Anal retentive brewer? Shoot from the hip?

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Which describes you????

  • Fastidious brewer. Exact recipes only.

  • I make slight adjustments towards perfection.

  • I use basic recipes but may sub or make big adjustments.

  • I always loosely follow a recipe

  • I have multiple "GOTO" repeat recipes, but experiment too.

  • I have 1 or 2 repeats and the rest are experiments

  • I may occasionally repeat a good one, but usually not.

  • Every brew is new.

  • I watch my dog brew.

  • What was the question?

Results are only viewable after voting.
Bipolar. I go between the two extremes! I usually try to be organized and plan everything out, but I always forget crap and have to shoot from the hip anyway
 
thepartsmancometh said:
Bipolar. I go between the two extremes! I usually try to be organized and plan everything out, but I always forget crap and have to shoot from the hip anyway
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LOL. That's me in a nutshell as well. Hence my title.
 
Strangely enough I enjoy it too lol. I enjoy planning and preparation, but I also enjoy those mcgyver moments.

I once hand stitched a grain bag out of a square of cheesecloth and brown thread in like 10 minutes because I forgot to buy muslin bags :mug:
 
All of the above. Half the fun is brewing new styles or making up your own.

Oh crap, extra cascade? Toss it in. Well... what... if... it... who cares? Still gonna be beer!!!
 
thepartsmancometh said:
Strangely enough I enjoy it too lol. I enjoy planning and preparation, but I also enjoy those mcgyver moments.

I once hand stitched a grain bag out of a square of cheesecloth and brown thread in like 10 minutes because I forgot to buy muslin bags :mug:
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On my last brew which was also my second all-grain i attempted to sparge through a collander for sprinkling effect only to find that my collander was too narrow to rest above my MLT. So I dug around and found some twine and tied the handles of the collander tight to the outside handles of my MLT to suspend it above the grain bed. Looked ugly but it worked! :D
 
I tend to stick to the same styles that I enjoy but experiment with different hops, yeast, specialty grains, dry hopping amounts/times stuff like that. Seems like the best beer always comes from mistakes though. I had an amazing pale ale once where I got a liitle too tipsy before the boil started. I completely screwed up my hop additions. I ended up adding all the hops, just not at the times I intended. And in my drunken stupor, I didn't keep track of the changes so I have no idea how to duplicate it.
 
I make Sahti and Punkin' Ale every year but that's pretty much the only ones I repeat.

Though there are patterns, like making a session with some interesting ingredients every summer. This year it's a Southeast Asian Witbier made with Indian coriander, ginger root, and lemongrass. NOM!
 
I love having an excuse to post this video again
 
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I'm not sure quite how to answer, but I said I use basic recipes / sub or make adjustments and I may repeat a good one but usually not. Partly, I'm too new to this to have evidence, but I know myself fairly well.

In more precise terms, I am quite fastidious about my recipe, but I have not yet followed a recipe written by someone else. My approach is to read as many recipes as I can (online, in various books), and research the styles to get an idea of what the target is. Then I develop my own recipe to hit that style, sometimes consciously borrowing from a particular recipe, other times starting from scratch but undoubtedly influenced by what I've seen. This all happens before brew day, and I either write down or have in my head my exact plan. During the brew, I'm as fastidious and precise as I can manage.

Outside of the brew---during fermentation---I may make further adjustments as things move along. On my first brew, for example, I found that the mostly-fermented beer was a bit lacking, so I made a last-minute decision to dry hop it. But even for that, I did some research to decide how much and how long, etc, so it wasn't just a seat of the pants exercise.
 
I've been brewing for a year and a half with a batch every couple months (7 all totaled) without repeating any. I switched to all grain for this past batch and I'm getting my process dialed in, so I want to start repeating recipes to try and get some consistency. I'd love to have a "house" brew, but with only 1 tap and limited space for bottles I'm not sure how I'd go about doing that.
 
passedpawn said:
I've met Griz a couple of times at his store. He gave surprisingly bad advice for someone considered a seasoned brewer.
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He's more of an historical artifact in that regard. Bizarrely his advice for beginners is often terrible but if you ask him something esoteric he can rattle off on fairly advanced topics very accurately.
I learned early to take anything he said with a grain of salt, his recipes are quite good and they start off everybody doing partial mashes. I even won a second in class in a local comp up there using his recipe for a wee heavy.

The main thing to take away from that clip is that for sloppy people being a bit more attentive is good, and for OCD types like myself relaxing can be important.
 
i don't know if any of my beers taste like tight sphincter. i hope not. no one's said anything- but sometimes there are times when i feel like a chemist and sometimes when i feel like a savory chef. some beers have guidelines and boundaries, some don't - i try not to intertwine the process of unlimited freedom and extreme sphincter tight like control- but inevitably there are different parts of every process that move off in one of those directions...
 
I have recipes that are well thought out and planned, but on brew day I look at my actual hop and grain inventory and substitute freely. I try to remember the age of each bag of hops and add extra hops accordingly-half a handful for 6 month old hops, a full handful if they're at least a year old.
I don't weigh malts, I have a scoop that holds 2 pounds of malted barley so I count scoops, half scoops and quarter scoops. If a malt is old I may throw in a little extra. I brew only 10 or 15 gallon batches so I rarely ever use less than 1/2 pound of a malt, that's about as small a quantity as I can extrapolate in my scoop.
A lot of it is experience and knowing your brewing system. I've brewed with this setup for over 12 years and have a pretty good feel for how to end up with the beer I want.
 
I try to be very organized during the brew, but once it's in the fermenter I get very laid back about it.
 
As an engineer it's all about process for me. I don't get into anything that I can't see the end result so when I experiment I research the piss out of it first to be sure my experiment is not doomed to fail.

I have several recipes I like to brew that always come out but I do enjoy a good experimental recipe!
 
Jayhem said:
As an engineer it's all about process for me. I don't get into anything that I can't see the end result so when I experiment I research the piss out of it first to be sure my experiment is not doomed to fail.
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interesting as I am an engineer as well, but I enjoy brewing as an art, leaving the process stuff at work and just throwing stuff together in the brew pot.
 
...the engineer thing has really become a big deal, lol. I am tempted to start every post with "non-engineer here";)

So, (non engineer here)

The only category with less subscribers than "Fastidious recipe followers" are the "I leave all the recipe decisions up to my dogs" subscribers.

The only clear leader is the 1-2 standby recipes and all else new.

I am a from the hip, from memory, never from recipe brewer.
 
Lunchball said:
interesting as I am an engineer as well, but I enjoy brewing as an art, leaving the process stuff at work and just throwing stuff together in the brew pot.
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For some of us technical and analytical thinking and problem solving isn't just our day job...it's a state of mind.

You can get lucky but I have learned that successful brewing is all about process (technique). For consistently good results it's about fine tuning your process, not throwing whatever comes to mind into the brew pot. Only once process is mastered can you successfully try new things and still get satisfactory results.
 
As a fastidious brewer who mostly watches his dog brew, I have a couple go too recipes that I continually tweak but the majority of the rest are one of's.

Almost forgot... Engineer here.

In all seriousness though, I experiment a lot with recipes but am pretty detailed when it comes to process and try to keep it as tight as reasonably possible. And I do keep meticulous notes when I stray from my standard process so anything I do could be easily repeated if I chose to do so.
 
Jayhem said:
For some of us technical and analytical thinking and problem solving isn't just our day job...it's a state of mind.

You can get lucky but I have learned that successful brewing is all about process (technique). For consistently good results it's about fine tuning your process, not throwing whatever comes to mind into the brew pot. Only once process is mastered can you successfully try new things and still get satisfactory results.
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...........process can be applied to any recipe. Process is mashing, sparging, sanitation, temp control, chilling, etc.

My Process is impeccable, my recipes are based on my reasonable brewing experience.

Just because I don't take notes anymore doesn't mean that my beers aren'e going to be just as good or better than someone like you.
 
cheezydemon3 said:
...........process can be applied to any recipe. Process is mashing, sparging, sanitation, temp control, chilling, etc.

My Process is impeccable, my recipes are based on my reasonable brewing experience.

Just because I don't take notes anymore doesn't mean that my beers aren'e going to be just as good or better than someone like you.
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Record/note keeping has nothing to do with it. I do that only because I'm anal about my process. I could probably make beer that tastes just as good without notes just based on past brewing experience. Process has more to it than just the steps. It's how well you perform those steps. A recipe you made last time that had a 148F mash temp will not be the same as one that was closer to 154F....process control takes attention, skill or a LOT of luck.
 
I am mostly surprised that I've never had an infection. I probably play it a bit too easy when it comes to being organized and clean. But so far over a dozen batches without an issue.
 
I have only been brewing for about 18 months and have completed 38 batches with batch 39 scheduled for this weekend. I have multiple recipes I brew repeatedly (Centennial IPA, Oatmeal Stout, Brown Ale, Black Ale, Pale Ale). I do experiment occasionally but I normally research it out for weeks prior to developing the recipe and testing it out. I have a calendar I have developed that has my brewing planned out for three months in advance. My next experiment will be a Scotch Ale and it is on the calendar for June 17th. Since I have enough fermenters, I can allow each batch to sit 21 days. Then it gets dry hopped and/or crashed for 7 days then bottled. My a schedule is setup so I can bottle on Friday evening and brew on Sunday. This keeps my fermenters filled and gives my ample opportunity to document each batch and each tweaking (if any) I do to a recipe. I like to keep things neat and tidy and clean and organized. I follow the recipe in a precise manner and document any variation or change. I note times and temperatures at each step and follow the process exactly as I documented / planned it so I know where things went wrong and can easily determine why and the most appropriate method for correcting. I do not leave things to chance.

I believe that I am simply a perfectionist, acting with precision and planning.
 
BrewerinBR said:
I have only been brewing for about 18 months and have completed 38 batches with batch 39 scheduled for this weekend. I have multiple recipes I brew repeatedly (Centennial IPA, Oatmeal Stout, Brown Ale, Black Ale, Pale Ale). I do experiment occasionally but I normally research it out for weeks prior to developing the recipe and testing it out. I have a calendar I have developed that has my brewing planned out for three months in advance. My next experiment will be a Scotch Ale and it is on the calendar for June 17th. Since I have enough fermenters, I can allow each batch to sit 21 days. Then it gets dry hopped and/or crashed for 7 days then bottled. My a schedule is setup so I can bottle on Friday evening and brew on Sunday. This keeps my fermenters filled and gives my ample opportunity to document each batch and each tweaking (if any) I do to a recipe. I like to keep things neat and tidy and clean and organized. I follow the recipe in a precise manner and document any variation or change. I note times and temperatures at each step and follow the process exactly as I documented / planned it so I know where things went wrong and can easily determine why and the most appropriate method for correcting. I do not leave things to chance.

I believe that I am simply a perfectionist, acting with precision and planning.
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It doesn't get more "anal retentive" than this! :D :mug:
 
Jayhem said:
It doesn't get more "anal retentive" than this! :D :mug:
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Or any less that this:

Brewed my caramel amber :

10 lbs 2 row
1 lb crystal 40L
1 lb crystal 80L

1 oz fuggles 60 min

yeast



At the last minute, I decided to throw in a packet of instant oatmeal....cinnamon and apples....;)

Tiny little one serving packet. Sodium, some other crap I would rather not have had in there, but overall not anything that will hurt the beer.

It may turn out a little seasonal, but otherwise I guarantee it will be a hit.
 

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