What was responsible for your biggest improvement?

I've been brewing extract recipes casually for a couple of years now and have recently gotten more invested in brewing.... I started kegging and brewing all-grain batches. I'm starting to feel like I understand the art and science a little bit better, but I still have much to learn.

For those of you who have been at this for a while, what do you feel was responsible for your biggest improvement? Was it better gear? Better ingredients? Yeast starters? Etc...

Was there something you did that made you think "Wow, I wish I had known that sooner?"

Homebrewtalk.com

All the other significant improvements came from this one discovery.

Fermentation temperatures.

I saw the biggest improvements from proper yeast pitch rate and fermentation temperature control.

Fermentation temps, yeast starters and wort aeration.

Ferm temps and learning to go with the flow. I'm convinced that if you stress out over the beer, it will be stressed out too. That's why I read it bed time stories and the give the fermenter a pat on the lid before turning in for the night.

Hbt

Fermentation temps. Havent had a bad one since

Another one for fermentation temperatures. My basement was relatively stable, but once I had my fermentation chamber up and running and I started paying close attention to what each individual strain called for temperature-wise, my beers started getting really consistent.

Fermentation fridge with controller.

Ferm temps and yeast and all that but more recently I have noticed a big improvement in my beer since I got a bigger kettle and can do a more vigorous boil. I mistakenly purchased an 8 gallon pot thinking it was big enough but I had to watch it like a hawk. Now I have a 15 gallon and can really get 'em going.

1) Yeast starers
2) Ferm controlled fridge

passedpawn said:

Homebrewtalk.com

All the other significant improvements came from this one discovery.

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it any better. Honestly.

Other than that, I'd say switching to buckets for almost everything. The ease of use can't be denied.

Thanks guys.
My most recent batch is a Kolsch because I was seeing steady 60 degree temps in my basement. I figured I might as well pick something that works in the temps that I had available. It was also my first yeast starter. That Wyeast 2565 is pretty aggressive stuff!

A fermentation chamber is on the list for sure once my wallet recovers from the beating it just took on some AG gear, a few kegs and a freezer/temp controller.

At 60 your 2565 Kolsch should turn out beatifully. If you do get a ferm chamber, drop it to 32 for 4 weeks after the fermentation is over. That should help crisp it up and drop as much yeast as possible. You might also need to add gelatin finings to the chilled beer for a week or two prior to packaging. That yeast is a stubborn non-floccer, but its still in my top 3 favorite yeast strains.

I agree with all the comments out there so far but just to say something different I'm gonna toss out practice as the one single thing that has resulted in better beer for me. Just refining my brewday, hitting mash temps, calculating and executing boiloff correctly, getting a solid cleaning and sanitizing routine down. Making the brewday flawlessly easy has helped my beer because I feel better about the end product when the brewday is easy.

That said, fermentation temp and proper yeast management were also pretty dang helpful.

passedpawn said:

Homebrewtalk.com

All the other significant improvements came from this one discovery.

Click to expand...

Removing chlorine from my water

Ferm temps, yeast starters, wort oxygenation

Stir plate for yeast starter and HBT.

I will definately have to agree with inhousebrew. Having a fermentation refridgerator with a controller on it has help drastically with my beers. Summertime was almost out of the question brewing here in Texas. Now I can brew year around. Also recently purchased a grain mill which improve my efficiency greatly. I went from low 70's to middle 80's.

Brewing as much as I possibly can. I try to average 2-3 per month. Practice, practice, practice...

Going to all grain from extract brewing has made my beers SO MUCH better! And even though it takes a little longer on brew day, I enjoy brewing a lot more now. I would also agree that this forum is an invaluable tool. Pretty much anything that I ever have a question about has been asked and answered on this forum. And if not, I can just ask it myself.

Understanding water and mash PH. HBT for most all improvements

For me it was a wort chiller. The fermentation fridge helped me make better beer, no doubt, but by then I had already been brewing for several years and the improvement wasn't as big as that wort chiller was. I still use it on every batch, too.

PATIENCE young Jedi must learn

Xpertskir said:

Removing chlorine from my water

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Oh yeah...I forgot to mention this one. I switched to using store bought sprig water because of the chlorine in my tap water. Noticeably improved things.

Fermentation Temperature Control
Yeast Starter
Wort Chiller
Full Wort Boil
Proper Mash pH
Whirlfloc
water filter

In that order.

Each item provides a little better product. Combining it all together resulted in a big improvment to my beers.

I have to say that reading HBT has made a huge difference, Also controlling fermentation temps and brewing the same recipe a few times to refine my technique.

TrickyMike said:

I

For those of you who have been at this for a while, what do you feel was responsible for your biggest improvement? Was it better gear? Better ingredients? Yeast starters? Etc...

Was there something you did that made you think "Wow, I wish I had known that sooner?"

Click to expand...

Healthy yeast! That's generally two parts- temperature control during fermentation, and pitching the correct amount of yeast for each batch.

Other things helped, some more than others, but that was the biggest advance.

Not using carboys or buckets to ferment in, fermentation temperature control, making yeast starters with a stirplate, and using pure O2 to oxygenate the wort.

For over a year I was brewing at a buddy's place (he would brew at the same time) and ferment in his basement. Most of the time, my brew would be within the desired temperature range for what I was making (thermowell). Now that I'm in a place with a basement of my own, that has cooler temperatures, I'm able to more easily maintain those temperatures. Doing everything possible to pitch the right amount of yeast cells for the batch, and using pure O2 to oxygenate the wort has also helped improve my batches. While you can get O2 into the wort with methods that use atmospheric air, you're limited to just 8ppm of O2 (max.). With pure O2, you're not limited like that. I believe you can attain over 20ppm of O2 with pure O2. Not needed for the lower OG batches, but very much so for anything of moderate to high OG. Plus, using the pure O2 system is a hell of a lot less work.

Pitching the proper amount of healty yeast

and

Fermentation temp control.

Temperature-controlled fermentation. Started using the old keg fridge and it really made a huge difference. Lagers in particular, because I like to pitch warm and cool it off before the fermentation process starts.

Forgot to mention... Plate chiller (Duda Diesel B3-23A 40 Plate Beer Wort Garden Hose Chiller)... :rockin:

Ferm temps and starters.

Information and hands-on practice.
Same way as learning anything else.

All grain class with Kevin Pratt and How to Brew by John Palmer.... sounds like two things but I got both on the same day.

Patience, age on certain beers will make you think "damn should have waited this long from the beginning"

YouTube: BobbyfromNJ (I think he's on here and if he sees this I want more videos, I loved them)

Stir plate, lost the liquor alcohol taste (due to under pitching)

Water chemistry, didn't realize how water affected brews, (the old saying "if your water tastes great, brew with it" is not true, my water tastes awesome but is so hard I can't make anything with it except a stout)

Kegging expiremental batches no longer take the extra 3 weeks of bottle conditioning I can force Carb in about 36-48hrs and instantly realize any errors. (Some flavors you learn will age out tho)

My big one was fermentation temps. Definitely helped a lot when I finally realized that just because the room is 68, doesn't mean the beer fermenting is.

Also, realizing my boil off rate was indeed 2 gallons/hour.

Clonefan94 said:

Also, realizing my boil off rate was indeed 2 gallons/hour.

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either you must have a really wide, squat kettle or you need to turn your burner down!

Darn. This thread has made me want to get a fermentation freezer. Now I have to figure out where to put the darn thing!

I've been at it long enough that there have been a couple:

1. Cylindroconical fermenters (which implies control of fermentation temperature)
2. Use of RO water with minimal mineral additions
3. Lagering on lots of yeast
4. Strict control of mash pH.