- Joined
- Jul 21, 2013
- Messages
- 1,317
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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?
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?