Reading these posts make me think that my beer is only suitable for slug bait.

I don't use any "brewing software" and I don't keep records of each and every batch, and I don't measure water to the gnats ass...

What I DO is I watch my mash/sparge temps... My hop schedules (the one for Ed's Haus Ale is the best IMO).... And my fermentation temp.
An example...

I went to the LHBS last Wed to get the stuff for my latest APA...

I was going to do a SMASH, but changed my mind at the last minute and ended up buying...

11 Lbs Gambrious 2 row
1 Lb Munich 90
.5 Lb Vienna 20
.5 Lb Carapils

Used 1.5 qts/Lb for strike water...Did a single infusion mash at 150 (because I'm thinking my last few beers were too sweet and I'm wanting something drier....

Then I heated up what should have been enough water to do a mash out (I mash in my brewpot and use my cooler as lauter tun) and my brew pot was full....

SO, I transfered the grist/mash into my lauter tun and began vourlaf.... I barely craked the valve open and it took almost a full gallon before the wort was clear enough to put into the brew pot. I recirced, the did somewhat of a fly sparge with 170 degree water because I had way more wort from my first runnings that I was expecting. This sparge took well over half an hour and the wort was looking and smelling REALLY nice. BUT I only had a SG of 1.054 pre boil.

My boil was as usual... and the chill went as usual ... Once the wort hit 70 I pitched an Activator Pack of Wyeast Northwest. 8 hours later it was ticking over at about a bubble every 5 seconds or so... It's been sitting in my fermenting chamber at 67 degrees since just after 1 PM Friday and is still bubbling merrily along.

This coming Friday I will brew a very similar batch, rack this to secondary, and dump the wort right into this primary...

The following Friday I'll do the same, but make a Porter for consumption next fall.

After those 3 are done I'll clean up my fermenters and start making my lawnmower beers for summer....

I'm confused if you are trashing your own brews, your brewing process, the brewers who post on here, or something else?????

If you like your beers, then that is all that matters.

The thing about this hobby/obsession of ours is that you can approach it from any level you want to...you can dump stuff into a fermenter and call it a day, OR you can sweat every detail, build a ubercmputer controlled system, build your water chemistry from the ground up and ferment in a temp controlled environment...Or somewhere in between....and guess what?

You still make beer...and they can go head to head with each other in a competition and just as often as not the throw together beer will win...or the other one will, or neither will.

There's no absolute rules to brewing..except maybe that sanitization is important, and the time it takes for beer to carb up in the bottle...Everything else is brewer's choice and nothing more.

If you have a good process, and a solid recipe, then everything should come out as beer regardless of whither or not the recipe was formulated with a pencil or brewing software....whether it was done on the stove, a turkey fryer, or a herms unit.

Or whether it was extract or all grain.

It isn't the ingredients or the methods that make great beer, it's the brewer.

It sounds like you have your process down pat, and that you know what you are doing. AND if you are happy with the outcome, if you like the beer you produce, that is really the only thing that matters.

Yep. Good beer can be made with a beat up cooler and an enamel pot. It can be made with a $6000 Sabco system. No one is going to know which system it was made on unless your process is really jacked.

Find a system and process that works and go with it until you win the Lotto and can afford the fancy stuff.

Revvy...

I am merely trying to point out that most people stress out too much about trying to cop certain styles/beers.

It's ALL BEER and beer is good and, judging from your signature, that's your approach as to brewing as well.

McKBrew said:

Yep. Good beer can be made with a beat up cooler and an enamel pot. It can be made with a $6000 Sabco system. No one is going to know which system it was made on unless your process is really jacked.

Find a system and process that works and go with it until you win the Lotto and can afford the fancy stuff.

Click to expand...

I usually pretty much wing it....

Mash an hour... Sparge... Boil an hour... Ferment 3 weeks... bottle 3 weeks..... Enjoy...

I'm getting the finishing touches on my keg system together this week, so these next few batches will be kegged!

Jeffro said:

Revvy...

I am merely trying to point out that most people stress out too much about trying to cop certain styles/beers.

It's ALL BEER and beer is good and, judging from your signature, that's your approach as to brewing as well.

Click to expand...

Well said, Jeffro.

Jeffro said:

Revvy...

I am merely trying to point out that most people stress out too much about trying to cop certain styles/beers.

It's ALL BEER and beer is good and, judging from your signature, that's your approach as to brewing as well.

Click to expand...

Yepper...it is...

I think I fall somewhere between throw in fermenter and anal techhy brewer, BUT I try to keep Charlie Papazian's Relax, don't worry... ideals at the forefront of things...as long as I'm having fun that is what is important.

The more I brew and the more I learn, I realize that all the debates don't really matter...Great beer can be made no matter which side of the things in my sigline that get debated sometimes fervently a brewer chooses...

The single most important thing in AG brewing is the temperatures I have learned. Get them right and the quantities don't matter so much. You may end up with too much wort under-strength or too little wort over-strength but you'll still get a damned good beer. Get the temperature nailed and you'll fix the other problems soon enough.

Jeffro said:

I don't use any "brewing software.

Click to expand...

I own Promash and Beersmith, but don't use them. I do keep a few notes on old batches, but copious ones on new brews.

Sounds like you know what you are doing, so RDWHAHB.

Jeffro said:

I don't use any "brewing software" and I don't keep records of each and every batch, and I don't measure water to the gnats ass...

...

Click to expand...

That's about exactly what I do Jeffro. I also take a pretty simple approach and feel I'm getting excellent results.

Sometimes I am amazed at how overly complicated some like to make this hobby. For example, "calculating sparge water volume...". All I do is two batch sparges to fill the kettle. What calculations are required? Maybe I'm missing something.

I use TastyBrew.com | Recipe Calculation, which I then print and sometimes I will add notes to it while I brew.

It's all good