Checklist !

Just a heads up here. I was reading about a bro brewer that got through the whole process to primary fermenter and then relized he forgot the hops. Well I am getting to the point in my life where I can't remember what I had for breakfast.

But what I do have (sounds like the great Oz) is a checklist. I read it before and during the brew making. It reminds me about temperatures and times and sanitation and hops and irish moss - etc.

My $0.02.....Mike

As I'm sure a large majority of us on here have. Especially those of us using brew software that gives us a printed out brew sheet with water temp details and everything else

Yep on the checklist. Just check everything off as you do it.

I put all my hop/ion additions in ziplock snack bags with the time sharpied on them and lay them out on a workbench next to my burner.

Irish moss goes in the bag with the hop addition closest to 15 mins.

I recently brewed with a buddy at his place and we did it off the cuff. Ended up putting the 30 min. hops in at 60.

Labeling is def. needed.

I read about a study about surgical errors, which found that the error rate was much smaller if the doctor used a checklist. Even simple things, like "Verify name of patient" were on the list.

Hey, if it's good enough for brain surgery, it's good enough for me!

+1 with the baggie idea.
I also use the alarm on my cell phone to notify me when the next hop addition is as I'm usually doing a whole bunch of different things during the process.

I'm hooked on post-it notes. I've only done an extract and a partial so far but what I've been doing is putting the bags of ingredients on the table in order of when I'm supposed to add them, then I put a post-it at the edge of the table summarizing each step. It's really helpful because my brain can be pretty scattered, especially when I'm all excited about brewing.