Looking for Experience

Short synopsis about my brewing career so far. I've brewed two batches successfully so far a Pale Ale and a Nut Brown Ale. My third batch (American Pale Ale) was sabotaged when I came home to find my airlock off for an unknown amount of time. I decided not to chance it. I love brewing though so far and I want to expand my knowledge.

I want to gain lots of experience and learn more and more. I was wondering if there were any tips or suggestions to help me out. I was thinking of getting a refrigeration set up for my fermentor. Also Instead of brewing a 1-5g batch, brewing 5-1g batches.

Let an aspiring professional brewer know what you think, tips and suggestions.

wait.. you decided not to chance what? You didn't just dump a batch because the airlock fell out did you?! Unless you mean a week or a month by "unknown amount of time", that was overkill. Nothing lost by waiting to see if it goes bad, chances are that it won't.

And yeah, temp controlled fermentation and going all-grain were the two biggest improvements for my beer.

Tip 1: don't dump beer. That batch was probably perfectly fine even without the airlock.

You probably threw away some perfectly good beer. The air lock on the floor happened to me as well, and it so far is fine. I am assuming it got gummed up with krausen and then pressure built and blew it off. But, if CO2 was coming out that much, it's REALLY hard for anything nasty to get in there, and take over from the very aggressive yeast.

This is where RDWHAHB comes in handy. Dumping beer can make everybody feel very uneasy around here. Its not common practice. Only last , very last resort. Read books and listen to people here. Brew beer as an art and go through the process and drink the product of your labor. Don't dump!

Damn, I figured that an airlock left off for 12+ hours would ruin the beer. Now I know. It's been a while since that last brew (because of financial reasons, everything is sorted out now). I've been doing some pretty heavy lurking on these forums lately, and I really am realizing how much research plays into this. Thanks for letting me know and I'll be more patient with my brew and let it play itself out. I decided to take some biology and chemistry classes to help my brewing out. Novice mistake.

shutupjojo said:

This is where RDWHAHB comes in handy. Dumping beer can make everybody feel very uneasy around here. Its not common practice. Only last , very last resort. Read books and listen to people here. Brew beer as an art and go through the process and drink the product of your labor. Don't dump!

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Thanks, I have new complete joy of homebrewing and am currently reading it. I heard it was one of the best starter books out there, also looking to expand my collection of readings.

Scruffy1207 said:

Thanks, I have new complete joy of homebrewing and am currently reading it. I heard it was one of the best starter books out there, also looking to expand my collection of readings.

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Reading is a good thing. There's also lots of podcasts available, i listen to a number of those on my way too and from work. Bewing Network has a number of podcasts available, my favorite is Brew Strong. There's also one from Beersmith and a Basic Brewing Radio podcast that has had some good info.

Scruffy1207 said:

Thanks, I have new complete joy of homebrewing and am currently reading it. I heard it was one of the best starter books out there, also looking to expand my collection of readings.

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Read, read, read!! If the Joy of Homebrewing doesn't jive with you I recommend Palmer's "How to Brew" (the free online version is a good start, but there are a few outdated practices in there that have been addressed in the newer versions). Palmer comes at it from a different angle.

HBT is a fantastic resource; kind of fleshes out the information in the books in a real world kind of way. Also, you can learn from other people's mistakes!

Scruffy,
Look around for a homebrew club to join. the more experienced members will help your brewing tremendously. Being able to sample your beer helps too.

buffalobrewer said:

Scruffy,
Look around for a homebrew club to join. the more experienced members will help your brewing tremendously. Being able to sample your beer helps too.

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Thats on my agenda, I know quaff meets the last thurs of every month. So I'm going to join up. I tried local breweries to see if they'd take me on as an unpaid intern doing all the dirty work, but I was denied because of it being too risky, I could hurt myself and sue, but I wouldn't because I have full health bennies.at.my job.