so what's the worst part of brewing for you

The worst part of brewing for me is the waiting. Waiting for the right temp to steep, waiting for the boil, waiting for the hop or other ingredient additions, waiting for the wort to cool, waiting for the fermentation to complete, waiting for the beer to carb up, waiting to start the whole process all over again... second worst is bottling.

The moment just before you open a bottle from the batch for the first time. I always fret if it's going to be crappy.

Cleanup.

The next in line would be waiting for a good day to brew on, or a day I am free to brew.

Cleaning, I saw a quote once that summed it up for me.

"If you like washing dishes, you will love homebrewing".

It's not so much a part of brewing. But, I hate not having a lot of time to brew. I have to plan pretty far in advance to find time to brew once a month.

Waiting and bottling, lol I hate waiting a month to drink my creations and bottling takes FOREVER!!!!

Hangovers. All the rest if worth it.

I hate cleaning. I often sit down and think how I can either clone myself or build a robot to do all the mundane stuff for me and I can just sit and stare at Beersmith.

Another vote for cleaning. It's really bad if you time all the rackings to happen at the same time (for wine). Six carboys each racked into the next, with cleaning inbetween each. I try to only do it every few months if I can, but it can easily take a whole saturday to clean all the stuff, rinse bottles, clean up the mess in the kitchen, eat lunch, fix dinner, ect...

I think "carboy swishing" should be added to a list of aerobic exercises somewhere. Shaking a 6 gallon carboy with a gallon of cleaner for 5 min at a time is a real workout, when you do it most of a day.

Once I switched to kegging I actually enjoyed every phase of brewing - except for lugging full kettles of brewing water to my rig, and lugging full carboys from my rig to my fermentation fridge.

I solved the first one by bringing the water to the kettles in jugs, but I still have no solution to lugging carboys. I once saw a thread where a home brewer actually ran the output of his plate chiller down a dedicated hose to his basement fermenters (which I thought was brilliant) but unfortunately my wort has to move higher, not lower, so there'd at least have to be a pump involved.

#Firstworldhomebrewerproblems

Cheers!

The not-having-enough-money-to-buy-all-the-things part. That's the worst.

Hauling stuff up and down the basement stairs is second worst.

Cleanup is my worst. I'm constantly trying to think of ways to automate or at least simplify cleanup. And of cleaning, I find the mash tun to be the most difficult. There's got to be a better way. Kyle

Conan said:

Cleanup is my worst. I'm constantly trying to think of ways to automate or at least simplify cleanup. And of cleaning, I find the mash tun to be the most difficult. There's got to be a better way. Kyle

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If I had a round mash tun, I would just put a large garbage bag over the top and flip it over. I use a rectangular one, so I use a 4L aluminum measuring pitcher to clean it out after the grains have cooled off (also comes in handy for other brewing tasks).


You could also probably use one of these grain scoops. I want one but haven't gotten around to buying one yet.

I need a garage..That's about the worse for me..

I don't like it that some people think I have unlimited beer. I don't like getting phone calls about getting beer. If someone wants me not to give them free beer anymore, all they have to do is try to take advantage of me. It's happened more than once.

I dislike the cleanup of my equipment after brewing. Bottling was a pain in the a** but I have since moved to kegs and don't have that task anymore. Otherwise I enjoy all other phases of brewing beer.

Paying for the ingredients.

Drinking up the batches that didn't turn out the way I expected, the ones I would never serve anyone else or give away.

Air gaps in the pipeline.

Having a really good batch and drinking the last one.

Cleanup after brewing.

The sound of keg kicking.

Waiting for it to carb after kegging. That absolutely kills me.

Not having the time to make more.

Cleaning sucks pretty bad. I hated bottling as well which is why I went to kegging after only a couple batches. Today I racked 10 gallons of wit to corny kegs while my new batch was mashing. My beer was in corny's before I pulled my first runnings, try cleaning and bottling 100 bottles before your first runnings.

Cleaning a carboy

So many people hate the cleaning after brewing. For me, cleaning is inconsequential. I usually end up finishing brewing in the evening, so I am tired by the time I get finished. I rinse everything I can right after use, or during the mash and boil times. Then I rinse everything else after the wort is in the primary and leave it for the next day for washing and putting away. Makes it go quickly.

LandoLincoln said:

The not-having-enough-money-to-buy-all-the-things part. That's the worst.

Hauling stuff up and down the basement stairs is second worst.

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tgmartin000 said:

Paying for the ingredients.

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The paying part is the worst for me. And I do hate dragging full fermenters up from the cellar.

Clean-up. Most of my brewing is during winter months so that I have a supply lasting till the following fall. By the time brew day is over and clean-up begins, it's already below freezing in the garage.

LabRatBrewer said:

The sound of keg kicking.

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This happened last night to me. I had some people over for the first tap of a raspberry wheat. It was really good but only lasted for about 4 hours. Then pooooooooooo! I heard it from outside. Then someone said " there goes the beer"

I really don't have a worst part of brewing, per se. For me, it's the constant stream of questions about when I'll be done starting right about sparge time. Still gonna be a while...

worst part for me is when i read this forum while brewing and people keep talking about starters. i fkng hate starters

Glad to hear Im not the only one who dreads cleanup. Actually come to think of it I have to go clean up the BK from yesterday's brew sesh, ughh.

Waiting.

I don't mind cleaning, botteling, paying, carrying heavy stuff... maybe it's just me - but it ain't worth it if it's not hard work!

And you'll clean regardless of brewing or not, granted not as much but still.

And I have no idea why people hate botteling so much...

I agree with the cleaning! It seems that you spend more time cleaning than you do brewing. I have to clean up a carboy right now so I can rack off my primary. Lemon lime Heffe. Oh yeah and clean the theif and auto siphon and hydrometer. And an airlock. Whew, then I can have a beer.

Okay. I just filled the BK with oxyclean solution and set the PID to 45%. I'll let that run for a while and check it out between periods of the pens game. I think Ill also do some searching on here for a DIY clean-in-place system for keggles. Im thinking I could build a spray nozzle that i could attach to a lid of some sorts....Boy am I lazy.

The time between brewing.......

I actually like it all - even bottling.


Maybe if I have to do a massive cleaning of things or something like that......... wait....Keg lines..... I don't like dealing with tap lines, cleaning, etc.

I'd say, lugging all my equipment up the basement stairs and tripping over 2 dogs that think because a door opens they must be the first through it, no matter how many times the door opens.

Teromous said:

If I had a round mash tun, I would just put a large garbage bag over the top and flip it over. I use a rectangular one, so I use a 4L aluminum measuring pitcher to clean it out after the grains have cooled off (also comes in handy for other brewing tasks).

You could also probably use one of these grain scoops. I want one but haven't gotten around to buying one yet.

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Yep, I use the scoop that came with my Barley Crusher and put the grains in the containers my water comes in (2.5 gal). It works fine, but still requires...work. I'd like to design some auto-cleaning mechanism, but the guy that designed the hose already did that. Just never enough gadgets! Kyle

I like reading about beer and planning my next batch, and I like drinking the finished beer. Everything in between just seems like work.