Worst Part About Homebrewing

huh? what was the question again? did you say something bad about brewing?

I would have to agree with bottling...but a dishwasher helps. sanitizing all those bottles is a PITA and a mess maker otherwise

number one reason.

Deciding what kind of beer you are going to try next!!!!
way to many decisions!!!

Worst thing: Missing volumes and having to dilute with filtered h2o.

I don't even mind cleanup, bottling, or sanitizng. But it really chaps my ass when I'm finished boiling and have 4.5 gallons because I measured wrong, and then to hit the gravity I gotta dilute it with water. Why didn't I just make one 5.5 gallon mark on my spoon instead of marking off every gallon...

Think this happened recently?

The hop shortage! Only bad thing about brewing is the hop shortage. I can deal with bottling. That was easy, I switched to kegging.

But if I can't buy hops, I can't make beer. The LHBS will only sell 2 oz at a time and only if you buy other ingredients. I'm going to have enough DME and specialty malts to last a life time just to get the 2 oz I need for some 10 gallon AG Scottish Light. It's driving me nuts.

I was all set to brew a 10 gallon batch of Bohemian Pilsner. Hop bill was 11oz of Saaz. I have it in stock, but went to go find a source to replenish so I can brew another 10 to go on the yeast cake. It would cost me $100 to buy a pound of Saaz! That's just nuts. I'll have to start buying grow lights and growing special herbs just to fund my beer making hobby! Or just start buying the ganja to get my buzz on. It'll be cheaper..... [/rant]

The worst part? When you spill 5 gallons of wort, have to clean it up, and deal with the depression that comes from seeing your work laid to waste as a puddle on the floor. A giant puddle.

That and cleaning. I hate cleaning. hatehatehate

worst part about homebrewing? How much time you got?

there are a lot of things that I hate about this hobby

I hate the way that I can never stop worrying if I have done everything right
I hate the way that I spend time I don't have on this website reading about brewing
I hate the way that I spend money I don't have on supplies for homebrewing
I hate the way that I constantly get distracted because I am thinking about brewing,and I spend time that i should be spending studying and reading thinking about or doing homebrewing, because i can't focus on anything else, once I get thinking about homebrewing.
I hate the way that I don't think i can stop homebrewing if i wanted to

but most of all

I hate the way that all of the above apply, and I haven't taken a sip of homebrew yet

Definitely cleaning and sanitizing. Bottling I don't mind as much...but washing/cleaning/sanitizing everything can get to be a royal PITA.

DeathBrewer said:

huh? what was the question again? did you say something bad about brewing?

I would have to agree with bottling...but a dishwasher helps. sanitizing all those bottles is a PITA and a mess maker otherwise

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You just stick em in the dishwasher and advance it to the heat/dry cycle or something?

yep, they must be nice and clean first (i just rinse mine out right after i use them and keep them stored where they wont get filled with dust)

then put the bottles all upside down and run the rinse cycle with a high heat dry. I've seen washers that don't have a high enough heat, tho, so check what you got. mine has HIGH HEAT setting.

I thought I'd ressurect this thread to express of all the hate I have in my heart.

I hate cleaning, worrying, waiting, deciding what to brew next.
Most of all I hate not being able to drink while brewing because I have to cut weight.

All the cleaning that is involved to make sure everything stays sterile!

You mean sanitized not sterile. Cleaning up sucks. I made beer, I drank beer, I really don't want to clean up when I'm done.

I don't bottle anymore, so probably cleaning. Having a batch in a secondary fermenter only to finish off your last keg is pretty bad as well.

cleaning

For me its the stupid mistakes that I keep making like putting a carboy with luke-warm water onto a cold garage floor and then hearing TING!!!!! and then watching water trickle out....... twice!!!!!

To be perfectly honest, I enjoy every aspect of the hobby. Even bottling (when I do it) and cleaning aren't too bad. I turn on the radio, throw in a pinch of Copenhagen, grab a beer, and bottle/clean/whatever. Of course it's not as much fun as a brew day, but still better than work!

-Cleaning up the kitchen so I can get down to the fun of brewing.

-having to work around the standard too-small home sink and too-low faucet gooseneck.

Needing my own kitchen!

Definitely cleaning. I don't mind bottling at all.

After I've done all that work brewing, I then have to clean the mash tun, brew kettle, pots, etc. The worst part is the mash tun because the grain is still so hot...I have to wait, drain excess water, stir it up to get rid of some heat, and then come back later until it's a manageable temp. I don't have a compost heap, so I have to dump it into a lawn and leaf garbage bag.

Being a military guy, the hardest part for me has been the desire to pull 2 or 3 beers off my tap every night when I get home. My weight can not support that. It has been very dificult to refrain a few nights, or work out more. Still trying to find the right balance.

Knowing there is basically an endless supply of stuff I'll always want and not being able to afford it/nowhere to go with it/not having time to use it.

I'm fine with bottling, cleaning, it all makes the beer taste that much better being the fruit of your own labor. I just wish I could have a dedicated brewhaus with "more stuff."

As a rookie that has just recently made two batches, the worst part for me right now is waiting. I have my 3rd batch on deck and my first batch is almost ready to bottle. I can't wait to have a full pipeline. I haven't bottled yet but I am looking forward to it.

Acoma said:

I haven't bottled yet but I am looking forward to it.

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NOOOOOOB!

j/k the shine will wear off the bottling part of the hobby. The rest of the process is still enjoyable for me though. I don't even mind the cleaning up afterwards.

For me, the worst part is dealing with fermentation temp control.

I have a converted chest freezer that can either hold 4 Cornelius kegs or 2 kegs and one pail or carboy for lager fermentation. Ale fermentation takes place with a swamp cooler. Both are a hassle, one because I lose 2 beers on tap whenever I want to ferment a lager and one because I have to nurse the darned thing at least twice a day putting in frozen 2 liter soda bottles to keep it cold enough for ale fermentation most of the year. Drives me nuts -- and SWMBO isn't going for a bigger or second chest freezer . . .

passedpawn said:

NOOOOOOB!

j/k the shine will wear off the bottling part of the hobby. The rest of the process is still enjoyable for me though. I don't even mind the cleaning up afterwards.

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Haha! I am honestly reveling in every piece of the process so far and can't wait to bottle my first batch. Not to mention it will put me that much closer to being able to taste it.

I was cleaning my bottles last night and counting them up. I only have a couple full cases, one 12'er, and almost a full case of bombers. Still have a long way to go.

I've been researching up on bottling and it looks like it can be a major PITA and I very well may change my mind but as of now I am planning on fully embracing it with some craft brews and music.

the worst part is drinking a batch that didn't turn out so good, because unless it's undrinkable I just cannot dump anything.

I accept cleaning and sanitizing as part and parcel of the hobby. I can't think of those aspects as being anything more or less negative than actually brewing.

Waiting for a beer to condition can get tiresome. I tend to make big beers. This leads into my actual entry to this question.

Being broke. I don't mind using aluminum pots and having to bottle instead of keg because hey, that's what I have, can afford and it will work. I am either going to drink my own beer or have to buy beer. If I buy beer then I cut into my ability to buy ingredients to make beer. I can't afford both. If my beer is going to be 12 weeks from the brew day before I can open it that means I have 12 weeks of buying beer and not ingredients. A pipeline costs money I don't have.

TheSeether said:

I accept cleaning and sanitizing as part and parcel of the hobby. I can't think of those aspects as being anything more or less negative than actually brewing.

Waiting for a beer to condition can get tiresome. I tend to make big beers. This leads into my actual entry to this question.

Being broke. I don't mind using aluminum pots and having to bottle instead of keg because hey, that's what I have, can afford and it will work. I am either going to drink my own beer or have to buy beer. If I buy beer then I cut into my ability to buy ingredients to make beer. I can't afford both. If my beer is going to be 12 weeks from the brew day before I can open it that means I have 12 weeks of buying beer and not ingredients. A pipeline costs money I don't have.

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I say we set up a beer fund for our fellow brewer up in Fargo!

I'd have to say coming to the realization that I'm about 50 pounds overweight and need to back off on the beer big time in order to drop some pounds over the next year. It's not entirely the fault of the homebrew, but cutting back on homebrew consumption has to be part of the fitness equation.

It's really OK, though. I brew for the taste and for the fun of serving it up to friends at barbecues and such. I'm happy to have a pint or two on the weekends and none during the week if it means feeling healthier.

If I had to pick a single thing I dislike, it would have to be my general lack of patience. It extends beyond this hobby, and into most things I do. The side effect of this is that I start to obsess over things. Even if I had it in me to brew once a week, there are still six days that I am not doing it. Waiting is a near-herculean task that I backfill by reading everything I can, or scheming ways to spend more time doing what I want to.

I am sure that there is some sort of underlying condition a shrink would like to charge me for in there somewhere.

cedar_lake said:

I'd have to say coming to the realization that I'm about 50 pounds overweight and need to back off on the beer big time in order to drop some pounds over the next year. It's not entirely the fault of the homebrew, but cutting back on homebrew consumption has to be part of the fitness equation.

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I am in a similar situation at the moment. Best of luck to you!

Cleaning and bottling and not being able to make it every day

passedpawn said:

NOOOOOOB!

j/k the shine will wear off the bottling part of the hobby. The rest of the process is still enjoyable for me though. I don't even mind the cleaning up afterwards.

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I don't mind bottling. I love seeing the beer go from a single container into single serving containers that will be ready to drink shortly.

The biggest PITA for me has been accumulating enough bottles to have a sufficient pipeline of a variety of beers.

I started out with buying a new case of 12 oz and a case of 22 oz. Then I acquired 7 cases of 16 oz bottles for free, but they were the most God-awful smelling glass containers I've ever smelled...so bad that I have 3 or 4 cases I haven't touched yet still in the cases out in the garage. I'll have to clean them before it warms up or the garage will smell like satan's anus.

Just got 9 cases of 12 oz bottles...mostly clean, but after about 4 cases of Beck's bottles, the rest are a mix of 6 of these a dozen of those and about 2 cases are clear (I'll use those for Alpfelwein).

Along with acquiring bottles comes cleaning them if they weren't already cleaned...or when you give beer away and get dirty bottles back. That won't happen again. I've had some that even an overnight soak in oxyclean still required the use of a bottle brush.

the worst part of brewing is waiting to the last f-ing second to build you ferm heater, but then finally pulling it all together by having your dad weld up some 316 stainless for a thermowell, drilling some rubber stoppers, last minute runs to home depot for insulation, only to have it go all to sh*t because you can't get work software to install so you can reprogram your keezer controller to also control the heater because you were to lazy to initialize the binary outputs when you first programmed the controller because you thought "wtf am I ever gonna need more than one binary output for?" so you're sitting up at 10:26 installing SQL so you can install config software so you can spend 2 hours reprogramming your controller

as most everyone else has already clearly stated:

1. waiting
2. cleaning/sanitizing
3. bottling
4. occasional anticlimactic batches

and finally #5 for me, but not necessarily a problem for all: it can be a money pit...i'm just saying i've seen a lot of dollars fly out of my hands since i started this hobby...or should i say became obsessed.

that said, the positives vastly outweigh any "down sides"...

I don't mind bottling. But I sure do hate cleaning them and removing the labels.

jtkratzer said:

Along with acquiring bottles comes cleaning them if they weren't already cleaned...or when you give beer away and get dirty bottles back. That won't happen again. I've had some that even an overnight soak in oxyclean still required the use of a bottle brush.

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Three day soak in oxyclean will remove anything. I just soak em, dump out half the liquid and give them a good shake. And I have gotten some of the most god awful crap (like 1/2" of caked on mold) out.

I hate fermentation control . Its a pain. I live in a small apartment so n cool basement here to aid in low temps. I use my mr. Beer fermentor for batches which yields me 2 gallon batches. I put the thing in a cooler filled with cold water. Wish I had more space for a temp controlled ref.

For me its got to be running out of home brew while parts are in the mail for the new mash tun and boil kettle. Now that the parts are here I need a few weeks of weekends to get the welding finished.

motobrewer said:

the worst part of brewing is waiting to the last f-ing second to build you ferm heater, but then finally pulling it all together by having your dad weld up some 316 stainless for a thermowell, drilling some rubber stoppers, last minute runs to home depot for insulation, only to have it go all to sh*t because you can't get work software to install so you can reprogram your keezer controller to also control the heater because you were to lazy to initialize the binary outputs when you first programmed the controller because you thought "wtf am I ever gonna need more than one binary output for?" so you're sitting up at 10:26 installing SQL so you can install config software so you can spend 2 hours reprogramming your controller

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Yeah I totally hate when I have to do that also

lol, got it all done sunday while brewing...was a pita, but it's done and fermenting at a nice even temperature.