I thought I'd make a call out the the experience brewers out there: In speaking to a new brewer, what in your experience would you say are the most important factors in consistently brewing good beer? What are the most commonly overlooked factors? The simplest remedies to bad practices? Any common home brewing myths that you have clearly demonstrated to be untrue?
I don't mean to be cynical, but home brewing is an amateur hobby and therefore a new brewer will undoubtedly find lots of BAD advice. I believe that this most often comes from brewers who repeat things they have heard or read, but they forget to mention that they have not tested it themselves. Moreover, even in the standard published books, it is difficult for the new brewer to discern what is *truly* important; some factors are completely negligible compared to others, but the new brewer cannot know the difference.
What I hope to be different about this post is that I only want to see replies from those who consider themselves to be very experienced, and who can consistently brew great beers. PLEASE do not repeat some BS that is not in your experience just because it was in a book you read. If it is in a book, then say so, but this is for the new brewers who have already read the usual starter books (Palmer, Papazian, etc.).
Tell us your experience level and why you are giving your advice (e.g. did you do a controlled experiment yourself?).
Here is my first bit of advice to the new brewer, which is the only advice I can rightfully give at my experience level (I'm only about 15 batches in):
Recognize that home brewing is for most is just an amateur hobby. As such, you will need to question every source of information you find. Tasting several beers from another brewer is a good way (I'd argue it is the only way...) to gauge whether or not their advice is sound. If they brew fantastic beer, their advice is almost certainly not bad, although they still might suggest an unnecessary step (e.g. the yeast starter they *insist* on might not be necessary, though it certainly does not hurt). Even the advice from your best source needs to be tested; it should only be the starting point for *your own* experiments (e.g. split your next batch three ways and ferment at different temperatures; overheat some of your steeping grains and taste it; split a batch and see if a yeast starter makes a real difference; shake the hell out of one of your bottles before capping it, don't even bother sanitizing six of your bottles, and leave some crud in one of them; brew two batches at a time, changing only one ingredient between the two). With controlled experiments you can quickly find out what is BS and what is not. You will be surprised at what you find.
I don't mean to be cynical, but home brewing is an amateur hobby and therefore a new brewer will undoubtedly find lots of BAD advice. I believe that this most often comes from brewers who repeat things they have heard or read, but they forget to mention that they have not tested it themselves. Moreover, even in the standard published books, it is difficult for the new brewer to discern what is *truly* important; some factors are completely negligible compared to others, but the new brewer cannot know the difference.
What I hope to be different about this post is that I only want to see replies from those who consider themselves to be very experienced, and who can consistently brew great beers. PLEASE do not repeat some BS that is not in your experience just because it was in a book you read. If it is in a book, then say so, but this is for the new brewers who have already read the usual starter books (Palmer, Papazian, etc.).
Tell us your experience level and why you are giving your advice (e.g. did you do a controlled experiment yourself?).
Here is my first bit of advice to the new brewer, which is the only advice I can rightfully give at my experience level (I'm only about 15 batches in):
Recognize that home brewing is for most is just an amateur hobby. As such, you will need to question every source of information you find. Tasting several beers from another brewer is a good way (I'd argue it is the only way...) to gauge whether or not their advice is sound. If they brew fantastic beer, their advice is almost certainly not bad, although they still might suggest an unnecessary step (e.g. the yeast starter they *insist* on might not be necessary, though it certainly does not hurt). Even the advice from your best source needs to be tested; it should only be the starting point for *your own* experiments (e.g. split your next batch three ways and ferment at different temperatures; overheat some of your steeping grains and taste it; split a batch and see if a yeast starter makes a real difference; shake the hell out of one of your bottles before capping it, don't even bother sanitizing six of your bottles, and leave some crud in one of them; brew two batches at a time, changing only one ingredient between the two). With controlled experiments you can quickly find out what is BS and what is not. You will be surprised at what you find.
