Survey: if you could do one thing over again regarding Homebrew would it be?

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mrbeachroach

mrbeachroach

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Hello friends. Nothing is more fun at the end of the day then when I check in with my Home Brew buddies on this form and see what kind of questions and answers are coming up.

It would be fun and insightful to find out from each other if you could do one thing over again regarding Homebrewing, what would it be?


For me I will offer up two different things.

1. I definitely would have started much sooner.

There are a few things in my life that I didn't realize until after I started doing them that it is obvious I should've started this much sooner because I absolutely love it. The other two things that fall in this category for me is fishing and disc golf. And all those things I was amazed at how well they fit me and what I'm all about.

2. I would establish a base group of local folks to brew and swap with. I have had a little bit of that going on in the past but nowhere near the amount of support I would actually like now. Homebrewing is a lot of fun however I do believe it is meant to be shared with friends. Kind of like barbecuing you wouldn't usually lavish on a great barbecue and then eat it by yourself but it is to be experience with others.

And there is something magical that happens with the conversation around this ancient style of brewing.
 
Have a dedicated space, with smooth surfaces that can be washed, much like a brewery. Like this (sorry member, can't remember who you are!). Separate rooms for each part of the production flow.
Home-Brew-Rooms-11-18-ELECTRIC.jpg
IMG_2873.jpg
:
 
Skip the phase where I brewed Mr. B kits, move from 1-gallon to 3-gallon batches sooner. I invested a little too much in small batches.
 
Considering I live in an apartment I would have started with a Grainfather instead of the three 10 gallon pots, hot plates, pumps and other accessories I have now.

I also would have went straight in to kegging instead of bottling.
 
* Buy higher end stuff first, instead of buying basic, then mediocre and eventually the higher end stuff any way.

* Learn about water and using RO water sooner - spent 10-15 years going off of the "if it tastes good it is fine to brew with" advice..... which was not good advice.

* Brew simpler recipes at the beginning. Find styles/recipes to rebrew and focus on consistency of the same recipe sooner in my brewing experience..... that was how I really learned a lot about brewing better beer.

*Not spend 10 years thinking chlorine is a good way to clean/sanitize my equipment.
 
Not too much. I also grew and outgrew my gear slowly, meaning I now have three kettles. But I would not have known which ultimate kettle to buy without the steps.
I'm not sorry I spent a year mostly brewing small batches. I am sorry I kept hoping that HMEs would produce beer that I liked. Moving outdoors to a burner could have happened sooner too.
 
Start sooner...

I've been wanting to brew my own beer for over 25 years. Back then there was no internet so I researched the old fashioned way with my friend the Dewey decimal system. What I felt would trip me up the most was cleaning and sanitizing. At that time in my life I was a mechanic and didn't think I could keep things clean enough so I never tried.

Fast forward to 3 years ago when two friends started brewing all grain. One guy had already been brewing for 20 years so I was the guy who carried the water and did the heavy lifting in exchange for being taught how to brew all grain. Holy Moses, the beer these guys turn out now is the best I've ever had.

I watched and learned and realized if HE can do it so can I. Eventually my two friends availability clashed where one was available when the other was not. I got fed up hearing each one complain about the other guy and how he's "never available". It was then that I decided to have a go at it. I ordered an extract kit, read John Palmer's book, did a bunch of research on the world wide web (thank God al gore invented it...) and started brewing on November 4th of 2017.

Today I believe I wasn't supposed to start brewing back then. I wouldn't have had the maturity level and focus. I believe I'm more successful at it now than I would have been back then. I retired from cars, went back to college and got a degree in finance (at the age of 38) and have a great job that allows me to afford this awesome hobby. I also have a wife who whole-heartedly supports my new endeavor.

I have the rest of my life to learn, get better, graduate to bigger, better equipment and brew all grain.
 
Join this forum sooner. Buy bulk sooner.

It has been a steady growth in the hobby. I like that I experienced bottling and controlling fermentation temps without a fermentation chamber. Not that I miss either but they provide a point of reference and a few stories.
 
As I walk around the house and see all the expensive hobbies/media that I've given up on I wish I could trade it for a better brewery - a hobby I stuck with. I have a home theater, I watch a movie about every 3 months, if that. I have an entire home gym, I only use about 10% of the equipment. There's plenty of other little things here and there.

But to end on a positive note, I love brewing and anything I don't have now is just something to look forward to, including experiences and knowledge.
 
I decided a long time ago to not live with regret because there’s nothing I can do about it anyhow. That said...

I’m not disappointed that I started with a low cost “first time brewer” kit but I do wish I’d done a better job of being more intentional with not only upgrading but also in kitting up my old gear and getting others into the hobby.

Since I upgraded piecemeal and gave away piecemeal I’m not confident that any of my inheritors ended up becoming consistent brewers. Should have done a better job with that.

I’m sure that if i took all that I’ve spent in gear over the years that I could easily have purchased a sweet three kettle fully automated setup....but I’d have never done it from the get go. Learning and growing with brewing is why I’ve stuck with it.

It is kinda funny....people ask me all the time if it’s cheaper to brew your own than to buy beer. I always answer that if it’s your goal to brew cheaper beer that it can be accomplished quite easily....but for me? Hells no. I’m pretty sure that every beer I drink at home probably costs me $5-10 if I were to look at my total invest. But cheap beer wasn’t my goal. Learning and growing was. Success!
 
1. Been able to brew with others first, that had mucho experience.
2. NOT dicked around with cheesy equipment. Start with the good stuff.

But 20 ish years ago, neither really existed. A pot, a couple plastic pails and the Papazian book in your hand is about all we had. Those pictures of 70's hair do's and bell bottoms are burned into my retina's forever :)
 
I won't count all the little mistakes along the way. Mistakes are what made me do better.

My regret: I wish I had stuck with brewing when I first did it in 1980. I made two so-so batches and gave it up. Didn't start again until 2012. In retrospect, I think advancing my skills back then as the gear and ingredients got better and better would have been a worthwhile journey.
 
I wouldn’t change a thing other than trying to covert a keg to a keggle. It was the most heaviest and dangerous piece of equipment to I’ve ever had. So glad I got rid of it.
 
EBIAB with a pulley, a valve on the kettle, and a proper fermentation chamber because the wine fridge I've been using for a few years doesn't cut it. Probably all on a cart so the production side could be limited to a square meter or so of apartment space.
 
The kit we picked out with our start up equipment was a Bock....Don't buy a lager without a proper lagering vessel as your first beer....
 
I have only been home brewing for 1 year. My biggest "regret" is not doing a cost analysis on the hobby. Sure, you can get by with a $60 home brew kit and brew $25 extract pilsner kits all day. But I want big beers, quads, NEDIPA, etc. Over the past year that $85 has ballooned into over a grand, keezers and kegerator and beer line later. I bought a steal of 2 keggles when I got started at $50 each, and have since put a lot of money into them in fittings, thermometers, you name it. If I could genie-in-a-bottle redo one thing, it would be to not f up this brew I brewed tonight :)
 
day_trippr said:
fwiw, those are pics of "The Electric Brewery", pretty much the apogee of home brewing setups.
The bar area is even better.

Regrets, I have a few, nearly all of them "wish I had built this sooner" stuff...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

modern-basement.jpg


Yeah, this is a total bummer. Trippr, do you know which member this is? Hope it's alright to post his pics - it's only out of TOTAL ADMIRATION (and a touch of jealousy).
 
I'm about two years in, can't say I'd want to have done too much differently. I went from a turkey fryer pot to my Spike 10 gallon, but still use the other one as a HLT. Kegging sooner maybe, but I lived with my parents until last April so I wouldn't have had space for my own fridge. Still need to get into buying bulk, but I live in an apartment so storage space is difficult. As well as saving up for a mill- I'm glad I bought a large chunk of my hardware before moving out.
 
My one regret is underestimating the amount of home brew consumption that would happen at my house. The first quality brew system I put together produced 10 finished gallons per brew cycle, which I thought would be overkill and turned out to be not enough. I ended up upgrading to produce 25 gallons per cycle and spent much more money getting there than it would have been to start with a 1BBL system.

Lesson learned, setup the right size brewhouse the first time around.
 
Imburr said:
I have only been home brewing for 1 year. My biggest "regret" is not doing a cost analysis on the hobby. Sure, you can get by with a $60 home brew kit and brew $25 extract pilsner kits all day. But I want big beers, quads, NEDIPA, etc. Over the past year that $85 has ballooned into over a grand, keezers and kegerator and beer line later. I bought a steal of 2 keggles when I got started at $50 each, and have since put a lot of money into them in fittings, thermometers, you name it. If I could genie-in-a-bottle redo one thing, it would be to not f up this brew I brewed tonight :)
Click to expand...

Tell me about those quads.... school me. How big are they?
 
Aaron Beers said:
My one regret is underestimating the amount of home brew consumption that would happen at my house. The first quality brew system I put together produced 10 finished gallons per brew cycle, which I thought would be overkill and turned out to be not enough. I ended up upgrading to produce 25 gallons per cycle and spent much more money getting there than it would have been to start with a 1BBL system.

Lesson learned, setup the right size brewhouse the first time around.
Click to expand...

How much brew does the household drink now?
 

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