What steps of the brewing process annoy you to no end?

SWMBO asking in that bittersweet voice "Are those bottles going to be out of the tub before I go to bed?"

In truth, the fact that I don't have my own dedicated space for brewing is probably the worst part in general. Cleaning fermenters is easy, fill with oxyclean and soak. Of course, not pissing off my wife while those fermenters are soaking is a bit harder.

I could seriously eliminate all the "hate" from my brewing if I had my own BeerSpace.

dumping the grains from the mash tun is the only thing I hate...

i hate taking the lables off and washing the bottles. i do love filling them though.

The only thing about brewing that annoys me is not brewing...

dzamba said:

i hate taking the lables off and washing the bottles. i do love filling them though.

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+1

That's it right there....I'd bottle every batch if I could set SWMBO and the kids to clean and de-label for me.

Scraping the labels off after they've soaked in less than clean water can be nasty. Other than that, the trickiest/messiest part is dumping the wort into the carboy (I don't siphon, so that it gets aerated). I usually need an extra hand for this, and much of the time, the wort will run down the side of the brewpot.

Other than that, the only annoying parts are when things go awry. Examples have been: melting chiller tubing when sanitizing in the boil, stuck sparges, running out of propane, broken thermos, hydros, etc.

Really though, it is all a labor of love...My buddy's SWMBO said that the 888 was "the best beer she's ever had"..and having other people enjoy it half as much-as well as enjoying it myself -is worth all the work.

Jaybird said:

killing a keg of the best beer you have ever tasted!!!! is hands down the only thing I HATE about brewing. Everything else in between I sooo look forward to.
JJ

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Amen, and having to wait for ingredients to arrive, I have no lhbs.

wildwest450 said:

Amen, and having to wait for ingredients to arrive, I have no lhbs.

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No decent LHBS in my area. I hate waiting on supplies to come in the mail or being at the mercy of UPS.

pealing the labels of used bottles blows hard and I'm not huge fan of cleaning out the spent grains

Brooklyn Brewery makes the hardest lables to peel off. I have to soak them use a knife to get it started and then scrub em off with a chore boy. Hobgoblins are the best. They just slide right off. Great beer too. Anybody have a recipe?

when my Brother in law comes over and drinks my beer other than that nothing bothers me. I have gotten burned ,bruised cut and such and always look forward to the next

dzamba said:

Hobgoblins are the best. They just slide right off. Great beer too. Anybody have a recipe?

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Yes, actually.

I've brewed 20 gals of it. It's great.

Wow. Thank you! I just read that they were investigated by the Ad Standards Authority because a lager drinker found their slogans offensive:

"What's the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?"
"Afraid of the dark, Lagerboy?"

Don't like cleaning the fermenter at all.

Cleaning, sanitizing, sparging is a pain in the ass for me too. Other than that im

The part I hate is picking up a bag of nearly week-old spent grain on trash day and tearing the bag. Yech.

It's only happened once, but that was enough.

Finding the time and then banging my head in my cellar on the joists. I know it is going to happen. I try to remember. I do. I forget. bang. bounce the old noggin on the wood. ...or metal if I hit the "bad" one. Ouchy.
Other than that, Zen gets me through.
"Zen and the art of homebrew" - has that been written yet?

Waiting for the beer to bottle condition.

dzamba said:

Hobgoblins are the best. They just slide right off.

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I do think Anchor Steam beats Hobgoblin for ease of label removal. If you'd like to refute this, please send me a full bottle of each and I'll test on video.

The only thing I don't like is trying to brew beer during the summertime here in Phoenix. It is just way too hot. I can't wait until wintertime I am almost out of beer.

I don't really care for the part where you have to clean up the fermenter

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Have you not heard of Oxyclean? A little trick I learned here a couple years ago.. I rinse the carboy, then fill it with water and half a scoop of Oxyclean, let sit for a couple days, pour out, then rinse at my convienience.

Easy as an infomercial, I haven't used a carboy brush in a long time, no need.

What used to be my least favorite thing when I brewed extract in the kitchen:
The inevitable little spills. cleaner, wort, sanitizer, they all ended up on the floor at some point and made it slippery, then sticky, and so part of the cleanup was mopping the kitchen floor afterwards. Now I brew in the basement with a walk out to the back yard where we do the boil. Basement has several floor drains, so spills don't matter (can still be slippery, though). Wifey doesn't spill as much stuff as I do, though. I guess I'm just clumsy.

Oh, and yeah, cleanup is my least favorite part, specifically cleaning out the keggle and mash tun since they're big and cumbersome to rinse and dump.

The hardest part is also the best part. Once I've decided on a recipe, it's the portion of time from then until the time I brew that puts me in such a state that I can barely stand myself.

BigKahuna said:

+1

That's it right there....I'd bottle every batch if I could set SWMBO and the kids to clean and de-label for me.

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I'd drink every bottle in the batch if I could get BigKahuna's SWMBO and the kids to clean and de-label, and get BigKahuna to bottle!

Anything having to do with bottling. Hate bottling.