Ranking of importance - opinions please

[brycelarson]

I've been thinking about brewing from a simplification perspective - so I have a question for readers - how do you rank the following in importance:

Recipe
Quality of ingredients
Mash temp / technique
Water chemistry
Yeast strain
Fermentation temp
etc.

And I'm sure other people would put other items on the list. I'll refrain from posting my opinion until I've seen other peoples' thoughts.

I don't think it's at all necessary to list every aspect - I think just seeing opinions on the top three or four for each person would be really interesting.

thanks guys!

 

[cyclogenesis]

1) Sanitation

 

[Yooper]

Hmmm. Let's see. For me, it's pretty simple I think.

1. Sanitation

2. Yeast health
- that would include proper pitching rate and fermentation temperature, as they are equally important. I couldn't separate that, as it's all about the yeast.

3. Good ingredients (including proper water)

4. Technique (cooling properly, boiling with a rolling boil, etc)

5. Everything else

 

[Gameface]

Sanitation
Water chemistry
Fermentation temp
Yeast strain/number of healthy yeast
Aeration
Quality of ingredients
Recipe
Mash Temp

Being that sanitation and water of acceptable quality are pretty much a given if you want to make drinkable beer Ferm temp is my #1 as far as things some people do and some people don't while still possibly making drinkable beer.

 

[Zamial]

Water, Grains, Hops, Yeast are all of the MAIN ingredients so they share the number 1 spot equally.

Next I put mash temp for AG brewing but this is not needed for extract brewers or if you do full decoction mashing correctly.

I do not understand the "quality of product", you should not be using non-brewing ingredients... or ingredients that are sub par or old.

 

[brycelarson]

Sanitation
Being that sanitation and water of acceptable quality are pretty much a given if you want to make drinkable beer Ferm temp is my #1 as far as things some people do and some people don't while still possibly making drinkable beer.

so are you saying taking sanitation and water out - then for you #1 is ferm temp but not for everyone?

I do not understand the "quality of product", you should not be using non-brewing ingredients... or ingredients that are sub par or old.

sure, and modern brewing ingredients are pretty excellent - but years ago when many of us started it wasn't uncommon to see cans of malt extract of indeterminate age on the shelves of the LHBS. I'm just tossing out ideas - if it's not something that you worry about, then obviously it's low on your list.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

1) Yeast, as Yooper said -- includes pitch rate, pitch temp, and ferment temp.

You can have the highest quality, freshest ingredients, perfect water, and absolutely spot-on technique. But if you underpitch yeast, pitching at 82 degrees, and fermenting in the high 70's, your beer will not be good.

 

[captwalt]

Fermentation temps
Yeast quantity, quality
The taste of the water is pretty important but I assume that everybody begins with good tasting water.,

 

[Gameface]

so are you saying taking sanitation and water out - then for you #1 is ferm temp but not for everyone?

I'm saying that some people control ferm temp and some people don't. Good beer can be made without controlling ferm temp but doing so was the biggest quality/consistency improvement I've made.

 

[kaz4121]

Hmmm. Let's see. For me, it's pretty simple I think.

1. Sanitation

2. Yeast health
- that would include proper pitching rate and fermentation temperature, as they are equally important. I couldn't separate that, as it's all about the yeast.

3. Good ingredients (including proper water)

4. Technique (cooling properly, boiling with a rolling boil, etc)

5. Everything else

How are more people not putting sanitation as #1?

without proper sanitation, you have no beer!

 

[a6ladd]

+1 on the Yeast/fermentation temp! Excluding sanitation my list goes as follows 2) Recipe 3) Mash temp / Technique 4) Water chemistry

 

[mjdonnelly68]

I've been thinking about brewing from a simplification perspective - so I have a question for readers - how do you rank the following in importance:

Recipe
Quality of ingredients
Mash temp / technique
Water chemistry
Yeast strain
Fermentation temp
etc.

And I'm sure other people would put other items on the list. I'll refrain from posting my opinion until I've seen other peoples' thoughts.

I don't think it's at all necessary to list every aspect - I think just seeing opinions on the top three or four for each person would be really interesting.

thanks guys!

Hard to answer as some of the parameters are mutually exclusive.

I'd agree that Sanitation and Yeast (health and ferm temp) are top priorities, but sanitation and yeast won't mean squat if your recipe calls for 4 lbs of sheep's liver.

To answer another way, I'd recommend that anyone perfect their sanitation and brew a bunch of batches with proven recipes and proper yeast pitch and fermentation temps before they start worrying about any other part of the process.

 

[Challenger440]

How are more people not putting sanitation as #1?

without proper sanitation, you have no beer!

While true I would venture to say it is more because good sanitation is easier to achieve. Think about all that can go into yeast health and fermentation control.

Starter size, yeast age, generation for yeast and fermentation chambers, temperature controllers for ferm temps. Yes these are the more extreme/anal measures that can be taken but sanitation is just simple (while still being crucial)

 

[brewmastercontrols]

In my opinion the quality of the output of your brewing process is defined by how well you hit your temperatures, volumes and how sanitary the overall process is. If you hit your temperatures and volumes in a sanitary environment you will have good beer! The previous was a cut and paste from my six part series on how to brew all grain with HERMS. See the link below.

1. Sanitation
2. Volumes
3. Temps

Without these mastered the recipe, yeast, etc does not matter. You may have a great recipe that produces crap beer, or a crap recipe that produces good beer due to problems with 1,2 or 3. 100% for sure you will never know how you got good beer or be able to repeat it unless you master these.

 

[Braufessor]

Sanitation
Fermentation temp/Yeast strain/number of healthy yeast
Water chemistry
Aeration
Quality of ingredients (assuming we are not talking about rotten grain or 10 year old freezer burned hops)
Recipe
Mash Temp (assuming we are not talking about being off by 20-30 degrees or something like that)

Basically recipe, ingredients, mash temps, etc. are all taken care of if you simply buy and use "normal/average stuff" - you kind of have to go out of your way to screw up beer in these regards, so I don't see them as significant.

Sanitation has to be #1, because bad sanitation = bad beer 100% of the time.
Fermentation/yeast is #2 because it does not take a lot of movement out of accepted ranges to cause problems.
Water is kind of tricky - because it is not the same for everyone. Almost all water is good for some beer, but most water is not good for all beer.

 

[KISS Brew]

The list is missing patience. It probably goes on the bottom of any of your lists, but it helps an awful lot.

 

[solbes]

1) Sanitation
2) Yeast Health/Pitch Rate
3) Fermentation Temp Control


Then way down the list I'd have: recipe, quality of ingredients, mash temp, and water chemistry. If you have the first 3 you will make good beer. Maybe not the recipe you intended, but it will be drinkable (unless your recipe was Way off).

 

[AnOldUR]

It's a trick question. Neglect any one of those and your beer will be subpar.

 

[brycelarson]

No, not a trick question - I'm just curious which aspects people think make the biggest difference in their beers. Obviously a major mistake in any one of those things will harm your beer. We all have our opinions about which thing we can control that gave us that moment where we realized that the beer we were making was better than OK - it was really excellent. I'm just curious which variables people consider to be of prime importance.

There are obviously differences in opinion.