Do we "think" too much about brewing beer?

[scdigger]

Topic for discussion...I mean, do we unnecessarily obsess over the minutia of beer making...temps, times, numbers, etc...

I've not been brewing beer that long, so, I'm no expert by any means...I'm quite mindful of sanitation, but other than that, I find beer making to be quite easy...I guess I just don't sweat the small stuff.

I follow directions when I brew. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, bottle it. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, put it in the refrigerator. Drink it. Make some more.

So far....I haven't had a problem with a batch yet. I just don't see that if OG is supposed to be 1.060 and it comes out as 1.055 to be that big of deal. If I get 47 bottles instead of 50 out of a batch...nothing to worry about.

Any discussion?

Greg

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I tend to agree, Greg; but then again, I am new. I think that obsession over minutae can run rampant, not just in brewing but in other endeavours such as reloading, cooking, etc.

And then, of course, are the "gadget" folks....

 

[evanmars]

Depends on if you just want to make beer that tastes good, or if you want to be able to make the best beer and make it the same beer over and over.

 

[beernbourbon]

Topic for discussion...I mean, do we unnecessarily obsess .....

......I guess I just don't sweat the small stuff.


I just don't see that ....to be that big of deal. .......nothing to worry about.

Any discussion?

Greg

.....blasphemer!
you's ain't one o' them enguneerun types, is ya, boy?

Seriously, tho. There is a tendency to overthink it....inherent in the engineering community mindset, to which you will find at least a small majority of us belong.
The other side is, in the pursuit of the perfect brew, there are many aspects of our brewing processes that we CAN control, therefore we try to control them as best we can.
Not as much beer as was supposed to be (less bottles) is an indication of a loss of liquid somewhere, based on the scientific calculations of all the ingredients and the steps of the process. Thus begins the quest of 'why did I lose 36oz of beer?'
5 points higher on the hydrometer could mean less efficiency; 'why is my efficiency low?' If I do this, will it change that.....
It's a virtual rabbit hole of possibilities, all to make the best beer we possibly can for our tastes.

I too am fairly new, so, just my humblest of opinions....

 

[mrgrimm101]

It's hard not to sometimes. I like to think that the time and effort that goes into it will yield favorable results. Anything that can happen that might counter that thought will most likely weigh on my mind..at least for a day or so after any given Brew Day. There is also a monetary issue of, "Oh man, if this batch goes bad that's just $$ down the drain!"

I do get bummed when I take the time to formulate a recipe, take time and money getting ingredients, taking time to prepare and sanitize everything, and performing the brew with nothing going wrong, and then have the OG lower than I had planned. Especially when I take extra steps to add ingredients or alter the recipe to hit a desired OG.

Luckily all my batches have been really good and I haven't had really any problems either (other than the occasional missed OG).

I try not to sweat the small stuff, but it's not that easy sometimes.

BTW, your yield is great, I usually get around 40-46 per batch. Maybe I leave too much good beer in the priming bucket that looks too yeasty/truby.

EDIT And I have yet to make the same brew twice, so replication is a key that I have not experienced yet.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Making a truly excellent beer requires either an extraordinary amount of luck or a great amount of attention to many small details.

Most of us aren't that lucky.

 

[firerat]

Making a truly excellent beer requires either an extraordinary amount of luck or a great amount of attention to many small details.

Agreed.

You know what's even harder? Making the same truly excellent beer, TWICE!!

 

[bernardsmith]

Topic for discussion...I mean, do we unnecessarily obsess over the minutia of beer making...temps, times, numbers, etc...

I've not been brewing beer that long, so, I'm no expert by any means...I'm quite mindful of sanitation, but other than that, I find beer making to be quite easy...I guess I just don't sweat the small stuff.

I follow directions when I brew. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, bottle it. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, put it in the refrigerator. Drink it. Make some more.

So far....I haven't had a problem with a batch yet. I just don't see that if OG is supposed to be 1.060 and it comes out as 1.055 to be that big of deal. If I get 47 bottles instead of 50 out of a batch...nothing to worry about.

Any discussion?

Greg

Hi Greg, I am sure many will disagree with you but I think you are right on the money. I don't pretend to know very much about brewing beer. I have come to this hobby through my interest in making wines and meads and cider but it strikes me that many home brewers seem to approach brewing (or wine-making) as if this were a business and their ability to make enough profit and stay in business depends on their ability to extract every last gram of sugar from the grain and every last unit of bitterness from the hops. For me this is a delightful and fun hobby that at the end of the day I get to enjoy what I have made with my wife and our friends. AND I'd rather make a very small batch , a gallon at a time, once a week or so , and be sorry that there is none left than make 5 or 7 gallons and need to have so much equipment that I turn my basement into a brewery .

 

[cannman]

The tiny details in batch preparation are extremely important in being able to recreate the same beer and when scaling up or down batch sizes. I guess it depends on your beer motives: to drunk or drink.

Quality is by far my ultimate drive in home brewing.

 

[unionrdr]

Gettin' buzzed on our own stuff is always nice. But I sweat the details as much as I can to get good beer over & over again. It's not that hard to do. And getting it clear with a good head & carbonation is a good thing as well. It's all part of the hobby.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

The devil's in the details my friend.

That's the great thing about this hobby. You can stick to a simple process and not bother with the fine tuning details and still make good beer. Or you can get obsessive, attempt to control as many elements of the process as possible, and create a great beer that is repeatable.

 

[podz]

Making a truly excellent beer requires either an extraordinary amount of luck or a great amount of attention to many small details.

Most of us aren't that lucky.

Most of you play with too many knobs at the same time. Making great beer is not nearly as complicated as flying a Learjet, and even that can be done by an idiot (trust me, I know a guy who's a Learjet pilot).

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I think consistency and OCD are two different things; one can be consistent and produce great, consistent results without obsessing over a detail that - in the end - might not matter. Such obsession often leads to blind sides that can be just as bad. Fiddling around and obsessing over details doesn't always translate to improvement.

Using the reloading/shooting example (where precision is at least as important as it is in brewing), I've often observed that people and rifles (of reasonably-good skill and condition, respectively) often shoot just fine until someone starts obsessing and fiddling over details - and then from there it is a quest that can last several years just to reach a level of accuracy that they had before they started with the quest. Diminishing returns, and all that. From there, it simply becomes about rationalising and justifying the time, effort and expense involved....

In my experience, folks who are constantly futzing around with things tend to have more problems and bigger disappointments. Folks who enjoy it and pay a reasonable amount of attention to detail do just fine and have consistent results. This isn't buidling the Space Shuttle or diving into the human brain with a laser scalpel; on the contrary, in a lot of cases we are trying to replicate results that maedieval people did with the most primitive of ingredients and equipment.

 

[max384]

Topic for discussion...I mean, do we unnecessarily obsess over the minutia of beer making...temps, times, numbers, etc...

I've not been brewing beer that long, so, I'm no expert by any means...I'm quite mindful of sanitation, but other than that, I find beer making to be quite easy...I guess I just don't sweat the small stuff.

I follow directions when I brew. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, bottle it. Put it away. After a couple of weeks, put it in the refrigerator. Drink it. Make some more.

So far....I haven't had a problem with a batch yet. I just don't see that if OG is supposed to be 1.060 and it comes out as 1.055 to be that big of deal. If I get 47 bottles instead of 50 out of a batch...nothing to worry about.

Any discussion?

Greg

It all really comes down to the consumer. If you're the one drinking your beer and you like it just how it is, and don't want to improve it any further, than there is no need to think too much about your brewing process.

When I first started, this was my attitude. However, the more I brewed, the more I wanted to improve my brews and increase my understanding of the 'why,' rather than just the 'what.'

From what I've seen, the newer the brewer, the more likely they are to have your attitude of not overthinking things. The longer someone brews, the more they start sweating the details. I think this is because the longer we brew, the more we learn, and the more we understand.

As an example, I used to laugh when I heard people on here worry about hitting exactly 156 deg F for their particular stout recipe. I used to try and get somewhere in the vicinity of the goal mash temp, but if I was off a few degrees, no big deal. It was only later that I learned about saccharination, and how amylase activity is affected by a relatively narrow temperature range. I realized that hitting your temp was far more important than I had realized, depending on the style of beer. This is just one example of how a new brewer can mistakenly say that we're overthinking things, when, in fact, it's actually a matter of inexperience and lack of knowledge on the new brewer's part.

 

[metanoia]

Depends on if you just want to make beer that tastes good, or if you want to be able to make the best beer and make it the same beer over and over.

Bingo.

And you figure, the overwhelming majority of professional brewers today started out making beer at home. If they hadn't been able to reproduce an amazing brew again and again, I don't think they'd have much confidence to seek out a professional job doing it, so some homebrewers are very much invested in the details.

I'd really love to be a brewer one day, so I'm taking down as many notes and numbers and details as possible from my brews. In the digital age of spreadsheets and word processors, I'll never run out of room to include more data, so it can't hurt.

 

[sancycling]

Different motives and opinions is what makes this hobby so great.

There are some that have fun just making beer easy and also enjoy the different beers that come out of the not so controlled environment.

Others obsess about the details making the perfect beer every single time. That is what makes them happy.

Me... I'm one of those obsessed brewers. The engineer in me comes out. I really enjoy finding creative ways to control the variables and love to do huge spreadsheets with data. That is what makes me happy. I have to enjoy that detailed process because I'm far from a perfect beer.

 

[unionrdr]

Or, instead of opening a brewery, you write a book about your journey through this happy madness of home brewing. Just gotta get my own computer out of the shop to finish the last few pages before publishing it. That's the other end of spectrum for me.

 

[j1n]

My wife certainly thinks that i think too much about beer. couple weeks ago im sitting there kinda annoyed / upset looking. She asks me whats wrong and i tell her that im concerned my saison isnt reaching the terminal gravity i want it at and the fermentation stalled. Shes like WOW, rolls her eyes and walks away.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

It seems to come down to this:

or this

Is one better than the other? I think not; however, one or the other is more likely to be in line with your own philosophy and goals regarding brewing.

 

[grainbill]

Agreed.

You know what's even harder? Making the same truly excellent beer, TWICE!!

Making the exact same beer twice is very difficult on my end. I always need to make substitutions, even slight ones...I can not always purchase the same grain (malted by the same malter), hops or even yeast, fermentation temps. Then there is the water, you can adjust with salts etc but as the water I get changes over time, the additions are not the same.... I always need to make substitutions, even slight ones...The differences can be subtle, but at times two distinct brews...

 

[SnakeRidge]

I am a physicist, not an engineer. I work with engineers and went to school with them, and I think the homebrewing community reflects my observations from school and work life.

Some people are experimentalists, as in, let's do this and see what we get. Collect data, make a better prediction next time. (physicists)

Some people want to (have to) get it exactly right the first time, every time. (engineers)

Experimentalists have the leeway to refine the process and evolve their hypothesis. Engineers typically are expected to get it right the first time, otherwise they don't get paid or people get hurt.

That said, I know a guy that brews some of the best beer I've had. Guy doesn't own a hydrometer or a scale. He just goes by a scoop of this and a scoop of that and turns out amazing beer. Maybe not repeatable, but that's not what he's after

 

[cernst151]

I don't know about anybody else but I know I think and talk about it far too often. Just ask my wife. Or my friends. Or coworkers. I feel that I already make very good beer most of the time, and excellent beer occasionally, but I do sometimes just get too deep in the weeds trying to figure out either how to improve something or clone something or create some flavor.

I suppose I'd think about it less if I liked my job more but as is I end up spending a lot of time on here during the day. If you suddenly notice you don't see posts from me on here it's probably because I got a new job.

 

[firerat]

Making the exact same beer twice is very difficult on my end. I always need to make substitutions, even slight ones...I can not always purchase the same grain (malted by the same malter), hops or even yeast, fermentation temps. Then there is the water, you can adjust with salts etc but as the water I get changes over time, the additions are not the same.... I always need to make substitutions, even slight ones...The differences can be subtle, but at times two distinct brews...

And that my friend is what separates us hobby home brewers from the commercial brewers: The ability to duplicate the same brew consistently over and over.

That's not to say there aren't a lot of members here who have reached the point in this hobby where their process is dialed in to the T.

But for the most of us each brew day is a new adventure!! Sure we have expectations where we may land our ship, but it's rarely on the exact same part of the beach as the last time.

Practice and fine tuning is what makes us better at steering and navigating the ship. (sorry for all the nautical references)

 

[worlddivides]

I have zero interest in ever repeating the same beer ever again. It's not that I don't think what I make is good. I think everything I've made so far has been great (with the possible exception of my first beer that was just "okay"). I record every single recipe I make and record everything I do along the way, but that's not so I can make the same beer again. It's so I can learn from everything I do and apply certain elements to future beers.

I'm basically an experimenter. I'll oftentimes start a certain beer and a week into the fermentation think of a way I can make it better by adding something in a secondary fermentation or even to the primary fermentation or when bottling.

Now I'm very careful that I get the temps right, the times right, and so on, but I personally don't consider myself to be "too" meticulous or "too" careful.

My approach to beer brewing (and alcohol making in general) is very similar to my approach to cooking. You can make amazing food when changing the recipe or even ignoring the recipe altogether. I'm very experimental with cooking and always come up with good results. I have similar experiences with brewing. Making a meal or a beer from spare ingredients can turn out amazingly and quite creatively too.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

I think starting out, obsessing over *everything* is more damaging. Start out focusing on the most important aspects first sanitation, second sanitation, third sanitation. Really after that when you are just starting out obsessing about getting your recipe formulation perfect and the perfect hop schedule, or the perfect dry hop really isnt important.

I found starting out trying to do everything perfect meant that most of the stuff turned out mediocre. My sanitation was always awesome but I was obsessing over making a 'perfect' award winning beer when I was still on my 2nd or 3rd all grain BIAB batch.

I think more about my next brew day rather than the little things, I've got my efficiency issues fixed finally, I have a better understand of hop selection and hop schedules and I think I'm starting to nail my grain bills to make tasty beers. Now I just need to do it consistently.

 

[bernardsmith]

I have zero interest in ever repeating the same beer ever again. It's not that I don't think what I make is good. I think everything I've made so far has been great (with the possible exception of my first beer that was just "okay"). I record every single recipe I make and record everything I do along the way, but that's not so I can make the same beer again. It's so I can learn from everything I do and apply certain elements to future beers.

I'm basically an experimenter. I'll oftentimes start a certain beer and a week into the fermentation think of a way I can make it better by adding something in a secondary fermentation or even to the primary fermentation or when bottling.

Now I'm very careful that I get the temps right, the times right, and so on, but I personally don't consider myself to be "too" meticulous or "too" careful.

My approach to beer brewing (and alcohol making in general) is very similar to my approach to cooking. You can make amazing food when changing the recipe or even ignoring the recipe altogether. I'm very experimental with cooking and always come up with good results. I have similar experiences with brewing.

Two quick and dirty comments.
1. Experimentation really means controlling everything but for one variable and checking how that one variable affects the result. You cannot really "experiment" when you are (as someone else said above) twiddling many knobs at the same time. That is playing not experimenting.
2. Coming to brewing from wine making I think of this as much of an art as it is a science. The idea is far less to control every variable (there are perhaps too many), the idea is rather to produce the outcome that you prefer or enjoy by knowing how every variable has an impact and how to manipulate the variables. In other words, it may be far less important to mash at a very specific temperature than it is to know that if you mashed at this or that temperature the final beer is likely to have this or that mouthfeel because of starches left unmodified or that the beer is likely to have this or that amount of sweetness because of the amount of unfermentable sugars that will be produced. Knowing this can I then adapt the recipe I have to make use of these outcomes. To connect this to wine making, it does not make a great deal of sense in my opinion to make wine (or beer) by the numbers as if I am aiming for this or that TA and this or that pH and this or that quantity of tannin to add and this or that amount of oak for this or that amount of time. NUTS! I am looking for a taste , an aroma, a color, a mouthfeel. A specific TA will not tell me whether I will find that wine delicious or tart. Tasting it will. Today the harvest of apples contains this amount of sugar and that amount of malic acid last month they contained different amounts. I need to work with the fruit I have to draw out the best flavors I can. If you paint by numbers you won't ever paint well.

 

[Pickle29]

My wife has never accused me of thinking too much.

 

[unionrdr]

There are times when my wife's interested in my brewing related ramblings, other times she rolls her eyes. But she was getting good at brewing till gestational diabetes came along.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

My wife has never accused me of thinking too much.

I find my SWMBO will use this on me "You can remember every recipe of beer you've brewed in the past two years and can rattle it off to whoever asks what you put in it... But you can't remember to make sure the cabinets/drawers close when you get what you want out of them".


Beer doesn't brew itself, cabinets and drawers should close on their own though damnit.

 

[Bobby_M]

When you first start brewing, the results are actually not that good and it's not that obvious to the brewer who is a bit proud. Sometimes you get lucky and it's better than average. It takes a little more attention to detail and best practices to do it well. The OCD behavior is more of a choice. Some people just love getting into the gears and talking about it all day and that's part of the fun of the hobby for them (me).