The three most important things...

[wordswithtim]

Hey guys and gals,

What follows here is a bit a of a plea for advice. I have been home brewing for about two years. In that time I've gone from extract, to partial to all grain (only recently). My set up is pretty basic: a couple of large stainless pots for mashing and boiling. And a 30L plastic fermenter (the type you get when you buy your first extract kit). Basic stuff, but it works.

Over the last two years I've tried brewing all sorts of styles from Saisons to Porters. Mostly I get these recipes online; I tend to go for stuff that others have rated highly and then tweak to fit my set up (as they're never the same). And I achieve varying levels of success. Some pretty good, some not really drinkable. And that's the bit I'm asking your collective knowledge about here.

After two years, I'm the first to admit that I really have no idea what's going to make any brew better than the next. What comes out at the other end is a total crapshoot. I can never tell whether it's going to be great or not, and that's really frustrating when it's bad because I have no idea why or what to change next time. I'm happy to fail, but I hate not learning from it.

So my question - assuming I'm a only a step above a noob brewer in knowledge, in your opinion what are the three most important things to pay attention to / get right to give me the best chance to make the brew a better one? I realise most people will have different responses, but that's okay, it's the themes I'll be looking for.

Any wisdom you can impact would be most appreciated.

Tim

 

[JonM]

Understanding water was the biggest revolution in my brewing. Get a copy of Palmer's "Water" and read, understand and apply what you learn. (If you're like me and don't have a science background, you might have to read a couple of the chapters two or three times to get it to click but it's totally worth it.)

The others two biggies are yeast health and fermentation temperature control. (Might want to get a copy of "Yeast" when you pick up "Water.")

 

[jschein]

What JonM said plus brew a few batches of the same beer the same way to get your process down.
Consistency is key

 

[MarcGuay]

Newbie here so take it with a grain of barley: Keeping good records of ingredients and process will help you compare the good brews to the bad ones.

 

[RedlegEd]

What JonM said plus brew a few batches of the same beer the same way to get your process down.
Consistency is key

+1 this ^^^. Are using using Brew In A Bag (BIAG)? I'd recommend you look into it as it's an easy way to brew All Grain, and will help you get your process down. One recipe I'd recommend highly is Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde Ale. It's an excellent way to develop and refine your processes (and make an excellent beer at the same time.) I'd recommend not tweaking at all until you've made it once or twice and get good results. Then, only change one or two things at a time so you can see what impact the change has. Too many folks change a bunch of things in their process or ingredients, then don't have a clue which one(s) caused a problem, should one occur. Ed

 

[RedlegEd]

Newbie here so take it with a grain of barley: Keeping good records of ingredients and process will help you compare the good brews to the bad ones.

Also very good advice! I'd also recommend Brewer's Friend to keep track of your recipes, brew days, ingredients, etc. Ed

 

[olriley]

+1 to mash temp control. Also calibrating vessel volumes, and learning to use the hygrometer properly. For me anyhow.

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

Cleanliness/sanitizing
Yeast health
Fermentation temp control


In that order IMO...

 

[wordswithtim]

This is great guys, thank so much. Question, when you guys say 'yeast health' what do you mean? Typically I store mine in the fridge before use. Give it a good couple of hours to come up to room temp before using. And I rehydrate it (using sterilised water/equip) before pitching. Anything else I need to know/you mean by 'yeast health'?

 

[Powercat]

Using liquid yeast that you have saved from an earlier batch or using liquid yeast with a starter to increase numbers and health of your yeast. I also use a lot of dry yeast and get great results.

 

[flars]

This is great guys, thank so much. Question, when you guys say 'yeast health' what do you mean? Typically I store mine in the fridge before use. Give it a good couple of hours to come up to room temp before using. And I rehydrate it (using sterilised water/equip) before pitching. Anything else I need to know/you mean by 'yeast health'?

Yeast health is pitching the right amount of viable yeast cells for the estimated OG of the wort. You must be using dry yeast since you mention rehydrating. Yeast health with rehydrating will also mean not using RO or distilled water for rehydrating and pitching within 30 minutes of rehydrating.

 

[Nico93]

Passion, passion and passion

 

[GHBWNY]

Of the suggestions others have offered, the most important thing is creating the best environment you can for the yeast to do what they were designed to do. Beer is all about the yeast. If a favorable environment can't be provided for the yeast, nothing else matters. You need to have:

1.) a clean, sanitized environment in which nothing but the yeast you pitch can flourish

2.) fresh, healthy yeast. Dry is fine and better rehydrated; a packet of dry actually provides more viable cells than liquid. Aerating the wort well prior to pitching is also important.

3.) optimum temperature and maintenance of that temperature for the yeast throughout the fermentation cycle. Too cold, they'll go to sleep; too hot, they'll either die off or create off-flavors.

If you follow these basics, you'll eliminate the majority of possibilities for a sub-par brew. Beyond those things, a bad batch is most probably a matter of not following the recipe recommendations for that particular brew, or an unforeseen mistake or accident. Get the basics down and the rest should follow.

 

[Smellyglove]

If you get wort out of the mash and boil it. I'd say yeast control. Fermentation-temps especially. If you have temp control over your fermentation you can end up with two pretty different beers given everything is the same, except for the temperature. But If you've only tried dry yeasts you might want to try liquid yeasts. I feel that dry yeasts can be somewhat boring when it comes to other types of beers than straight ales.

For instance. I will never ever make a bavarian hefeweissen with a dry yeast again. And with saying that I can also add that I can choose between several bavarian hefeweissen liquid yeast strains which are different, you don't have that many options with dry.

Or 007, or the belgian strains. For example..

First. Yeast control, second mash-temp control, third, oxygen-pickup, fourth. water. As you see the first three are about process. When you've dialed the first three things down so you can repeat them, then it's time to play with water. My 2 cents.

 

[brewcat]

#1 -- Recipe design. It all starts here. Keep recipes simple. Use recipe software if you haven't; it is immensely helpful. Try to nail a couple styles and then start branching out. Even a highly rated recipe may not fit your tastes.

#2 -- Understanding your process, which leads back to recipe design. What is your average efficiency? What is your boil off? Yeast attenuation?

#3 -- Fermentation temp control. A consistent temp goes a long way.

 

[ChemErik]

I only have about as much experience as the OP, but for what it's worth here is what has made the bigger difference in my beer. The key for me is to get each right in respect to the style of beer.
1 Water. Mostly getting Ca, Cl, and SO4 right for the style and gravity of the beer.
2 Temperature. I don't see a need to control temperature to within a degree, but it is important to be in the right fermentation range for the yeast and style. Keep that Kolsh cool and the saison warm to hot.
3 Time. Getting hoppy beers from grain to glass as quickly as possible and giving big dark beers plenty of time to age will make them far more enjoyable. Older hoppy beers or young big beers will disappoint every time in my experience.

 

[GPP33]

Things like water and yeast starters are excellent if you're going from good to great. Sounds like you are still trying to weed out the bad though. Keep it simple and focus on consistency. Assuming sanitation and a basic carbon filter to remove chlorine are a given my top three for a noob trying to tweak recepies would be:

1) a method to calculate the impact of your changes. You can piece together various online calculators and reference the BJCP guidelines or you can get a software package. I use beer smith, it takes care of everything.

2) accurate measurements. This includes weights of grain/hop/adjunct additions as well as liquid volumes and temp. I have a little digital scale for weighing hops, grains are weighed by the LHBS and I filled my kettles 1/2 gal at a time so I could measure depth. I have a dedicated metal ruler I use on brew day, I know exactly how much water/wort I have based on depth. I measure my water additions in a bucket I got from Home Depot. I don't care that it's probably not very accurate but by using the same bucket every time I know it's precise.

3) temps. Mash temp, sparge temp, pitch temp, ferm temp and the often overlooked serving temp.

On water, it's worth looking at what you get from your tap, I'm lucky that mine is pretty good to begin with, I realize not everyone is that fortunate. Give it a look but unless you see something of major concern kick that can down the road a little. Once you master some more basic stuff you can pick up water adjustments.

As for yeast health, a single dry or liquid pack will make good beer provided you don't have too high of a OG. Starters are great but again, not necessary for making good beer.

 

[ChelisHubby]

Brew cat hit the nail on the head. Keep the recipe simple unless a stought or porter. and fermentation temp control. Then worry about the yeast. This is assumming you have drinkable water.

 

[DaWhip]

Pretty much what others have said. For me it has been:

1. Good Recipe with a good mash (simple, with lots of base malts, & balanced hops to start with)
2. Fermentation temp control. Biggest and best change in my qualtiy
3. Yeast count & health

I'd say that those 3 things will get you 80% to 85% of the way to amazing homebrews. All the little things after that give incremental improvements (may be significant, but not compared to the above) or facilitate new/more complicated recipes and styles.

 

[Cardassian]

The 2 things I've personally had ruin beers are sanatation and temperature control. One caused a Brett infection (actually think this will turn out grand) and the other caused solventy flavour I the beer and wasn't nice.

 

[jerbrew]

In this order:

fermentation control (temp and yeast health)

Repeatable processes (mash temps, calibrated equipment, detailed notes, consistent efficiency, etc.)

Water chemistry. You need to know if your water is good and if not why. I got lucky and started with good tap water for brewing before I understood its importance. But now I understand it's importance my beer has taken that next step.

 

[ThePaleAler]

I would also like to chime in. All the suggestions above are spot on. One critical aspect is recipe and ingredient selection.

If you know what kinds of beer you like, and you should probably know after 2 years of brewing, brew the bulk of your beers in these styles. I am all for experimenting and do it quite often, but most of my beers fall in styles that i have a preference for and that has really enhanced the satisfaction I get from my brewing.

Also apply this to ingredients. I dislike Fuggles but love EKG. Thus I alter my recipes if needed and it suits the style.

Remember, brew what YOU like, doesn't matter if your buddies don't like it. All the more for you in any case.....

 

[Paps]

*Dave Chapelle voice*

Dylan, Dylan, Dylan.

 

[seabrew8]

All grain. Kits are ok but all grain is another world IME. I don't believe you can make extract beer has good has all grain.

 

[eadavis80]

1. Brew with friends
2. Brew while drinking
3. Drink with friends

 

[BBQB]

1. To crush your enemies
2. To see them driven before you
3. To hear the lamentations of their women

 

[RM-MN]

Hey guys and gals,

What follows here is a bit a of a plea for advice. I have been home brewing for about two years. In that time I've gone from extract, to partial to all grain (only recently). My set up is pretty basic: a couple of large stainless pots for mashing and boiling. And a 30L plastic fermenter (the type you get when you buy your first extract kit). Basic stuff, but it works.

Over the last two years I've tried brewing all sorts of styles from Saisons to Porters. Mostly I get these recipes online; I tend to go for stuff that others have rated highly and then tweak to fit my set up (as they're never the same). And I achieve varying levels of success. Some pretty good, some not really drinkable. And that's the bit I'm asking your collective knowledge about here.

After two years, I'm the first to admit that I really have no idea what's going to make any brew better than the next. What comes out at the other end is a total crapshoot. I can never tell whether it's going to be great or not, and that's really frustrating when it's bad because I have no idea why or what to change next time. I'm happy to fail, but I hate not learning from it.

So my question - assuming I'm a only a step above a noob brewer in knowledge, in your opinion what are the three most important things to pay attention to / get right to give me the best chance to make the brew a better one? I realise most people will have different responses, but that's okay, it's the themes I'll be looking for.

Any wisdom you can impact would be most appreciated.

Tim

It's tough to face 5 gallons of beer that is nearly undrinkable. With that in mind, until you have your process down so that all your beers are good, brew half size batches.

You didn't say which kinds of beers you find to be undrinkable. I've made some that I hated when they were first bottled and conditioned for 3 weeks but at the 6 month time were great. Some beers are fine young, but some need a bit of time to "come around".

 

[seabrew8]

1. To crush your enemies
2. To see them driven before you
3. To hear the lamentations of their women

your your main enemy generally none of your "enemies" think about you has much has you think of them. Let go of hate.

 

[GHBWNY]

I've made some that I hated when they were first bottled and conditioned for 3 weeks but at the 6 month time were great. Some beers are fine young, but some need a bit of time to "come around".

This^^^ The last and third last brews I made were undrinkable back in the summer at the end of bottle-conditioning (fusels/sourness). They are both beginning to turn the corner and they are delicious!

 

[Paps]

your your main enemy generally none of your "enemies" think about you has much has you think of them. Let go of hate.

He was quoting from a movie "Conan the Barbarian"
With Arnold Schwartzencantspellhisname.

 

[seabrew8]

He was quoting from a movie "Conan the Barbarian"
With Arnold Schwartzencantspellhisname.

That doesn't make it right. Arnold is a con man on an epic level. I know his work quite well. I'm a lifetime lifter.

 

[Paps]

I'm sure the guy on post 26 was merely saying it as a joke.
The lines of the film are not a potrayal of Arnold as he didn't write them.
A.S. was merely doing his job of acting.
I'm not specifically defending him as he may indeed be an arse irl but we shouldn't make judgement calls on actors from the parts they play in films.

 

[seabrew8]

Arnold is a con man. But hey he's rich. Acting is not a "job". Its a group of people creating illusions and getting paid obscene amounts of money for nothing. And we are taught to worship these people.. The joke is on us. These people laugh at our stupidity.

 

[RM-MN]

Arnold is a con man. But hey he's rich. Acting is not a "job". Its a group of people creating illusions and getting paid obscene amounts of money for nothing. And we are taught to worship these people.. The joke is on us. These people laugh at our stupidity.

Would you care to comment on sports teams too?

 

[seabrew8]

I'm bias lol i was a pretty good athlete haha

 

[JonM]

How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.