Beer is hard to messup

Does everyone forget that beer has been around for a long time and that a lot of the sanitation methods of today are fairly recent. I have had some beer that smelled terrible out of the primary and secondary and then after a few weeks aging in the bottle was the best beer I ever had. Being clean makes for a crisper cleaner flavor but as a beginner you should only worry about the basics like did I get alcohol, did it carbonate, and is it reasonably tasting. Heck if it gets you drunk and not make you sick you are off to a good start, everything else will come with time.

Drink because your happy, work because you like it, and sleep because you can't wait for the next day.

-Fernando

damn i hope your right!

I like the enthusiasm, but I wouldn't try and downplay the importance of sanitation. That's like saying that because sterilization techniques are also fairly recent, surgeons should feel free to operate with dirty scalpels.

Yes, beer's been made forever, and much of that without any knowledge of sanitation, or even of yeast. But I suspect that if we tried the beers they brewed, we'd despise most of them.

Infections may be rarer than they seem, however I'm still not going to advocate opening the door for them.

fernando said:

Does everyone forget that beer has been around for a long time and that a lot of the sanitation methods of today are fairly recent. I have had some beer that smelled terrible out of the primary and secondary and then after a few weeks aging in the bottle was the best beer I ever had.

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smelling bad out of the primary isn't because of poor sanitation....

fernando said:

Being clean makes for a crisper cleaner flavor but as a beginner you should only worry about the basics like did I get alcohol, did it carbonate, and is it reasonably tasting. Heck if it gets you drunk and not make you sick you are off to a good start, everything else will come with time.

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this is just awful advice.

this gets my vote for worst thread of 2011

Qhrumphf said:

I like the enthusiasm, but I wouldn't try and downplay the importance of sanitation. That's like saying that because sterilization techniques are also fairly recent, surgeons should feel free to operate with dirty scalpels.

Yes, beer's been made forever, and much of that without any knowledge of sanitation, or even of yeast. But I suspect that if we tried the beers they brewed, we'd despise most of them.

Infections may be rarer than they seem, however I'm still not going to advocate opening the door for them.

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I agree. Beer was made without even knowing beer was being made. Sanitation was not part of beer making when beer was first found. Yeast was also not cultured for certain types of beer. Sanitation and different yeast strains are what give us a lot of the different style beers we have today.

Yeast are tougher than people think but I wouldn't chance anything. $35 for a basic extract kit, 2 to 3 hours to brew and 3 to 4 weeks in primary...I want that beer coming out as good as it can.

I think mild infections are alot more common in homebrew than we know...

Don't downplay cleanliness and sanitation!

I agree people can be a little overboard on the sanitation fears, but not for the same reasons. If everything is kept clean, that is more important than sanitation to me. Don't give organisms a place to live and they won't be there in numbers to take over.

Plus many people don't realize chemicals like oxyclean, PBW, B-Brite, etc actually ARE effective sanatizers...just aren't marketed them as such. (Off topic chemistry discussion we can discuss if anyone is interested)

But to be fair I have to point out that even brewers centuries ago weren't negligent on sanitation. Many would begin their brew day by scalding all equipment with steam...which is actually more thorough STERILIZATION than our present chemical sanitation. It is even more sterile than boiling something in water.

Beginners should be primarily concerned with sanitation practices, if nothing else. There's a lot of things that you can screw up in beer making, and your beer will turn out okay. Screw up the sanitation and you're just asking for trouble.

fernando said:

Does everyone forget that beer has been around for a long time and that a lot of the sanitation methods of today are fairly recent. I have had some beer that smelled terrible out of the primary and secondary and then after a few weeks aging in the bottle was the best beer I ever had. Being clean makes for a crisper cleaner flavor but as a beginner you should only worry about the basics like did I get alcohol, did it carbonate, and is it reasonably tasting. Heck if it gets you drunk and not make you sick you are off to a good start, everything else will come with time.
-Fernando

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i disagree completely. the major thing to practice and get used to as a beginner is sanitation. you have that down, you're halfway to being an actual brewer

I had a Coopers can that I had gotten for free. I really didn't want to brew it so as an experiment I did everything wrong to see what would happen. I didn't sanitize, fermented it in a plastic water cooler bottle, I did put some saran wrap over the opening and held it on with a rubber band and used my well water which I question sometimes. It brewed beer, although not a very good beer. I've had a few bottles of it and in a pinch it's better than nothing. I'm about to dump it now to make room for good beer in my bottles.

Good sanitation practice is pretty important in my opinion.

Hey I love the feed back. And to be more specific I understand the need for sanitation, the sources of bad smells, and I did not mean to play down sanitation but the worrying that one gets as a beginner. As a beginner I remember hovering over my fermenter's airlock waiting for bubbles and smelling the gas to see if it was rancid which it was. Its a all bit nerve wreaking and have had friends who end up opening the container because they over concern them selves with things they did or may have not done. So to put it plainly once you get it in the fermenter its time to chill, short of sticking a spoon full of dirt in your brew chances are it will come out alright.

All you need in life is your feet to carry your weight your hands to make your way and your brain to guide you to the bar, but after a few beers don't expect it to show you the way back.

AND CHILL NERDS!!!

-Fernando

My airlock never smells 'rancid'.

A better way to phrase this is: If you follow thorough sanitation practice beer is pretty resilient.

I am testing this on my current batch of porter. Pitched at 65 degrees and put it in fridge at 63. Everything is going good bubbles in 5 hours. Come home next day look in garage and fridge temp is 74. Oh crap don't know how long. Move fridge inside and have to move beer bucket. Temp gets down to 62 by end of night and still have bubbles.

Come home next day. Wife hired a painter to paint dinning room, beer and beer fridge have been moved twice. Vodka is still in airlock but have floaties in airlock.

I've decided to let it sit in primary for 5 weeks instead of 4. I will be pleasantly suprise if it is good.

I kind of agree with OP, not with regard to sanitation, but just in general terms I certainly see a lot of threads where people are obviously worrying too much.

Y'know, stuff like 'my sparge water was 171 degrees instead of 170, should I dump my beer?' or 'my airlock is only bubbling once every 4.7 seconds, is this OK?'

I am a bit of a perfectionist and I do try to nail everything as close as possible, but even I (with the wisdom obtained after 4 batches!) know that there are certain things you either can't do anything about or shouldn't worry about anyway...

But I make sure I sanitize everything extremely thoroughly

Sanitize right and there goes 90% of your concern. the beer will basicly make it self from there on out no matter how you try to mess it up.

eelpout said:

Sanitize right and there goes 90% of your concern. the beer will basicly make it self from there on out no matter how you try to mess it up.

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That's probably true, but I still say it's the "Ugly Baby Syndrome". Lots of brewers think their beer is better than it really is, because they made it and they love it. (Just like a very ugly baby!).

The thing is, I've judged a few comps. It's enough to say that I've had plenty of ****ty beers by guys who thought their beer was "not too bad".

I'm a very relaxed brewer, and I agree that worrying too much isn't going to help. But to say that beer is hard to mess up just isn't true. It might be hard to totally ruin a beer, but it's much harder to make an excellent beer than a bad one.

yep I forget about the egos here. damn me

Yooper said:

That's probably true, but I still say it's the "Ugly Baby Syndrome". Lots of brewers think their beer is better than it really is, because they made it and they love it. (Just like a very ugly baby!).

The thing is, I've judged a few comps. It's enough to say that I've had plenty of ****ty beers by guys who thought their beer was "not too bad".

I'm a very relaxed brewer, and I agree that worrying too much isn't going to help. But to say that beer is hard to mess up just isn't true. It might be hard to totally ruin a beer, but it's much harder to make an excellent beer than a bad one.

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In fairness he said "beer" not "great beer". I have made some crappy batches but at the end of the day it's still beer. I think some of the more veteran brewers have found the harmonic balance between lazy and crazy when it comes to sanitization and other techniques with brewing.

I don't drink beer to get drunk...it justs happens

its easy to make beer... its hard to make great beer. Obvious I know...

eelpout said:

yep I forget about the egos here. damn me

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I have an ego because I don't like bad beer and I think it's important to give advice about proper techniques like sanitation and I'm more of a critic than "did I get alcohol?" I have more of a goal than "if it makes you drunk and you don't get sick", so that makes me have a big ego?

You actually made me LOL today. That's funny right there, I don't care who you are!

Yooper said:

I have an ego because I don't like bad beer and I think it's important to give advice about proper techniques like sanitation and I'm more of a critic than "did I get alcohol?" I have more of a goal than "if it makes you drunk and you don't get sick", so that makes me have a big ego?

You actually made me LOL today. That's funny right there, I don't care who you are!

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Not really sure where he is getting this "ego" from. The normals on this site are more relaxed than any other forum I have been on. The veterans on this site are a wealth of knoweldge. Most forums will get the typical "search" response but vets here always answer questions. Thanks for making brewing fun Yooper and the rest of the vets.

BTW, I think you meant to say Let's go Pats!