Getting bad advice

So I used to do a fair amount of homebrewing back in college. But it's been a number of years. About a month ago I bought a friend's all-grain setup and brewed up a couple of quick batches of extract based ales. I hjave never brewed an all grain batch prior to yesterday.

I asked my friend to come over and walk me through the all-grain setup. What an absolute mistake that was. Prior to him coming over I spent some time on here researching methods and whatnot and by the time he came over, I had a pretty good idea of what to do.

Well my friend comes over and the brewday was by far the most frustrating, irritating day ever. It pretty much culminated in me telling my friend to go home.

Basically the guy goes overboard on every level. He had a fifteenm step procedure for everything that should be done in one step. Need a spoon to mix your mash? First you need to fill up a new bucket with Sanstar, wash spoon, disinfect, lay to dry, pray over it, resanitize....... I kept reiterating that people have brewed beer siuccesfully for thousands of years and "RHAHB".

"You should disinfect your mash tun". Why? there is no reason to disinfect the mash tun.

I used brewsmith to design my brewday and he basically argued every point in Brewsmith.

"So Brewsmith says my water should be 168 degrees." I say.

"No, we always went 180".

Ok, so I go 180 and the temperature of the mash is too high.

"Beersmith says I should add 5.7 gallons of water to the mash" I exclaim.

"No. You need at least 8.", followed a few minutes later with "Oh wait, maybe you were right, now we have nothing to sparge it with".

In the end, not only was the day pretty much a waste, I got a whopping 45% efficiency and ended up with a wort that looks like tea with a OG of 1.052 for what was supposed to be an imperial IPA. I have no faith in this batch and fully expect to end up with watery hop tea.

And what really pisses me off? I had it right without him. In each and every instance I would ask "are you sure" or "Dude, that doesn't sound right" to be met with his insistence that he knows all.

So, the moral of the story: Don't take advice from people that don't knpow what the hell they are talking about.

mcarb said:

So, the moral of the story: Don't take advice from people that don't knpow what the hell they are talking about.

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This should be a disclaimer given to every new visitor to HBT...

Sorry to hear about the frustrating brew day, but sounds like you pretty much know the process. Shouldn't have any problems next time around.

Bummer

Sounds like you know what you are doing all by yourself. The good thing is that you will probably end up with a really nice IPA, I mean, all the hops of a DIPA in an IPA, you can't go wrong...and if it ends up being over kill the hops will settle down a little with some age and you will find the zen hop balance.

Sounds frustrating!

Its always fun to watch somebody else on THEIR brewday and assist where you can. That way you can pick up some knowledge but if they are being a complete tard you can just watch and hopefully drink some their brew while you're there.

Cheers to getting back in the brew game

Everyone does things differently. It's a pretty flexible and reliable process, mainly the goal is to put the yeast in a position to succeed in their job. Some people just really like the process, some people are as economical as possible in processes, and for the most part, the results are all good.

Learn from others but find a process that you are comfortable with, and that give you good outcomes.

Are you sure he's a "friend"? Sounds more like a nuisance than anything. Sorry to hear about the problems. Chalk it up to a learning lesson and always listen to your own research.

mcarb said:

Don't take advice from people that don't knpow what the hell they are talking about.

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My ears are burning . . . .

Have you ever tasted your friends brew? Maybe he sold he the equipment because he could never figure out to use it right and make a decent beer.

rjwhite41 said:

Have you ever tasted your friends brew? Maybe he sold he the equipment because he could never figure out to use it right and make a decent beer.

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My thoughts exactly!

Sounds aweful. I'm sure you'll make a great one next time.

You could name the resulting beer "Asshat 1/2 IIPA".

Next batch will be much better, keep plugging along and just follow your recipe!

Bensiff said:

Bummer

Sounds like you know what you are doing all by yourself. The good thing is that you will probably end up with a really nice IPA, I mean, all the hops of a DIPA in an IPA, you can't go wrong...and if it ends up being over kill the hops will settle down a little with some age and you will find the zen hop balance.

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..and if it does turn out good, don't tell him. Tell him you had to dump it...

I used to go over a friend's house to brew mainly for the comic relief. His impulsiveness would kill me before I learned to grab a beer and a sandwich and enjoy the show. He would go to dough in only to find out there's month old spent grains in the cooler. There was never a dull moment.

Sanitizing everything prior to boiling?

Umm... I don't do that. In fact, I just rinse out my MLT after each use with H2O only. The boil will kill any bacteria that are introduced to the wort. Your friend might be horrified to know that the grain is TEAMING WITH BACTERIA that goes into the MLT. Does he irradiate his grain prior to mashing to keep everything "sanitary" ? ZOMG

It sounds like you still learned a lot from this experience, and that goes a long way. My first AG was full of mistakes. The best part about that day was that came out learning a lot about what to do and more importantly what not to do. The second best part about that day was that I had extra extract on hand to make up for the breakdowns in my process.

All in all, I learn better by just doing something and making mistakes. The goofs that I do are rarely repeated, as long as I know about them. Since your friend offered all kinds of advice that you learned was wrong, you now know a lot more for next time.

As far as 180F goes, I don't ever heat up my water that much when mashing. I'll do anywhere from 165-175 for strike water , and I'll add that to the MLT without grain first. It's easier to let the water warm up the MLT and have some extra heat that you can easily let escape for a few minutes than to undershoot the temp and to add more hot water (mistake of my first AG day- don't add hot water unless you know exactly how much/how hot to use!). Once MLT is to strike temp, I use beersmith's calculations for my grain weight/temp to decide when to dough in. So far, it's been spot on. I've had some astringency problems in the past, and it is my belief that they were caused by sparging at 180F all the way to the end, and getting some low OG wort at extremely warm (above 170F) temps.

Thanks for the replies guys.
I havew tested his beer and he has had some good ones. None that would win a contest. I thought of that about halfway through the episode, why am I getting help from someone less experienced than me? And why am I listening to it?

brew day should be fun. but it is your beer and you are learning your way of doing things.