Do we "think" too much about brewing beer?

[danok1]

My take: I want to eventually get in control of all steps/variables in the process. Right now I'm focused on mash temp and fermentation temp. I want to get to the point where my process has those dialed in.

BUT...I'm not going to freak out if, for example, I targeted 152 degrees for the mash but I actually hit 154 (or 150). I'll note what I did, and that whatever I did didn't work the way I expected, but i WON'T say "my beer is ruined"! Because the probability is that the beer will be fine (in terms of drinkability). I WILL use the information so next time I can hit 152, and the next time, and the next time....

And then I'll move on to another part of the process. And enjoy what I make, and work to where I can repeatedly make what I like the best.

Selah.

-Dan

 

[Tin4]

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 depends on the brewer and background.

I come from kitchens. Food and especially bread and baking come naturally to me after all the years spent making them, so I have a bit more of a slapdash approach to things. I read a recipe, understand what's suggestion and what has to be, and then innovate based on that.

I think the more analytical mindsets (scientist, doctors, researchers, etc.) spend more time in the specifics and the minutia as that's what they would do with anything, not just brewing.

 

[unionrdr]

That's sort of like me. I come up with a recipe & brew it. Then from the color, aroma, flavor, etc, I tweak it with more of this or that grain, yeast, etc till it's where I want it. BS2 helps, but it's still up to the brewer to judge if it's there or needs tweaking.

 

[Kee]

It depends on the brewer and background.

I come from kitchens. Food and especially bread and baking come naturally to me after all the years spent making them, so I have a bit more of a slapdash approach to things. I read a recipe, understand what's suggestion and what has to be, and then innovate based on that.

I think the more analytical mindsets (scientist, doctors, researchers, etc.) spend more time in the specifics and the minutia as that's what they would do with anything, not just brewing.

It is my experience that there is a greater margin for error making beer than making bread. But then again I am not a cook (except for the occasional gumbo).

 

[Aileen]

This is a fascinating thread for me because I'm new (I've been brewing for about a year but only made four batches so far), I'm an analytical-type person (software engineer), and have definitely been overthinking from the beginning. I'm very careful with sanitation, temperature control, water, etc. and working with extract kits because I want to get the best results possible from those before attempting all-grain.
So far I've been mildly disappointed with every batch. About a month ago I went to a brew fest and tried a couple of beers from newer breweries in the area. One beer was a coffee stout. I made a coffee stout about 6 months ago that was my most disappointing beer so far, and it tasted nearly identical to this local brewery's stout! I found that secretly encouraging, actually.
I read a ton here and feel like I am getting better, but I'll probably always overthink because it's just the way I am.

 

[Cyclman]

Heck, I DREAM about homebrewing.

 

[Singletrack]

This is a fascinating thread for me because I'm new (I've been brewing for about a year but only made four batches so far), I'm an analytical-type person (software engineer), and have definitely been overthinking from the beginning. I'm very careful with sanitation, temperature control, water, etc. and working with extract kits because I want to get the best results possible from those before attempting all-grain.
So far I've been mildly disappointed with every batch. About a month ago I went to a brew fest and tried a couple of beers from newer breweries in the area. One beer was a coffee stout. I made a coffee stout about 6 months ago that was my most disappointing beer so far, and it tasted nearly identical to this local brewery's stout! I found that secretly encouraging, actually.
I read a ton here and feel like I am getting better, but I'll probably always overthink because it's just the way I am.

Good for you! I can't imagine the phases people discuss in which they think their mediocre beer is great, just because they made it. I don't work that way. I was, and am, more critical of my own beer than commercial beers. I really don't care about their beer, and I really DO care about mine.

(Or maybe my beer just sucks a lot more than everyone else's?)

There's no set formula for the path to happiness -- in brewing or anything else.

I used my "mild disappointment" to go all-grain after 3 batches. I always assumed I would still make an occasional extract batch, but... nah. Maybe you are ready to give AG a try.

Keep overthinking, because there is no such thing.

 

[bernardsmith]

I have been brewing for about a year but wine making for several and I do think brewers tend to treat brewing more as an engineering problem than as both an art and a science. The engineer wants to make the perfect widget and will tweak and tweak and tweak but to think of fermenting as both a science and an art transforms the way you think about it. There are scientific principles that you need to apply but even applying those principles will not result in the outcome you are looking for from the material you have here and now. You need to use your senses (taste, sight, smell, feel etc). Brewing by the numbers (attenuation, efficiency, temperature) means - to my way of thinking that you are far removed from the brew itself. My guess is that many brewers on this forum would just about give their right hand if they could make or put together a system that automates everything from water hardness to chilling before pouring so that they could replicate the same process time after time after time... wine makers tend (I think) to understand the underlying principles and chemistry (the science) and then use their mouth and nose and eyes to modify what they will bottle. I guess bottom line is that brewers think of brewing as , as I say an engineering problem but vitners (cider, mead and wine makers) view fermentation as a science and an art. That means wine makers use their skills, brewers use their equipment.

 

[unionrdr]

I tend to think beer is more involved after having done both. Beer has to have the flavor built from the ground up. Wine is more like taking care of the fruit, must, etc to get the wine to come out good. That's the science of it to me.

 

[podz]

That means wine makers use their skills, brewers use their equipment.

While it's true that all of the equipment and tools involved does tend to draw engineers to brewing, I wouldn't quite generalise in the way you did.

The fact is that over 95% of the population is looking for someone or something to copy and the other 5% are intuitive systems builders (meaning that they possess the raw cognitive ability to invent systems from scratch without needing to stand on the shoulders of giants).

Out of that 5% of the population of the planet that are "real" systems builders, less than half of them possess the cognitive function of extraverted feeling. For example, Paul Atreides vs Dr. Spock: both of them are real, intuitive systems builders, but Spock build systems for the good of the system itself and Paul (Muad'dib) builds systems for the good of people. Both provide value, but out of the two, only Muad'dib is able to dream flavors in his mind and create without effort them whereas Spock needs to experiment, sample, analyse and so forth.

 

[Qhrumphf]

(Disclaimer, not reading every page of replies)

To me there's a difference between "overthinking" and "overcomplicating".

I think most brewers underthink their brews. However, I also most brewers overcomplicate their brews. Whether it's stupidly complicated malt bills, or stupidly complicated hop schedules, or stupidly complicated spice additions. Yet they pay no attention to basic fundamentals like removing chlorine or chloramine from their brewing water.

I get very scientific about my beers. I (usually) take and record in my log the following measurements with my beers: grains to 0.1 oz, measurement if strike water down to the fraction of a quart, strike water temp in kettle, strike water temp in MLT, water additions measured to 0.1 gram, mash pH prior to adding acid, mash pH during addition of acid, mash pH after resting for 15 minutes, any mash factors (infusions, decoctions, etc) to fraction of a quart, initial mash temperature, mash temperature halfway through, sparge water temperature, gravity of first runnings, gravity of sparge runnings, pH of grain bed during sparging, preboil volume, preboil gravity, boil time, hops to the gram, hop additions to the second, boiloff rate 50% of way through boil adjusted for thermal expansion, chill time, chill temperature, pitching temperature, pitching rate (calculated), aeration time, post boil volume, original gravity, loss of wort to trub, fermentation temperature, FG, bottled volume, bottled beer temperature, carbonation level desired, priming sugar measured to 0.1 gram.

What this does is tell me when anything is off. And I can tell you with really good accuracy exactly what my mash efficiency will be for a given grainbill. It also enables me to rebrew the same beer every time so the numbers match up perfectly (unless I'm intentional tweaking something) and the beer tastes indentical (again unless I'm intentionally tweaking something), and then if I do tweak something, I can know that whatever changed in the beer was a result of the tweak that I made.

HOWEVER, whenever I'm coming up with a recipe and get to exercise the artistic side of brewing, I ask myself for anything that I'm adding "what is this adding to the beer?" If I can't figure out what adding something is going to do, then I'm not going to add it. And adding too many things leaves you with an overcomplicated muddled mess.

 

[podz]

I get very scientific about my beers.

...

grains to 0.1 oz
measurement if strike water down to the fraction of a quart
water additions measured to 0.1 gram
any mash factors (infusions, decoctions, etc) to fraction of a quart
initial mash temperature
hops to the gram
priming sugar measured to 0.1 gram.

You are weighing grains with US system, measuring strike water with US system, weighing water additions with metric system, and measuring hops and priming sugar with the metric system. Your measurement systems are all over the place and that overcomplicates matters that could be made a whole lot simpler if you'd just get scientific for real and use the metric system for everything. Even US scientists use the metric system exclusively because otherwise they couldn't participate in international peer review (and not using it causes other stupid things like losing 10 billion dollar mars space probes due to thrusting at a million miles instead of kilometers). Chemists are smart, rocket scientists not so much, but I digress.

What is the point of weighing your water additions instead of measuring the volume of them? And are you measuring temperatures in celcius or fahrenheit?

Additionally, how difficult is it to work with unreduced fractions? What is 1/16 of 1/4 anyway in liquid ounces, and with what instrument could you measure that? Wouldn't it be one hell of a lot easier to know that you need 59ml, which can easily be measured with a graduated cylinder?

 

[Qhrumphf]

You are weighing grains with US system, measuring strike water with US system, weighing water additions with metric system, and measuring hops and priming sugar with the metric system. Your measurement systems are all over the place and that overcomplicates matters that could be made a whole lot simpler if you'd just get scientific for real and use the metric system for everything. Even US scientists use the metric system exclusively because otherwise they couldn't participate in international peer review (and not using it causes other stupid things like losing 10 billion dollar mars space probes due to thrusting at a million miles instead of kilometers). Chemists are smart, rocket scientists not so much, but I digress.

What is the point of weighing your water additions instead of measuring the volume of them? And are you measuring temperatures in celcius or fahrenheit?

Additionally, how difficult is it to work with unreduced fractions? What is 1/16 of 1/4 anyway in liquid ounces, and with what instrument could you measure that? Wouldn't it be one hell of a lot easier to know that you need 59ml, which can easily be measured with a graduated cylinder?

All true. Using metric across the board would be better. But I work in the units on the equipment available to me. Some stuff can work in metric but not all of it. And I also learned to use the stupid imperial system from a young age and that's a hard habit to break. Or maybe (likely) its a combination of both.

Still a margin for error on everything but my point is to measure as precisely as is prudent (no point measuring salts precisely if you're not also measuring water precisely), and think deep on the process, but don't overthink the beer. At least that's if you want consistency, which I do. If consistency doesn't matter to you then by all means toss a little of this and a little of that and as long as you get good beer you're successful.

And as far as weighing salts vs volume, same reason I weigh priming sugar instead of volume. Volume isn't as accurate.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

So we have an 8 page thread on wether or not we think about beer too much? Kewl!!!

 

[podz]

And as far as weighing salts vs volume, same reason I weigh priming sugar instead of volume. Volume isn't as accurate.

My bad. I thought you were weighing water! How silly of me.

 

[Qhrumphf]

My bad. I thought you were weighing water! How silly of me.

Weighing water isn't prudent. Plus the thermal expansion/contraction of water is a scientific known, easily calculated and accounted for by brewing software. However the coarse/fine difference between suppliers in sugars and salts (moreso with sugars) is a different story. The "5 oz corn sugar is 3/4 cup" thing is a good example. With the sugar I get, 5 oz is closer to 1/2 cup.

 

[bobeer]

at first I was pretty meticulous about every aspect of brewing. Now, I've brewed enough on my equipment that I pretty much know what I'm going to get out of it. I still record all the recipes, mash temps, sparge volumes and other minor brew day notes, but I wouldn't say I obsess over any of it.
I think this is a wonderful hobby and a great way to spend your time- either brewing or sharing beer with family and friends. If someone wants to obsess over every little detail then that's their preference. There's no right or wrong way to brew beer if the outcome is what you want it to be. That's what makes this hobby so awesome.

 

[unionrdr]

That's it in a nutshell. If you like the beer you get, you're there. But we are bunch of tinkers, after all...