Tonight I tasted a Hefeweizen and a dry hopped APA that I brewed. No off-tastes! So this made me very happy because I appreciate how it's not that difficult to brew BAD beer.
I have a super cheap setup. Pre-crushed grains over the internet, tap water treated with camden tablets, unconverted 5 gallon cooler for mashing with strainer bag, 5 gallon stainless steel on electric stove, ice bath cooling, 3 gallon carboy with swamp cooler. But it works. All I had to do was walk through the fire until it was done right. And here is my newbie brewing log:
1 Mr Beer
2 Dubbel with LME; not good beer, still in bottles
3 UK Dark Mild; Good, not great efficiency but good, long gone
4 Dubbel All Grain; good, but too ABV strong, and uninteresting to drink
5 UK Dark Mild; good but over hopped, gone
6 Blueberry Beer; Good, interesting, almost gone
7 SNPA clone; very bad possibly multiple yeast issues with heat and badly dry hopped
8 Witbier; good but conditioning sugar was uneven (some totally flat beer)
9 UK Dark Mild; OK but slight yeast/heat issues that may go away
10 Dark Wheat; good but uneven priming
11 Witbier; unknown
12 Hefeweizen; great but low efficiency (3,3% ABV).
13 SNPA clone; just great, no complaints
14 Hefeweizen; unknown, low efficiency.
If I had to do it all over again I would have taken a break in June and started again now. My next upgrade will be the grain mill. Cheers.
I have a super cheap setup. Pre-crushed grains over the internet, tap water treated with camden tablets, unconverted 5 gallon cooler for mashing with strainer bag, 5 gallon stainless steel on electric stove, ice bath cooling, 3 gallon carboy with swamp cooler. But it works. All I had to do was walk through the fire until it was done right. And here is my newbie brewing log:
1 Mr Beer
2 Dubbel with LME; not good beer, still in bottles
3 UK Dark Mild; Good, not great efficiency but good, long gone
4 Dubbel All Grain; good, but too ABV strong, and uninteresting to drink
5 UK Dark Mild; good but over hopped, gone
6 Blueberry Beer; Good, interesting, almost gone
7 SNPA clone; very bad possibly multiple yeast issues with heat and badly dry hopped
8 Witbier; good but conditioning sugar was uneven (some totally flat beer)
9 UK Dark Mild; OK but slight yeast/heat issues that may go away
10 Dark Wheat; good but uneven priming
11 Witbier; unknown
12 Hefeweizen; great but low efficiency (3,3% ABV).
13 SNPA clone; just great, no complaints
14 Hefeweizen; unknown, low efficiency.
If I had to do it all over again I would have taken a break in June and started again now. My next upgrade will be the grain mill. Cheers.