so what's the worst part of brewing for you

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I tend to not like bottleing day as much because it involves more cleaning.Even though my bottles are stored and dried clean all I have to do is sanitized. Although I have a few small kegs now.:DBrew day is more relaxing for me that is if I have everything ready and planned out and even better my grains pre-crushed the night before. I hate when I break something like a freakin auto siphon-Im about to give up on those and just use a damn ol fashioned racking cane anymore. Most of my batches/bottleing goes pretty smooth though.

Really though the only thing I dont like is thinking about how much Im spending on it all. I try not to think about that though.
 
No having a local homebrew shop. I live in Puerto Rico and there is only one shop, a 3 hour drive away. Fortunately they have a delivery guy that will deliver stuff to my area once a week.
80*F ground water sucks for cooling wort.
My least favorite thing, however, is waiting to be sure that fermentation has begun and the yeast is doing its thing. I get anxious.
 
When I'm using my own homemade malt without a grain mill, it's a b*tch to crush as my malt has a little more moisture content than the commercial stuff. It gets chewed up, not crushed
 
I hate cleaning at the very end. I don't mind cleaning beforehand, sanitising, and so on.
It's that feeling when you feel like you've accomplished your job, and capped 30 bottles, and then realise that you've got a ton of rinising, surface wiping, mopping, lifting, drying and storing to do.

It wouldn't be so bad If i didn't have to bottle in the evenings.
 
No having a local homebrew shop. I live in Puerto Rico and there is only one shop, a 3 hour drive away. Fortunately they have a delivery guy that will deliver stuff to my area once a week.
80*F ground water sucks for cooling wort.
My least favorite thing, however, is waiting to be sure that fermentation has begun and the yeast is doing its thing. I get anxious.

Jealous. Puerto Rico always looks beautiful in pictures.
 
The washing the de-lableing, the set up the break down... none of that bothers me at all!!! what really pii$$es me off is my hands start to get so dry from being in star-san, and sani-clean, that they sometimes crack and man that's painful.... that's what suks
 
Cleaning, and more specifically, breaking down and cleaning the ball valves and conical fittings. I once was lazy about this and after a few batches developed some strong off flavors. Since then I have been breaking them down every time and sanitizing.
 
Delabeling bottles. How is this only the second time its metioned.

Guessing because others, like me, keg a vast majority of the beer. When I do bottle it is often in swing tops or in bombers that have been used before so the task in minimal.
 
There's still a ton of us on here that bottle. These threads about cleaning & delabeling come up all the time. Guess some just miss them on a long list of threads? Washing & delabeling bottles need not be a cumbersome chore. Just don't let a mountain of them back up before you get around to dealing with them.
 
I love every second of the entire process. The only thing I hate is not being able to do it every day.
 
Removing bottle labels: The first batch of bottles that I de-labeled were a pain. Soaked them in hot soapy water and the labels came right off, but I had to scrub the glue off. Now I just soak the bottles in water with PBW for a few hours (or over night) and everything falls or rubs off.

Cleaning bottles: Dishwasher with PBW. The bottles fit nicely over the wire rack pegs. Just make sure the dishwasher is clean, and select the sanitize drying option.

Protect your hands: My hands are sensitive to some cleaners, but Craft Meister doesn't seem to effect them. Also, you can wear gloves. The best I've found for this are the nitrile gloves with extended cuff.
http://www.uline.com/BL_6708/Nighthawk-Nitrile-Gloves

Cleaning kegs and carboys: Keg & carboy washer ($95-$100). I don't have one yet, but people who do love them.

What has made the cleaning process easier for me? Cleaning what I can as I go, rinsing the big items and leaving them to finish cleaning the next day, when it goes quickly.

Hopefully someone finds this helpful. Have a homebrew and don't forget the music! Happy brewing!
 
I've found that my commercial beer choices now revolve around tall, pry off, brown bottles that I know the labels come off easily. If I do have a stubborn label, that's what stainless steel scrub pads are for.
 
Having to deal with the 1 or 2 d-bags that work at Northern Brewer. A few of the guys that work there think they know everything there is to know about brewing and thinking that canned kits are a waste. I say if that's what you like to do and all the time you have for brewing, then more power to you.
 
I don't think delabeling is a chore really. I have a small trash can filled with PBW/Oxy water that I toss empty beer bottles into. Most of the commercial beer I buy have labels that will fall off after a good soak. Hangar 24 bottles suuuuuck because they use some sort of weird plastic glue. Kona bottles are awesome; labels fall off and glue comes off with a wipe of a sponge during rinsing. Delabeling is more or less a toss and forget thing. If I get a moment while doing other cleaning, I might do a few bottles as well.

My least favorite part of brewing? Hearing my girlfriend constantly complain about the room my brewing equipment takes up. Even though it's in a tiny unused corner of the house and I have 1/3 to 1/2 the equipment many of you have. Somehow that has a tremendous affect on her ability to live there, even though you can't even see it most of the time.
 
There is nothing I don't like about brewing. Cleaning is a bit of a pain with 30 gallon pots but it's still not as bad as going to work....
 
trujunglist said:
I don't think delabeling is a chore really. I have a small trash can filled with PBW/Oxy water that I toss empty beer bottles into. Most of the commercial beer I buy have labels that will fall off after a good soak. Hangar 24 bottles suuuuuck because they use some sort of weird plastic glue. Kona bottles are awesome; labels fall off and glue comes off with a wipe of a sponge during rinsing. Delabeling is more or less a toss and forget thing. If I get a moment while doing other cleaning, I might do a few bottles as well.

My least favorite part of brewing? Hearing my girlfriend constantly complain about the room my brewing equipment takes up. Even though it's in a tiny unused corner of the house and I have 1/3 to 1/2 the equipment many of you have. Somehow that has a tremendous affect on her ability to live there, even though you can't even see it most of the time.

Yeah but she could stack some clothes in that corner....LOL.

My wife says the same ****.
 
i would clean a hundred dry hopped carboys to go back in time and not brew last night. one primary(lager!) infected while doing the rest. a massive overflow on my gravity sparge, onto my carpet. my poindextered portable march pump WOULD NOT PRIME! URGH! after 20 minutes i was puling my moustache hairs out and weeping into my still very hot wort. i had to remake me immersion chiller real quick. i poured the dregs of 3 homebrews onto my head while railing at the brew gods. wonder if my brew buddies will be back.
 
When I don't close all the way the valve on the water supply to my wort chiller and I wake up to a wet kitchen floor that is dripping down on the laundry room.
 
dwart said:
Delabeling bottles. How is this only the second time its metioned.

I've quit trying this. If the label "wants" to come off then I take it off. Otherwise it stays on.
 
I used to hate cleaning and sanitizing bottles. Actually, everything that went with bottling. Now that I'm kegging, I enjoy every part of brewing.
 
Delabeling bottles. How is this only the second time its metioned.

I'm not sure why this makes anyone's Top 5. I just fill a 5-gallon Homer bucket with warm water and a scoop of Oxy or PBW and drop in a dozen bottles with labels. I come back the next day and the labels are all sitting on the bottom of the bucket. I pick each bottle up, scrub the outside a little with a sponge to rub off any remaining glue residue, then rinse them in my sink and stack them on my bottle tree to dry.

How is de-labeling the worst part? How is it worse than disassembling, cleaning, checking seals, lubing, sanitizing, and pressurizing a corny keg?
 
FAULTY EQUIPMENT
Realizing I have a bad temp probe after wasting 1.5 -2 hours trying to mash at 152 - 154F. Yesterday I brewed a Scottish ale with 12.25 lbs of grain. I couldn't get starches to convert, but thought the grain must have some clumps somewhere in the BIAB. It was the biggest grain batch I've brewed in my 30 quart pot, so I kept trying to stir it up better. Finally I checked mash temp with a floating thermometer and it was 130F!
 
Turns out that my FAULTY temp probe was merely a low battery in the digital thermometer base. Today, it finally dawned on me that the battery could be bad/low. Sure enough, I was right. It's amazing how much clearer my mind is when I'm not frustrated after having something go wrong in the middle of brewing! Lesson learned: make sure everything works right before brewing, double check equipment, verify temps with glass thermometer.
 
Getting kettles back from the welder with a half coupling welded the wrong way so you can't thread anything into it : (
 
I'm not sure why this makes anyone's Top 5. I just fill a 5-gallon Homer bucket with warm water and a scoop of Oxy or PBW and drop in a dozen bottles with labels. I come back the next day and the labels are all sitting on the bottom of the bucket. I pick each bottle up, scrub the outside a little with a sponge to rub off any remaining glue residue, then rinse them in my sink and stack them on my bottle tree to dry.

How is de-labeling the worst part? How is it worse than disassembling, cleaning, checking seals, lubing, sanitizing, and pressurizing a corny keg?

You don't find that the oxy-clean leaves a chalky residue?
 
Worst part for me is when life doesn't afford the time to brew. Cleaning, bottling etc., might be some what tedious, are part of the fun and process for me.
 
msa8967 said:
Having to dump 5 gallons of kegged beer that just won't taste right.

That is the worst. Close the thread.

I haven't dumped anything yet, but I have relegated a batch or two to "cooking only" status.
 
Cleaning after bottling. Everything gets put away absolutely clean for next time. Next would be cleaning after brewing, specifically washing the soot off the boil pot.
 
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