Best advice/method/product for moving from good to great beer

[balrog]

Those ^
And I must add:
4) Ferm Temp Control

Also, not in any lesser way:
Removing Chlorine from all my brewing water (pinch of K-Meta or 1/4 Campden).
Milling my own grain.
Reading HBT (and quite a few other awesome places, such as The Mad Fermentationist).
Drinking/sampling other people's homebrew.

Eliminate chlorine/chloramine and oxidation. After that, focus on patience and process.

Stick your toe in water chem or dive in the deep end, but I recommend trying the simplest, post #1, stickied here.

I started extract w steeping, went to partial mash, went to all grain, adding temp control ferm and yeast starters along the way, then it was suggested to add some salts as my darker beers were missing something, and that helped which led to water testing and here I am. But I also have made a couple particular recipes more than 2 dozen times, keeping ludicrous notes and extravagant reams of measurements so I don't have some incomprehensibly multivariate experiment with no way to determine cause and effect.

I want repeatability and therefore recommend those who say consistency.

 

[jswillbrewforbeer]

Sounds rather obvious but brew styles you love, not just like. Brewing styles which are new to me is really exciting but the best beers that I've brewed are all the recipes I've brewed multiple times. Even if I follow someone else's recipe, (which I rarely do because I love researching and designing recipes,) I'm prepared to brew it 5 or more times until it's perfect for my tastes.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Sounds rather obvious but brew styles you love, not just like. Brewing styles which are new to me is really exciting but the best beers that I've brewed are all the recipes I've brewed multiple times. Even if I follow someone else's recipe, (which I rarely do because I love researching and designing recipes,) I'm prepared to brew it 5 or more times until it's perfect for my tastes.

A focus on recipe refinement is something that has helped me quite a bit lately. Over the years I tended to brew a beer based of some recipe, kit or idea. Maybe it turned out blah, good, or great. I was not very organized about keeping my recipes, notes on the brew day, or tasting notes. I would cycle back to that style a year or two later and it was like I was starting from scratch.

It is a slow process to brew a batch, get it to the point where it is mature enough to evaluate, then fit a rebrew into the brewing calendar. I am trying to focus on nailing a few core recipes; I thought I would make more progress in 2019. I am very happy with an American IPA on the 3rd brew, very close on an English Porter after the 4th brew. After 3 brews of an Imperial Stout I am not sure how close I am (3rd is still aging on oak cubes).

With my one off brews, I am doing a better job of tracking my recipe, process and tasting notes...so when I cycle back to brewing an Irish Red, American Brown Ale, or Milk Stout I at least have a base to start with.

 

[eric19312]

A focus on recipe refinement is something that has helped me quite a bit lately. Over the years I tended to brew a beer based of some recipe, kit or idea. Maybe it turned out blah, good, or great. I was not very organized about keeping my recipes, notes on the brew day, or tasting notes. I would cycle back to that style a year or two later and it was like I was starting from scratch.

It is a slow process to brew a batch, get it to the point where it is mature enough to evaluate, then fit a rebrew into the brewing calendar. I am trying to focus on nailing a few core recipes; I thought I would make more progress in 2019. I am very happy with an American IPA on the 3rd brew, very close on an English Porter after the 4th brew. After 3 brews of an Imperial Stout I am not sure how close I am (3rd is still aging on oak cubes).

With my one off brews, I am doing a better job of tracking my recipe, process and tasting notes...so when I cycle back to brewing an Irish Red, American Brown Ale, or Milk Stout I at least have a base to start with.

I like this answer it reminds me of importance of keeping good notes and making incremental changes based on results. Good brewing software makes this fairly easy but a decent notebook and good note taking practices can do the same.

For me the value of BeerSmith and similar software is it forces a certain level of consistency in note taking and recipe design. It encourages you to link both recipe and process to outcome and makes it easy to pull up brewing details when tasting the resulting batch over time.