Brewing "slumps?"

[McCall St. Brewer]

Who here has been in a "slump" when it comes to brewing. I know I have. The two batches I have in bottles right now seem to be turning out to be pure pisswater. I did a really big altbier and it just doesn't taste good to me. I also did really pale yellow lawnmower beer and it seems to be taking forever to get good. I tried to do an IPA but it tastes like an Oktoberfest. As usually happens with homebrew, though, it now tastes pretty darn good and is crystal clear in the bottles, but guess what? I only have about 4 bottles left! The curse of homebrewing strikes again.

I just bottled my first AG batch last night, though, and judging by how it tasted going into the bottles I may just be coming out of my slump now. God, I hope so.

 

[Orfy]

The trick is to have an house beer that is easy to brew and you know will be good every time.

Brew that consistently and your other recipes will not upset the beer availability if they are not up to expectations. You can then leave them to age and mellow whilst you stick with the house beer.


Good luck with the AG I hope it lives up to expectations.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I consider myself in a permanent slump with flashes of good beer

One thing to consider is that you may be a victim of your own increasing skills. I know I thought my first several batches were the cat's meow, but if I brewed them now I'd be pretty pissed. As you get better at brewing your standards increase.

 

[RichBrewer]

My latest brew, 777, is cloudy as hell. I've had it in the secondary at 38 degrees and it didn't help. I've never had this happen before. Chill haze is one thing but this was bad at 67 degrees.

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

One thing to consider is that you may be a victim of your own increasing skills. I know I thought my first several batches were the cat's meow, but if I brewed them now I'd be pretty pissed. As you get better at brewing your standards increase.

That's so true, your palette becomes much more advanced as you try and appreciate more different styles while you are learning to brew. Unfortunately, your palette tends to learn more quickly than your brewing gets better, so you can get caught in a bit of a depression when you figure your beers suck and they didn't used to. This happened to me and I even thought about screwing it and not brewing any more. I kept at it though (actually, SWMBO forced me, she said it kept me from putting money in strangers' g-strings...) and after about 3 months of hard brewing and book-learnin' my brews taste like I want them to again.

 

[Biermann]

I went through a slump recently. . .produced a couple that had some off flavors, which I had never done before. . .but I went back, looked at my techniques and recipes, tweaked some things, and now everything's back on track . . .

I have been on a major HBT posting slump though. . . . I need to get cracking. . .

 

[david_42]

The Chairman has a good point. People will make 5-10 batches using kits or recipes & try their own recipe without having a solid base or closely evaluating the differences from one recipe to the next. Two classics are the "pound of black patent" stout and 200 IBU DIPA.

I brewed with a very experimental brewer my first four years, the kind of person that never makes a batch the same way twice & never writes down the hop additions! Strange brew doesn't even begin to say it.

Having a house beer is a good idea.

 

[Yooper]

I think that's what's going on with me. Beers that were tasting awesome to me last summer would be "ok" now. I'd be critiquing, thinking, "too much victory malt in this, not enough aroma hops", etc.

I've been trying to make some different styles, to break out of the "rut" of IPAs. My next brew is going to be a cream ale, for near the end of summer.

 

[Levers101]

I'm also in a bit of a slump. My last brew was a second batch of a Boulevard wheat clone that I pitched on top of the previous yeast cake. For some reason the yeast autolyzed in the second batch and I have 5 gallons of beer that is moderately tolerable. I didn't have time to brew for two months and got ambitious on my current brew and am doing a lager. The yeast went on strike 3/4 of the way through the fermentation and refuse to do anything more. Now I'm looking at throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at them to get them back to work. So it goes. I'm not gonna give it up yet.

 

[prsman]

I've been brewing for 4 or 5 years now, and recently got out of the slump... My last hefe was meh. But then comes the skull splitter to cheer me back up! All of this talk about the palate learning faster than you is soooo right, I went through this my first couple years of brewing, and just kept my head down and powered through. Didn't last too long and I got back on track. Still comes in waves though. Keep brewing! :rockin:

 

[JnJ]

Glad to hear I'm not alone. I have not cared for my last 3 batches. I even threw one out. Nothing different except 2 were partial mashes...

 

[arturo7]

LOL



It seems "LOL" was too short to be posted so I am typing another sentence to say I found this witticism entertaining and to, hopefully, have enough characters to be accepted as a post.

 

[zoebisch01]

Along with what others in the thread have mentioned, I'll add another aspect. It's called getting bored. Think of it like this....(This scenario has happened to me with many different brews)...for sake of argument let's say you buy a case of IPA. The first six is usually grand. After the second six, it's kind of like....meh. Down toward the last ones you are really ready to have something different and they may even just become a few that hang around the fridge for months or something.

Now, take into account a few things...One you are using the same water for your brew every time. I am certain this makes a huge difference between brewer's results, and in addition it gives a familiar 'ring' to most of your beers. It has happened to me with certain micro's. I was trying to figure out the 'thread' that runs through all of certain micro's beers and I believe that is it. Second, we tend to brew what we like so often you'll have stuff that you are familiar with.

Personally, I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. Leave them open and enjoy the ride! Try stretching the boundaries of what your tastes are currently into and shoot for a different mark maybe. Jazz it up man I think it is hard to make bad beer personally, if you make you own recipes though a review pre-brew is usually a good idea.

 

[98EXL]

I thought my first two batches were horrible! They were Munton's kits, and I threw a bunch out because they tasted like butt. Everything since then has been great!

And I too have been in a HBT slump the past few weeks...but that was for everything on the computer

 

[Turkeyfoot Jr.]

I hope I don't jinx myself here but I've been brewing for almost a year now, just a couple weeks shy, and with 14 brews under my belt I've yet to have an undrinkable batch. **FURIOUSLY KNOCKS ON WOOD**

I have had two that came out with very low carb, even after several weeks in the bottle. But no horrid flavors or the like. I definitely haven't settled on a beer as my house beer just yet, all 14 brews have been different beers. Although the honey wheat that I'm drinking right now may just be it. Been in the bottle three weeks now and had one last night, quite tasty.

 

[FlyingHorse]

I consider myself in a permanent slump with flashes of good beer

Well said. Of my ~40 batches to date, I'd say:
- 5 were "perfect" , exactly what they were suposed to be.
- another 15 or so were really good, but I was able to pick out one thing I'd do differently next time ('course, I have yet to brew the same recipe twice, but the learnings carry over anyway).
- Most of the rest were "not quite right"...drinkable, but not what I was after...and I'm not sure exactly why. Most of these were early brews, a lot of them extract. Im starting to believe that the biggest problem with most of them is that I drank them too soon.
- only one beer has gone down the drain...a misguided attempt to "rescue" a Mr. Beer stout kit (given to me as a gift, without the Mr Beer) by boiling and adding some other stuff, and using liquid yeast. Swill. But at least I know why

 

[olllllo]

If you've built up an inventory, then you will experience what Cheyco described- but with added bonus of even more lag time.

I'm just beginning to have to drink my less-than-successful-beers months after the slump began and now, even if my last brew breaks the streak, I won't be done with the slump until winter...

 

[Dude]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2274&highlight=slump

I hit one a while back, came out of it and won a BoS and had a beer advance to the Nationals. Just pay attention to details and your sanitation and you'll come out of it.

When I was having trouble of my beers just "not tasting right", I went back to some tried and true recipes from other brewers that I have mucho respect for, and I got it turned around.