Homebrewing myths that need to die

I'm thinking of writing an article about homebrewing myths and boogeymen that need to go away. Please feel free to add to this list!

Subjects I have in mind:

Yeast autolysis (get your beer off the yeast cake ASAP)

Hot side aeration

Avoid table sugar or drink cidery beer

Filter every spec of hop material from your kettle or you'll have grassbeer


Give me more!

Tannins from disturbing the grain bed or squeezing

How about "AG means better beer." You can make award winning beers with extract if you have your process down and fresh extract.

And maybe "Homebrewing will save you money." Ha!

Leaving your beer in the fermenter for more than a week after it's finished is required.

+1 on the brewing your own beer is cheaper, The LHBS has a sign up that says brew your own and save money, I chuckle every time I walk in.

bwomp313 said:

Tannins from disturbing the grain bed or squeezing

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Ah, yes. Thanks.

DrunkleJon said:

How about "AG means better beer." You can make award winning beers with extract if you have your process down and fresh extract.

And maybe "Homebrewing will save you money." Ha!

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First one is very true, second one is funny.

Yooper said:

Leaving your beer in the fermenter for more than a week after it's finished is required.

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I knew this one was coming from you, Yoop.

Rinsing off the suds from Star-San

The airlock isn't a good gauge of fermentation.

If my airlock isn't bloop bloop'n the morning after yeast pitch, C02 is escaping somewhere else, or fermentation is not happening (enough). Seems like a good tool to gauge activity to me.

72Chevelle said:

+1 on the brewing your own beer is cheaper, The LHBS has a sign up that says brew your own and save money, I chuckle every time I walk in.

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Funny, one LHBS here has a sign that says "Your wife called and said you can spend as much as you want".

Totes said:

The airlock isn't a good gauge of fermentation.

If my airlock isn't bloop bloop'n the morning after yeast pitch, C02 is escaping somewhere else, or fermentation is not happening (enough). Seems like a good tool to gauge activity to me.

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This one isn't a myth. It's not a good guage, due to the leaking issues you mention. Newbies also tend to pitch old yeast that can take a while to start, so the next morning doesn't always work for them.

Mead takes years to age before it is good.

Secondary is a waste of time. Ohhhhhh the boogyman has been let out. Oh no!

TahoeRy said:

Secondary is a waste of time. Ohhhhhh the boogyman has been let out. Oh no!

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So are you stating that the waste of time is the myth? Or that the need for secondaries is a myth?

homebrewdad said:

This one isn't a myth. It's not a good guage, due to the leaking issues you mention. Newbies also tend to pitch old yeast that can take a while to start, so the next morning doesn't always work for them.

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My bad, I didn't know there was a contingency on what newbies might do.

AG is hard.

Totes said:

My bad, I didn't know there was a contingency on what newbies might do.

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Well, the thing is, a vigorous airlock absolutely does let you know that yes, fermentation has kicked off.

Lack of bubbles just means that you have a bad seal.

homebrewdad said:

Well, the thing is, a vigorous airlock absolutely does let you know that yes, fermentation has kicked off.

Lack of bubbles just means that you have a bad seal.

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I see your point brewdad, I was being a bit snarky.
But once my airlock has one semi-medium sized bubble every 60-65 seconds, it's definitely ready to bottle, without exception.cross:

Use stainless kettles instead of aluminum to prevent metallic flavors. (I much prefer my aluminum over my stainless)

Supporting several boogeyman myths that have been mentioned here already.
1. Leaving a well brewed beer in fermenter for an extra week is necessary.
- key on "well brewed beer"
2. Secondary is bad.
- if you have messy primary and can perform sanitary transfer without aeration, then go for it.
3. Airlocks are bad indicators.
- it has been a very useful visual for me
And here are a couple that have not been mentioned
4. Don't worry about a blow-off!
5. Trust your FG to time and not measurement.

* Sparge water needs to be hot.
* Sparge water must not be too hot.

brewers on the interwebs always know what they're talking about. especially if they have a high post count.

homebrewdad said:

Well, the thing is, a vigorous airlock absolutely does let you know that yes, fermentation has kicked off.

Lack of bubbles just means that you have a bad seal.

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No it doesn't, if I come in and look at my fermenter 2 weeks after closing it up and it is bubbleing like crazy doesn't mean it's fermenting. Temp could have rising or someone could have bumped it causing off gasing

I use secondary on just about every beer. I get lots of people on here who preach that it's useless. I feel it's worthwhile.

Yooper said:

Leaving your beer in the fermenter for more than a week after it's finished is required.

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For me thats not a requirement, it's just usually when I happen to remember it

You can't make good beer with a Mr. Beer kit.

Come on, folks. It's a small fermenter. If you sanitize well, use good ingredients, follow good practices, and control your temps, you can make the exact same beer you can make in an Ale Pale. You'll just be making a lot less of it.

TahoeRy said:

I use secondary on just about every beer. I get lots of people on here who preach that it's useless. I feel it's worthwhile.

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I agree that it's not useless. It's just not necessary in many cases. But with care either way works fine, and the beauty of home brewing is that we can do what works for us.

Here's another myth: grain bill & hop schedule are more important to great beer than healthy fermentation.

bwomp313 said:

Tannins from disturbing the grain bed or squeezing

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Is this one not true about the squeezing? Pretty sure I had two extract batches where I squeezed the grains in a bag and got off-flavors I later identified as tannins.

That liquid yeast is superior to dry yeast. All things equal dry yeast and liquid yeast can both be used to make great beer.

Myth#1, there are "Myths" in brewing.....

Book is complete....

Cheers
Jay

Brewsader1 said:

Is this one not true about the squeezing? Pretty sure I had two extract batches where I squeezed the grains in a bag and got off-flavors I later identified as tannins.

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I use to do BIAB all grain batches and I would squeeze the bag like it owed me money and never had a tannin problem.

I've had hot side aeration. Its not a myth.
Admittedly I did pour my wort into the kettle in one go.

Here's a myth: Any off flavours will go away with long enough ageing. wasted a lot of time bottling beer I knew was dodgy.

Piratwolf said:

I agree that it's not useless. It's just not necessary in many cases. But with care either way works fine, and the beauty of home brewing is that we can do what works for us.

Here's another myth: grain bill & hop schedule are more important to great beer than healthy fermentation.

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I just use them when bulk aging. Besides that once the yeast clears its pretty much kegging time on 90% of all my beers.

bob3000 said:

I've had hot side aeration. Its not a myth.
Admittedly I did pour my wort into the kettle in one go.

Here's a myth: Any off flavours will go away with long enough ageing. wasted a lot of time bottling beer I knew was dodgy.

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Big time myth about off flavors going away (excluding diacetyl). Never worked for me. Crappy beer + 6 months = 6 month old crappy beer.

bob3000 said:

I've had hot side aeration. Its not a myth.
Admittedly I did pour my wort into the kettle in one go.

Here's a myth: Any off flavours will go away with long enough ageing. wasted a lot of time bottling beer I knew was dodgy.

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HSA is not a myth. Neither is autolysis.

Perhaps it's less common than it used to be, but it's not a myth.

A "myth" means a fable, something that isn't true. HSA is real, although not likely. Autolysis is real, although not likely in a reasonable amount of time in a homebrew setting.

I hear all the time on this forum that both are myths- but they aren't.

I agree that "aging fixes everything" is a silly myth that needs to die.

JeepDiver said:

No it doesn't, if I come in and look at my fermenter 2 weeks after closing it up and it is bubbleing like crazy doesn't mean it's fermenting. Temp could have rising or someone could have bumped it causing off gasing

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Agreed. That was not the situation I was describing, however.

If the airlock is vigorouly bubbling within a day or so after you pitched, you know that fermentation has started. Just because it isn't bubbling does not mean that fermentation has not started.

Yooper said:

HSA is not a myth. Neither is autolysis.

Perhaps it's less common than it used to be, but it's not a myth.

A "myth" means a fable, something that isn't true. HSA is real, although not likely. Autolysis is real, although not likely in a reasonable amount of time in a homebrew setting.

I hear all the time on this forum that both are myths- but they aren't.

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On the homebrew scale, HSA is a nonfactor.

On the homebrew scale, autolysis is a nonfactor.

I see these posted time and time again as boogeymen to be scared of. I could pull up revvy's HSA thread, along with the various citations and sources, but that's the kind of thing that should go in the article, no?

Autolysis is mentioned all the time, as well, with the "old wisdom" of racking your beer the moment it hits terminal gravity. That's totally unnecesary. Lots of brewers leave their beer on the yeast cake for weeks - sometimes months - with no ill effects. So on the homebrew scale, yeah, it's a myth.

Yooper said:

I agree that "aging fixes everything" is a silly myth that needs to die.

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Who pushes this myth? Age will fix some flaws due to brewing process. It won't fix anything close to "everything", and odds are, the beer would have been better had the "fix" never been needed.



Sheesh, Yooper. This feels like the "well, actually..." derails we get in the "funny things overheard" thread from time to time.

You have to literally sterilize every object/surface that comes into contact with your beer. I chuckle when I read posts about people who boil their yeast starters in glass flasks or flame the surface of the smack packs. A reasonable amount of sanitation is needed to prevent infection, but you're going to inoculate your starter wort with millions, if not billions, of yeast cells. I boil my starters in a household pot, chill (uncovered) in an ice bath in the kitchen sink, and after five years of brewing have never had an infection, or even the slightest sign of one.

72Chevelle said:

+1 on the brewing your own beer is cheaper, The LHBS has a sign up that says brew your own and save money, I chuckle every time I walk in.

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You can defiantly save money. I can make 5 gallons of IPA for 50-60$ and it costs 100$ if I buy it in the grocery store. I make extract batches so far but you save even more if you do all grain. The equipment is the only other thing that costs money but its a one time expense. What am I missing here?

ThaBrewFather06 said:

You can defiantly save money. I can make 5 gallons of IPA for 50-60$ and it costs 100$ if I buy it in the grocery store. I make extract batches so far but you save even more if you do all grain. The equipment is the only other thing that costs money but its a one time expense. What am I missing here?

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Because most of us keep buying more and more gear.

homebrewdad said:

Because most of us keep buying more and more gear.

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That doesn't mean it's not cheaper I bought a starter kit and have well made up for it in just three batches. I would have spent around 350$ on the red ale, IPA, and barley wine I've made