2014 Brewyears Resolutions

Start a Flanders sour for long term aging. Build a few personal rotational recipes.

get my three ss kegs finally turned into keggles already and start brewing 10 gallon batches.
also itchin to buy that ss brew bucket thing! gonn amake it happen!

1) Improve my fermentation temp control
2) Brew at least 6 batches
3) Get another fermentor so I can increase my batch count.
4) Continue trying new and different beers to expand my knowledge of craft beer.

That should keep me occupied for 2014.

For 2014, I vowed not to drink anymore...
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or less.

Enter my first competition.
Brew a lager.
Upgrade to a 3 vessel direct fire system.
Buy an o2 setup for higher grav beers
Buy ph meter to test water chemistry better.

...that should take a year.

Start two sour solera projects at least 10 gallons each.

Partygile more often

Try to retain a few bottles of some of the better batches for long term aging.

My goal is to brew a new kind of beer, that is not a pale ale or ipa.

And to start my first all grain biab. That should help cut the costs down and allow me to brew more often.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Home Brew mobile app

Have a better sense of the seasons. That is, im a big believer in brewing what suits the conditions. I have a nice wine chiller that I use for temp control, but here's what I mean.

Do those Belgians, saisons, and maybe Berliner Weisses in summer when high temps are easily achievable. Don't wait until October to say, hey, how about that Dubbel now? Lagers, kolschs/altbiers, Scottish, etc in the cold months when the basement is nice and chilly, and typical ales in the in-between times.

I want to win my first gold medal. Funny. The one comp that I won didn't give out medals. I got a beer holster instead.

Score > 35 in a comp (don't care if that wins anything).

I've just about got my first lager recipe sorted out.

Resolution.... make a lager, and make it with a double decoction mash.

Might seem like a weak brewyears resolution, but it's a big one for me.

Harvest and reuse yeast strains. Ideally buy a whole lot less yeast.

mjdonnelly68 said:

Stop chasing every new recipe that sounds interesting and brew/rebrew my 'solid-six' until they are perfect.

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Me too.

Seriously up my pipeline in the fall. I bring beer to lots of holiday parties, which I'm happy to do, but it depletes the supply. Plus, there's a lag when I make the wintertime switch to lager brewing, so next year I should have maybe 50% more in the pre-winter pipeline.

Better planning and execution of my brew calendar. Maybe my Oktoberfest will actually be ready for my Oktoberfest party this year!

Get a keg, get a Co2 bottle, get a beergun, and gear for 5g batches

Brew more. Tell the people in my life that I love that I do. Post tipsy to HBT less.

Simplify brew day by trying biab and the no-cooling method. I can brew more often if I can cut down on the time it takes.

Get my commercial space's lease signed by the end of the month, order in a 6bbl brewery, stress about quality and quantity, and make local craft beer drinkers happy.

Build my fermentation cabinet. I've got all the stuff, but I've just been letting it sit.

Figure out the minimum amount of water chemistry needed to get a neutral profile for my tap water.

Zero infections. They aren't common (maybe 15% of my batches to varying degrees), but I'm sure I can get that number down.

Take more measurements. Put the new refractometer to use.

Build a better place to store my equipment, ferment, and bottle condition my brew. I need to get shelving, containers, etc to make my set up more user friendly.

1. Try to finish the brew rig

2. Build a collar for the fermentation chamber/kegerator

3. Perfect the brewing process on the new brewing rig

1. Use stir plate for better yeast starters -- currently just swirling when I pass the starter

2. Enter some competitions -- it is nice hearing feedback from neighbors, friends, and family that they think the beer I made is good. But I want "real" feedback on my beer so I can see where I can improve. I have a Mosaic APA fermenting now that will be ready for a competition in Q1 2014. I am brewing an American Wheat tomorrow with Sorachi Ace as the flavor/aroma hop that I will enter as well.

3. Brew a lager -- I don't have a dedicated fermentation chamber, so I was thinking of using the White Labs San Francisco yeast to use for my first lager.

4. Identify 3 of my beers that I enjoy the most and fine tune the brewing process with them -- currently the first on the list is BierMuncher's Cream of Three Crops. I would like for a Kolsch to be the second. Not sure on #3...an APA maybe?

1.) Parti-Gyle

2.) Brew a Sour

3.) Win BOS in a comp

How did we do?

Me:

markstache said:

Build my fermentation cabinet. I've got all the stuff, but I've just been letting it sit.

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Check. Totally worth it. More space in the house, higher quality beers. Win-win.

Figure out the minimum amount of water chemistry needed to get a neutral profile for my tap water.

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Read the water book. Got some acid malt and use Bru'un Water to get a rough estimate of mash ph and mineral counts. Still considering getting a ph meter.

Zero infections. They aren't common (maybe 15% of my batches to varying degrees), but I'm sure I can get that number down.

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Zero fermenter infections. Had a small string of bottle infections in Oct/Nov. Replaced bottling equipment and paid better attention to bottle cleaning. Positive results so far.

Take more measurements. Put the new refractometer to use.

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Medium success. Could still do more.

Here's to 2015 and another brewing year!

mjdonnelly68 said:

Stop chasing every new recipe that sounds interesting and brew/rebrew my 'solid-six' until they are perfect.

Click to expand...

How'd I do with my 2014 Brewyear's Resolution? Good but not great.

I wasn't quite as all over the map as I was before, but I couldn't help but experiment with new styles (so much beers out there).

I did re-brew several recipes and get them dialed in. Very happy with that.

I've identified four styles I'm going to try and master in 2015 - Kolsch, Helles, Pilsner and Dunkleweizen. Here's hoping...

JonM said:

Finally make lagers.

Get a better understanding of water chemistry (hey, Santa! pH Meter for JonM! He's been good!)

Maybe start submitting to comps.

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Made one lager and it was an acetaldehyde-laden, under attenuated, undrinkable mess. I'll definitely try again because I got a stir plate this Christmas and will be able to handle the yeast properly.

I did pretty well on the water chemistry front. I don't know everything, of course, but my beers have improved dramatically with good water and proper mash pH.

No comps. Maybe next year.

With life chaos this year, I only got 3 batches in, but DID get my water profile mostly under control now that I'm in Indiana. Pouring liquid limestone out of your faucet certainly makes for different beer than the river water in Kansas City.

For 2015:
1. Brew more.
2. Get fermentation temperatures under control. I have the STC-1000 in hand. Just need a chest freezer or mini-fridge.
3. Pump and quick disconnects.
4. Kegging. Number 4, but biggest want. Right now a pipe dream as I need both a place for it as well as the cash. Bottling sucks.

fuzzy2133 said:

Start brewing all grain BIAB or brew using a large partial mash.
Send at least one HB to a competition.

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Did plenty of BIAB brewing.
No competitions; 1/2 my batches were bad or experimental disasters. One good batch that could have been good to send the hop flavor quickly faded.

I'll just focus on good beer in 2015.

Build a fermentation chamber, control temps!

Dial down my process with simple recipes. Basically learn how to make a good beer without trying to experiment.

Hopefully start kegging and get a better system to control temperature.

grathan said:

I'd like to shift beer-making from obsession back down to hobby status for the year.

first lager
have plenty of pale beers ready for the summer months
join a club
go a whole year with no dumped batches
lengthen the shelf life of my kegged beers.

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We'll, I failed all of the above. Looks like a good list for 2015 though!

1) Successfully become a BIAB Brewer.
2) Perfect my 4 staple Extract Batches in BIAB form and submit at least one to a Competition.
3) Get my buddy brewing as he will likely become as addicted as me!

Brew up some more rare or extinct styles while re-brewing old favorites. Some of which need to be converted to PM.

Qhrumphf said:

Start kegging.

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I failed too. Didn't start kegging. Probably won't for the foreseeable future.

Moved to a place where kegging was even less of a possibility than before. I did, however, move to using polypins and gravity pouring cask ale. So that's somewhat similar.

Going to brew one more extract brew on new years day (vanilla porter).

Then, no more brewing until my semi-automated ebrew stand is fully operational. Then it's all-grain going forward.

Nice! Love to see people going AG.