see the fastest, cleanest fermentations you can imagine.
- Star-San: It's the only sanitizer worth using and a bottle of it should last you a very, VERY long time. Sanitizer is the very last thing you should go cheap on.
- PBW is awesome but it's damn expensive. I've gone to Sun Oxygen cleaner and Red Devil TSP90 at a 70/30 mix. It works just as well and costs me a hell of a lot less. I hate to take anything away from Five Star but this is one place you can save a lot of money.
- Fermcap: This stuff should be called 'Magic Boilover Eliminator Liquid.' I use it religiously and I've never had an off-flavor or any other problem from it. Also, it's cheap.
- Take notes: Even if your session went exactly to plan, write down dates and times. Take pre-boil and post-boil gravity readings and write them down. Write down your fermentation temperatures. Hell, write down the music you played. Notes help you troubleshoot, tweak, and improve.
- Enter competitions: I had to be begged to enter a competition but it was the most valuable thing I've done for my beer. BJCP-sanctioned competitions give you at least two score sheets for each beer you enter. Get your scores and re-brew your beer using the feedback given.
AG-focused
- Buy a grain mill: Uncrushed grain stores much longer. Since I have a crusher, I can comfortably buy numerous 25kg sacks of grain in group buys (for around $30 each) and know they'll stay fresh until I need them. Additionally, being able to set your crush makes it much easier to get the efficiency you're targeting dialed in.
- Buy a Thermapen: Yeah, they're expensive but they're accurate. Check the real data on any of the cheaper thermometers and you'll see that even the better ones are only accurate to +/- 3degF. Even if you've done the ice water/boiling water test, there's simply no real assurance that they're accurate anywhere in between. Thermapens are reliable, accurate, and best of all, traceable.
- Acidify your sparge water: This one tip would have saved me from two full batches of astringent beer. Lactic acid is cheap. Use it.
- Don't screw with the mash: Give it a good stir and get rid of all your clumps at dough-in. Past that, every time you take that lid off, all you're doing is losing heat. Amylase doesn't need your encouragement to do its thing.
- Rice hulls are awesome: Since I started using them, I've never had a stuck sparge. 'Nuff said.
Finally, the most important tip: READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON. My brewing library is vast. In addition to HBT, I've learned many techniques and style intricacies from my library.
I hope this has been helpful. What have you learned since you started homebrewing?
The most important thing I've learned through all this is I STILL HAVE A LOT TO LEARN. Nonetheless, here are several things that would have made my life a lot easier if I'd known them right off the bat:
For all brewers (extract and AG)
- Full boils equal better beer: I don't really have a choice since I've gone AG, but I wish I'd skipped the kettle in the 'starter kit' and popped for a 9+ gallon kettle and propane burner right off the bat. My full boil beers are consistently better than my partial boils.
- Buy a chiller: Immersion, Counterflow, Plate, whatever. Buy one. Ice baths are not only a major pain, they just don't work as quickly. A good cold break will give you clearer beer with better shelf life and these tools also help shorten your brew day!
- Leave the lid off: I see a lot of people recommending leaving the lid on the brewpot to get a more aggressive boil. Two problems: greater chance of boilover and DMS. One of the major benefits of the boil is that the DMS gets boiled off. Beer that tastes like cooked corn is not good.
- Buckets are just fine. I have yet to have an infection from any of my buckets and they make it very easy to top-crop. You are not less of a brewer if you don't have glass carboys or stainless conicals.
- Buy DME instead of LME: Sure, it takes a little longer to stir in but the shelf life is much higher than LME.
- Beersmith: Buy it, use it, love it. I can comfortably create a recipe from scratch (with a little help from Designing Great Beers), I can tweak recipes, I can make every calculation imaginable, I can keep inventory --the list goes on. It's a bargain at any price.
- Yeast starters are a requirement (unless you're using dry yeast and you should still rehydrate): Using the mrmalty.com calculator, I can be absolutely sure I'm pitching the correct amount of healthy, active yeast when I use a starter. If you learn to time it so you can pitch at high krausen, you'll see the fastest, cleanest fermentations you can imagine.
- Star-San: It's the only sanitizer worth using and a bottle of it should last you a very, VERY long time. Sanitizer is the very last thing you should go cheap on.
- PBW is awesome but it's damn expensive. I've gone to Sun Oxygen cleaner and Red Devil TSP90 at a 70/30 mix. It works just as well and costs me a hell of a lot less. I hate to take anything away from Five Star but this is one place you can save a lot of money.
- Fermcap: This stuff should be called 'Magic Boilover Eliminator Liquid.' I use it religiously and I've never had an off-flavor or any other problem from it. Also, it's cheap.
- Take notes: Even if your session went exactly to plan, write down dates and times. Take pre-boil and post-boil gravity readings and write them down. Write down your fermentation temperatures. Hell, write down the music you played. Notes help you troubleshoot, tweak, and improve.
- Enter competitions: I had to be begged to enter a competition but it was the most valuable thing I've done for my beer. BJCP-sanctioned competitions give you at least two score sheets for each beer you enter. Get your scores and re-brew your beer using the feedback given.
AG-focused
- Buy a grain mill: Uncrushed grain stores much longer. Since I have a crusher, I can comfortably buy numerous 25kg sacks of grain in group buys (for around $30 each) and know they'll stay fresh until I need them. Additionally, being able to set your crush makes it much easier to get the efficiency you're targeting dialed in.
- Buy a Thermapen: Yeah, they're expensive but they're accurate. Check the real data on any of the cheaper thermometers and you'll see that even the better ones are only accurate to +/- 3degF. Even if you've done the ice water/boiling water test, there's simply no real assurance that they're accurate anywhere in between. Thermapens are reliable, accurate, and best of all, traceable.
- Acidify your sparge water: This one tip would have saved me from two full batches of astringent beer. Lactic acid is cheap. Use it.
- Don't screw with the mash: Give it a good stir and get rid of all your clumps at dough-in. Past that, every time you take that lid off, all you're doing is losing heat. Amylase doesn't need your encouragement to do its thing.
- Rice hulls are awesome: Since I started using them, I've never had a stuck sparge. 'Nuff said.
Finally, the most important tip: READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON. My brewing library is vast. In addition to HBT, I've learned many techniques and style intricacies from my library.
I hope this has been helpful. What have you learned since you started homebrewing?
That's just because a few American breweries make some of the most God-awful "Belgian" beers.
