Brewing is an art, not rocket science.

I've read so much that I am in need of a drink lol

Ive been asked a lot since friends know I brew, to me brewing is cooking and if you love to eat you will cook great, if you don't like to eat you will make every excuse to make it sound nice and difficult and your end result wont taste right.

To all the new brewers I have a quick reference to make your day a good one....
*know the tools of the trade (will make the job easier but don't take it to serious)

* making a good end product is easy
* Use fresh product
* clean*
* sanitize
*and be patient.

Big_Cat said:

I've read so much that I am in need of a drink lol

Ive been asked a lot since friends know I brew, to me brewing is cooking and if you love to eat you will cook great, if you don't like to eat you will make every excuse to make it sound nice and difficult and your end result wont taste right.

To all the new brewers I have a quick reference to make your day a good one....
*know the tools of the trade (will make the job easier but don't take it to serious)

* making a good end product is easy
* Use fresh product
* clean*
* sanitize
*and be patient.

Click to expand...

Yeast produce Ethanol. Ethanol can be used for rocket fuel. Brewing can be rocket science. If you want it to.

I know people who are the "nuts and bolts" type of brewer who have to control every aspect and know every minute detail about a grain, yeast, process etc.

A bit on the obsessive side to me, but I can see the need for someone to know all that crap.

I am more of the obsessive brewer, I take notes on just about everything. I make sure I sanitize everything well.. But when it comes to the recipes I don't really care. I just kinda throw some stuff together in beersmith.

I worked in molecular biology lab many moons ago. Definitely a science discipline, you might think. But, there were always experiments I could get to work that others could not, and vice versa, even with very precise instructions. Brewing is how I get my science fix these days, but there's definitely some art to it. Good advice though, OP.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Yeast produce Ethanol. Ethanol can be used for rocket fuel. Brewing can be rocket science. If you want it to.

Click to expand...

Epic!

To the OP, I tend to think of it this way: When I think of the perfect beer that I want to make, there is certainly an art to that. However, just creating that beer, with little to no knowledge of the tools and ingredients of brewing and how they interact would be well-nigh impossible.

What lets me bring that creation to life is a deep and holistic understanding of the science that governs them. If I didnt understand them (and I havent always!!), I would be frustrated to no end that I couldnt get things to turn out as they were in my mind.

Brewing is both an art and a science. The art is the beer as I imagine it, the science lets me bring that to life.

Ive always said I'm more of an artist than a scientist with brewing as well. I do have a culinary background as well, so im down with the cooking aspect. I work on my recipes for a while, try to keep my days on schedule, but honestly couldnt care less about my ph, dont take notes besides OG and such, and if I overshoot my mash temp ill try to bring it down. If its 154 and i wanted 152, oh well. I have started taking readings for efficiency, so I do care about quality, but as I said im more into the art than science. But to each his own for sure!

Word.

Don't misunderstand me..I am aware that if you know what things do to change the end product then the final product will be great the first time and I am not saying that the art of it over powers the science of it or vise versa... But lets face it, its pretty easy to make beer and what makes it wonderful in my eyes is the art of knowing that I could throw things together and if it comes out wonderful then I will repeat and if not then it goes in the "never again" Pile



It is both an Art and Science experiment but in life everything is..

Making a great tasting beer is an art. Making it twice is science(engineering/technician work according to Clifford Stoll ~1:25)


Within reason. Obviously throwing things willy nilly into a pot won't turn out amazing 9 times out of 10.

It's both. So is cooking. Im anal retentive and OCD at both...but the results speak for themselves.