When you ask, "is brewing for me?"

[sablesurfer]

So, been home brewing for a while now. Started partial mash, went to BIAB, then went to all electric BIAB, then built a custom fermentation chamber and got kegs and CO2.

Started building custom luggage/cabinet for all the brew kit, started stripping down Krups beer tenders to get at their inner cooling bits for study, and many other projects.

But, it seems I actually have a real problem making drinkable beer. I have been a beer hunter since the late 90's. I started actually judging in sanctioned competitions about 4yrs back. There are over 300 beer reviews on this smart phone and somewhere close to another 200 on the previous smart phone. (Too bad that app has no way of exporting anything close to usable to the PC, lesson learned.) So, I think I have a pretty good understanding of great, good, drinkable, and bad beers. Also learned a lot of the flavors that are not the beer's fault, but the dirty tap or skunked or oxidized.

I am spending a lot of money for my current success rate. In about five years of making beer, MAYBE half to a third are actually drinkable. Seriously, there are so many beers I have never told anyone about, that I have given to the GF to use as slug bait. Of that third, I have managed about 3-4 pretty good beers, beers I am happy to share.

The beer club I am in has some AMAZING brewers, very consistent brewers, we sample their stuff all the time. This board has some amazing input and it sounds like many great brewers on here too. It's as if EVERYONE can brew beer except me. It's getting into my head.

(What is odd, is that I am a pretty darn good cook. My 'great' success rate of cooking from scratch is about 50%, my pretty good is another 30% probably with maybe about 2-3 duds a year. The first ever banana caramel sauce for rice pudding, made last night, made the GF's mouth water from smelling it.)

But beer, I just cannot get consistent. I have never had an infection and I am completely OCD so sanitation is a big deal for me. I have done pure extract, partial, all grain course grind, all grain finer grind, I have shaken and not shaken, I have cooled in water bath or cooled with coil, hell even cooled in snow, I have done kits and made from scratch, one gallon batches and five gallon batches, bottled, kegged, sampled let age, and on and on.

My off flavors are too grassy, too bitter, too tannic, too garbagey, too watery, too bland, too sweet etc.

Not sure if I am cut out for brewing. No idea why, I have watched the most careless brewers brew and the most fastidious. Never managed find people to brew with, I've done one off visits, but for some reason never hit it off well enough to find a group of good brewers to hang with to learn from. But doing this on my own is not working out.

So, when do you decide maybe you are not a brewer. Maybe I am just a beer snob and beer hunter and brewing isn't my thing?

 

[Arrheinous]

Since it looks like you starting out with a lot of tasting experience and as a judge it may be that your tastes exceed your brewing grasp for now.

Have you ever put your beer to a blind/triangle test to compare what you're making to other people's? It could be that you're just a very harsh judge when it comes to your own stuff.

 

[cannman]

I had a similar outlook after year 2. Then I invested in building a fermentation chamber that controlled heat and cold (stc-1000) and incorporated the FermWrap. Improper ferm temps can ruin everything, and different strains can produce different off flavors: "My off flavors are too grassy, too bitter, too tannic, too garbagey, too watery, too bland, too sweet etc."

I haven't had a bad batch or off batch since the ferm chamber build and I've pretty much kept my routine the same. What is your ferm process and current temp control process?

 

[vincentAlpha]

Well, quick question. How much have you put into dialling in one recipe done in one way? As I'm sure lots of people will tell you, jumping around trying different recipes will just make you more confused. Before calling it a day with brewing I'd take one of those good recipes and drill drill drill until you get your numbers down and you could brew that beer in a coma. Underneath (and what should be at the forefront of your mind) all this is 'Do you enjoy brewing?', I've not had a really good batch in a little while but decent enough to keep me happy and no matter the end result I always have a blast building my recipes and starting everything up on brew day. If I didn't enjoy brewing then I'd probably just pick out a kit and throw it into the bucket rather than spend hours on all-grain.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Since it looks like you starting out with a lot of tasting experience and as a judge it may be that your tastes exceed your brewing grasp for now.

Have you ever put your beer to a blind/triangle test to compare what you're making to other people's? It could be that you're just a very harsh judge when it comes to your own stuff.

I would put it partially to this as well. I am particularly harsh and SWMBO is very, honest, to me about my beer, she has no problem telling me if she tastes wet garbage (thats our code for sulphur). Thankfully I dont have a trained pallete, or a good pallete for that matter, so if I make a beer that tastes good I am ecstatic.

Don't be so rough on yourself. Don't be afraid to try one of your beers and say "Hey thats alright". Not every beer needs to be a 40+ point beer.

 

[el_kirk]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Lots of folks brew because they find homebrewing rewarding, not because they're saving money or making the best beer they've ever had. They like the process and they're having fun. If you're not enjoying it, I'd say your money is better spent on store bought beer.

You could also be cellar blind. I have met one or two brewers who make absolutely wonderful beer, but they don't enjoy it because they're overly self critical.

If there are homebrew clubs in your area, give ALL of them a shot. Clubs, like people, have personalities.

Hope you get it figured out. Remember, this is supposed to be fun!

 

[cannman]

Well, quick question. How much have you put into dialling in one recipe done in one way? As I'm sure lots of people will tell you, jumping around trying different recipes will just make you more confused. Before calling it a day with brewing I'd take one of those good recipes and drill drill drill until you get your numbers down and you could brew that beer in a coma.

I have to second this.

 

[Sailingeric]

Maybe take a step back and do some simple recipes with extract. I have about 10 full batches in my brewing resume with a few smaller batches as testers. My beers don't go crazy with a lot of grains or several different hops, I try to keep it to no more than 2 hops and a couple steeping grains so I can see what the hops or grains are adding to the beer's flavor or color.

 

[sablesurfer]

Underneath (and what should be at the forefront of your mind) all this is 'Do you enjoy brewing?', I've not had a really good batch in a little while but decent enough to keep me happy and no matter the end result I always have a blast building my recipes and starting everything up on brew day. If I didn't enjoy brewing then I'd probably just pick out a kit and throw it into the bucket rather than spend hours on all-grain.

This question is very relevant to where I am now. I love to cook and I love to eat, but do I love doing all the dishes and putting away all the leftovers? Heck no. But it's one of those necessities so that you can cook again the next day. Steel the knives, dry the cooking sheets so don't rust, season the cast iron so it stays non-stick, etc.

To me, there are multiple parts of "brewing" that are a hassle. First is the well over two hours of getting equipment set up, water heating, things sanitized, etc. The brew portion is ok, if not a bit boring and I love the smells of each stage. Then the cleaning, cleaning and putting away is well over another hour each day. So my all grain days have always been well over 8-9 hour days and I had to learn to never start a day after 3pm if I planned on sleeping.

To this point it was a necessity, because I have always figured the end product should be worth it.

In an effort to take that part of the day out, I have gone back to extract brews. Last three, with enough for one more, have been extract. Makes for a much shorter day.

Just in case, there are parts I love about brewing. I have dozens of brewing recipe books, brewing history books, ingredient books and I LOVE the recipe creation and try to work all the flavors out in my head. I built every part of my system, including the control panel and my two cabinet fermentation chamber. I learned to solder stainless from here, and for brewing.

There is a WHOLE lot around brewing and beer that I like. I love shadowing the pro brewers I know and I love 'talking' beer. Hell I have even shoveled out a couple of mash vessels in professional breweries.

I just wish I could make good enough beer to enjoy, to share and not feel embarrassed.

 

[sablesurfer]

Remember, this is supposed to be fun!

The girlfriend tries to tell me this every time I have a stress out in the middle of a brew session. LOL.

 

[sablesurfer]

I haven't had a bad batch or off batch since the ferm chamber build and I've pretty much kept my routine the same. What is your ferm process and current temp control process?

Yeah, that was supposed to be my final magic bullet. I have a fermentation chamber with both heat and cooling, I insulate the probe and tape it to side of the carboys. Once fermentation is complete I have actually used the chamber to bottle condition the last dozen or so batches because house temps are all over.

So, <shrug>.

 

[skw]

What are your recipes like? Do you come up with your own, do you use kits or do you follow recipes posted online?
I have found that my own recipes are consistently worse than when I'm brewing recipes that people smarter than me came up with. The best ones I've made so far were when I cloned some of my favorite commercial beers based on recipes from the original brewer.

Since you're in a beer club, have you done joint brewing sessions with other members? Spend a sunday together maybe, brew something together, sample some beers, some BBQ. Maybe an actual side-to-side comparison of the process can shed some light on things. Maybe if two of you do the same recipe simultaneously and then compare the result weeks later - that way, you can at least narrow things down a little since you'd probably be using the same ingredient source and recipe.

 

[joshesmusica]

+1 on the you're likely being too harsh of a critic. and i was also going to ask how simple your recipes are. the more complex, the more chances you have for off-flavors. you said you have a ferm chamber, so i'm sure that's not your problem.

make a couple of different batches of commercial pale ale clones or something like that. then have them served to you in a blind pentagonal test (2 of your own batches, 3 commercial ones). never taste test your two batches until that blind test. go with a simple recipe, and typical hop addition amounts and times, typical clean yeast at typical fermentation profile. you get the point, everything very typical for a pale ale. then have all four beers served to you and see if you can pick out yours vs. the commercial ones. reason for 5 is that it should make a difference in the chances, aka if you pick all 3 commercial ones, then it likely wasn't just chance. if you can easily pick out yours, and they're clearly subpar compared to the commercial ones, then at least you have 5 opened beers to wash away your blues with!

 

[kh54s10]

Start with water. Change it first then change one thing in your procedure until you find what works. I personally have yet to make a beer that was in drinkable. Most we're very good, some were only OK. Maybe as has already been said, that you are too critical of your own beers.

 

[Homercidal]

Pick a method, either Extract, or All Grain. (If you've already done AG, then just pick that!) Practice brewing SIMPLE AG recipes. I'm talking Pale Malt, 1/2 lb Crystal, Hops and yeast.

Use GOOD water (that may mean buying RO water and adding a bit of minerals back into it so you don't have to worry about too little, or too much minerals.

Brew, ferment, and evaluate. Get others to taste it so you can get their feedback. DON'T BE ASHAMED! There is probably a very simple solution to your problem and an experienced judge can possibly tell you what it is and how to fix it.

Jumping around with different processes and different recipes is only going to make it hard to nail down any problems. This advice comes from my own personal experience. It's really tempting to want to brew everything and try all kinds of processes, but it is not conducive to consistent, quality brewing.

 

[cannman]

Yeah, that was supposed to be my final magic bullet. I have a fermentation chamber with both heat and cooling, I insulate the probe and tape it to side of the carboys. Once fermentation is complete I have actually used the chamber to bottle condition the last dozen or so batches because house temps are all over.

So, <shrug>.

Since we're shooting at everything, have you tested your water?

https://producers.wardlab.com/

I paid $25 to find out that I had great water, but it also will allow me to adjust my chemistry to a particular region if necessary. There is also the bit about dropping your water to 5.2 during the mashing.

http://www.morebeer.com/products/52-ph-stabilizer-1-lb.html

I'm also boiling my bottling bucket's spigot now before each bottling session and replacing the tubing. Tubing is cheap, and the spigot has so many nooks etc.

 

[JKoravos]

Well, I'll say that I've been doing this for a long time and been on the forums for a LONG time and there are always stories like yours. People who just can't seem to get it. The good news is that IME the ones who keep trying and keep using the knowledge of other brewers almost always 'get it'. So keep learning and keep brewing, it will come.

Also, it definitely took me years to really dial in my process where I was getting good beers out nearly every time. I had plenty of problems early on. I think that's pretty common. This brewing thing isn't rocket science, but it isn't easy either. Great beer takes time.

 

[kh54s10]

Well, I'll say that I've been doing this for a long time and been on the forums for a LONG time and there are always stories like yours. People who just can't seem to get it. The good news is that IME the ones who keep trying and keep using the knowledge of other brewers almost always 'get it'. So keep learning and keep brewing, it will come.

Also, it definitely took me years to really dial in my process where I was getting good beers out nearly every time. I had plenty of problems early on. I think that's pretty common. This brewing thing isn't rocket science, but it isn't easy either. Great beer takes time.

I don't really agree. If you use good water, use good brewing and sanitation practices, and don't get too "creative" there should be no reason for an extended period of dialing in. My second brew was a Northern Brewer Patersbier extract kit. It was among my best brews. I have been brewing since July 2011 and have been making very good beers all along. (with a few so-so ones.) I do most of my recipes making small changes from recipes that are proven. I don't make Honey Peach Jalapeno Imperial Stouts.

 

[craigmw]

I don't make Honey Peach Jalapeno Imperial Stouts.

I second this. Keep it simple. I think an 8-9 hour brew day means at least 2 different types of beer, so it sounds like there are other things you need to do to simplify and streamline. I brew 3V RIMS with my brew buddies, but single vessel BIAB when it's just me. On those days when I'm brewing on my own, I can go from start to finish (including setup to storage of cleaned equipment) in no more than 4h. I'm not in a particular rush, but I've worked out my process to minimize time waste. This helps me to justify my time and in the end, I feel satisfaction that I've made a good beer with the right level of effort. I also cannot stress enough the water quality, particularly mash and final pH. If these are off, your conversion efficiency and flavor suffer. Get yourself a good pH meter since even with a good water report, you will find this value (as well at TA) varies quite a bit. Understand your source water and, along with good sanitation and controlled fermentation temps, you will be making much more palatable beer. Also, do a double blind tasting of your beer with some friends. I bet at least half of this is psychological.

 

[NewJersey]

To the OP, watch your mash AND fermentation temps more Closely, make sure you are ate better (with 02 ideally), pitch more yeast, and do not secondary.
You will make better beer and be more consistent.

 

[BreezyBrew]

My off flavors are too grassy, too bitter, too tannic, too garbagey, too watery, too bland, too sweet etc.

I've finally got to the point where I am happy with my beers. Not all of them, especially if I brew a new recipe. Finally after about 3 years, I will happily give my beer away to friends. Before, I was too ashamed... I want them to have the best beer I could make, you know?!

I hear you on having good luck, as it seems like others who don't care nearly as much happen to be making great beer. As for the off flavors you're experiencing, I have had them all. Here's how I fixed them:

Grassy: I had to switch from LHBS to mail order hops, and purchase them by the pound and know that they are fresh. Certain varieties still come off grassy to me... for example, anything I dry hop with Amarillo tastes grassy, and I just made an all Mosaic pale ale, since everyone raves about those hops. I bittered with Columbus (which I do for most of my beers) the rest was Mosaic, and well, quite a bit of vegetave hop flavor. I think a lot of this is hop freshness, dry hop technique and recipe formulation.

Bitter: Living in FL my water supply is terrible for brewing. At one point I was mixing 15% of my water with RO water. I was still getting a harsh bitter beer. Went to all RO and minerals for my beers and it has help a lot.

Tannic: Might be a pH issue, or yeast off flavor. For example, if I ferment English strains at a high temp but within the range, they are tart and off putting.

Garbagey: Sounds like oxidation to me. Had a faint aroma of this before. Now I don't take a fg sample until keg day. My process for sampling the beer was oxidizing it. Now I rack with C02. Aroma gone.

Watery/Bland: Was getting this when I was over pitching. Brought it back to the levels that Mr. Malty suggests, maybe slightly more, and the body came back in my beers. So much so that now, when I mash at 150 the beer is very thick mouthfeel.

Too Sweet: Everywhere I read... ppl suggest to add carapils for a nice mouthfeel. Truth is that if you use pale ale as your base malt or you have a well formulated recipe, the beer will attenuate properly. I cut out the carapils, some of the crystal malt, mashed lower and my FG thanked me. I recently brewed an American stout about 6% and mashed at 148. It wasn't thin at all and the FG finished where I wanted it to.

Now, I can't say exactly what's going on with your beers since I haven't ever tasted it. You may also have a completely different experience since your equipment is different. All I can say is don't give up. I have found very small changes in my technique have rewarded me greatly.

 

[JKoravos]

I don't really agree. If you use good water, use good brewing and sanitation practices, and don't get too "creative" there should be no reason for an extended period of dialing in. My second brew was a Northern Brewer Patersbier extract kit. It was among my best brews. I have been brewing since July 2011 and have been making very good beers all along. (with a few so-so ones.) I do most of my recipes making small changes from recipes that are proven. I don't make Honey Peach Jalapeno Imperial Stouts.

very good != great. Very, very few people are going to make great beer out of the gate. There are a lot of nuances to brewing great beer. Brewing good beer out of the gate, even very good, is certainly possible. Of course those terms have quite a bit of subjectiveness and relative meaning. The OP is a trained BJCP judge. He may have a very different idea of what good means than most.

 

[JKoravos]

So, been home brewing for a while now. Started partial mash, went to BIAB, then went to all electric BIAB, then built a custom fermentation chamber and got kegs and CO2.

I have done pure extract, partial, all grain course grind, all grain finer grind, I have shaken and not shaken, I have cooled in water bath or cooled with coil, hell even cooled in snow, I have done kits and made from scratch, one gallon batches and five gallon batches, bottled, kegged, sampled let age, and on and on.

It sounds like you're changing a lot of stuff and not letting your process work itself out. Stick with one thing, learn it and troubleshoot one issue at a time.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

I get the same thoughts sometimes, but my wife has me convinced that I am super critical of my own beers (and other hobbies like woodworking)

Maybe pick up a copy of 'brewing classic styles'. I have had great luck with those recipes. Most of my own recipes are just tweaks to those recipes.

Picking out a single style and doing it a couple times in a row, trying to fix a specific 'problem' might help too.

For me, water is the final unexplored frontier of homebrewing, but the more I read the more important it seems.

 

[kh54s10]

very good != great. Very, very few people are going to make great beer out of the gate. There are a lot of nuances to brewing great beer. Brewing good beer out of the gate, even very good, is certainly possible. Of course those terms have quite a bit of subjectiveness and relative meaning. The OP is a trained BJCP judge. He may have a very different idea of what good means than most.

"Also, it definitely took me years to really dial in my process where I was getting good beers out nearly every time."

I was talking more of the need for a long time learning before making good beer. That should not be the case.

I call many of mine very good instead of great because I have never entered a competition and only one has been critiqued by a BJCP judge. (I think). That was during my first year and he gave it a fairly good review and suggested a couple of things to make it better. I also don't want to come off as cocky. As a comparison I buy craft beers and find that I like my homebrew better more often than not. Then again I do not buy the "top shelf" craft beers.

My less than good beers have always been when I was experimenting. And even those have been easily drinkable. Except for a current one and I haven't yet decided that it is undrinkable. It is high ABV and very sweet.

I am saying that if you use good water and ingredients, follow good brewing practices and don't go to far "out of the box", there is no reason you should not be making very good beers almost right from the start.

The OP also mentioned many of his being undrinkable.

As was suggested earlier. If you are having problems, stick with a procedure and probably one style of beer and make a change at a time until you locate the source of the problem. If you brew a Belgian with BIAB and have a problem, then brew an extract pale ale and have a different problem, then brew a stout using a 3 vessel system and have a third problem you have now made 3 mediocre beers and have not learned much.

Keep it simple to start and build on the experience.

 

[JKoravos]

"Also, it definitely took me years to really dial in my process where I was getting good beers out nearly every time."

I was talking more of the need for a long time learning before making good beer. That should not be the case.

I call many of mine very good instead of great because I have never entered a competition and only one has been critiqued by a BJCP judge. (I think). That was during my first year and he gave it a fairly good review and suggested a couple of things to make it better. I also don't want to come off as cocky. As a comparison I buy craft beers and find that I like my homebrew better more often than not. Then again I do not buy the "top shelf" craft beers.

My less than good beers have always been when I was experimenting. And even those have been easily drinkable. Except for a current one and I haven't yet decided that it is undrinkable. It is high ABV and very sweet.

I am saying that if you use good water and ingredients, follow good brewing practices and don't go to far "out of the box", there is no reason you should not be making very good beers almost right from the start.

The OP also mentioned many of his being undrinkable.

As was suggested earlier. If you are having problems, stick with a procedure and probably one style of beer and make a change at a time until you locate the source of the problem. If you brew a Belgian with BIAB and have a problem, then brew an extract pale ale and have a different problem, then brew a stout using a 3 vessel system and have a third problem you have now made 3 mediocre beers and have not learned much.

Keep it simple to start and build on the experience.

I started brewing well before the widespread availability of information that we have had in the last 5 or 10 years. I don't think it was uncommon at that time for it take brewers quite a while to get their techniques dialed in. Believe me. I worked at a LHBS in the 90s. I tasted some pretty crappy homebrew!

Starting brewing now vs. 20 yrs ago is an entirely different endeavor. The hobby has come a long, long way.

I still don't think it should be considered a shoe-in to be producing high quality beer out of the gate, especially for someone who is likely overly critical of their beer. There are a lot of little things that make a difference and sometimes people need time to work through those if there are several factors working against them.

You mention 'good water, ingredients, good brewing practices and not too far out of the box', but for a beginning brewer how do you even know what these are? 'Good brewing practices' encompasses a HUGE range of factors and practices. Brushing it off in one statement as if that's easy knowledge to achieve sends the wrong message, IMO.

 

[sablesurfer]

To the OP, watch your mash AND fermentation temps more Closely, make sure you are ate better (with 02 ideally), pitch more yeast, and do not secondary.
You will make better beer and be more consistent.

Electric BIAB to make sure I had mash temps. Fermentation chamber to keep temps solid, been paying attention to brewer's friend for yeast calculations, and yeah...leaving beer on yeast cake for plenty of time.

Sigh.

 

[sablesurfer]

Over critical....LOL...what me? Sigh. Yes I am very picky, but I don't expect great beers all the time but I need to be making a LOT less slug bait if I am going to keep spending money on this hobby.

 

[joshesmusica]

i'm pretty overly critical of my own production, and most of the time when i'm being critical i can still admit that it's at least a solid, average beer. being that you're a judge (i don't remember if you ever said, but considering your original post didn't mention it, i'm guessing you're not a bjcp judge?), i have a hunch that you know the difference between a good beer and slug bait.

have you ever had a bjcp judge taste your beer? have you ever entered them into a competition that you're not judging?

 

[JKoravos]

Over critical....LOL...what me? Sigh. Yes I am very picky, but I don't expect great beers all the time but I need to be making a LOT less slug bait if I am going to keep spending money on this hobby.

I'm pretty critical of my own beers, too. It took me years before I felt like I made something good. I still thought it was cool that I could make my own beer and I was in college, so I drank it regardless, but I wasn't thrilled with it. I probably would've been saying the same thing as you if I started brewing when I was 30.

 

[kh54s10]

I started brewing well before the widespread availability of information that we have had in the last 5 or 10 years. I don't think it was uncommon at that time for it take brewers quite a while to get their techniques dialed in. Believe me. I worked at a LHBS in the 90s. I tasted some pretty crappy homebrew!

Starting brewing now vs. 20 yrs ago is an entirely different endeavor. The hobby has come a long, long way.

I still don't think it should be considered a shoe-in to be producing high quality beer out of the gate, especially for someone who is likely overly critical of their beer. There are a lot of little things that make a difference and sometimes people need time to work through those if there are several factors working against them.

There is nothing that can be done by others about that.

You mention 'good water, ingredients, good brewing practices and not too far out of the box', but for a beginning brewer how do you even know what these are? 'Good brewing practices' encompasses a HUGE range of factors and practices. Brushing it off in one statement as if that's easy knowledge to achieve sends the wrong message, IMO.

It is easy knowledge these days. I started my first batch with fermentation temperatures a bit high. I contacted Northern Brewer where I bought the kit. They gave advice that saved that brew. I found this site before starting my second kit. I also read other articles online and watched a bunch of videos. Enough that I could recognize bad advice and procedures online before my second brew. Again I found plenty of information that made my second brew good enough that I would rate it in my top 20, maybe even higher.

I think the wrong message is that it will take you x amount of time before you will be able to brew a good beer.

IMO, if you do more than a few before you get a decent one you are ignoring all the information available, or over-thinking things and making it difficult and unsuccessful.

 

[sablesurfer]

have you ever had a bjcp judge taste your beer? have you ever entered them into a competition that you're not judging?

So far I have actually been a bit disappointed with my competition results. As you can imagine I tend to only enter beers I think would score decently. But then I get stuff back in low 30's with some interesting comments.

I am not certified, but I have quite a few competitions under by belt, mostly haven't taken the time to get through the steps because of chasing other things. I get to judge at some bigger comps and get to judge with some high caliber judges which all just helps me learn and progress.

 

[JKoravos]

Low 30s is pretty good. Were you expecting better or worse? And what are these interesting comments?

 

[chisena]

So, when do you decide maybe you are not a brewer. Maybe I am just a beer snob and beer hunter and brewing isn't my thing?

You are a literally my Doppelgänger! Same brewing history, I love to cook and with an even higher success rate, totally OCD, same off flavors... I don't get it. Probably just beer snobs to the point that we can't satisfy our own exceptional pallets (wink). I read people talking about never dumping a brew. I've dumped many cases. They are either making really good beer or just toughing it through the consumption! I'd say my biggest problem is sweetness and/or watery. Missing body. I make starters unless using dry yeast and admittedly, have struggled getting the FG low enough several times. I'm controlling fermentation temps in a freezer... I'm carefully building water from Distilled cause my tap sucks... I don't know. I do t get it. My best beers have been a white IPA, Citra IPA, Moose Drool clone, and a Vanilla porter.

 

[chisena]

Oops

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Fundamentals matter. Try stripping it down.

 

[joshesmusica]

Low 30s is pretty good. Were you expecting better or worse? And what are these interesting comments?

i second that. what were the comments?

 

[ghhjjf]

Since it looks like you starting out with a lot of tasting experience and as a judge it may be that your tastes exceed your brewing grasp for now.