How many batches of beer have you made until it's drinkable and tasty?

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tr08

tr08

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I'm a newbie homebrewer here. Have been brewing for 6 batches now. The last batch was still not quite good. Now i'm waiting for my Paulaner clone to finish conditioning. Let's see how it tastes like.

So guys, How many batches of beer have you made until it's drinkable and tasty?:rockin:
 
1...it's all about process and fermentation temp control...I did my research and brewed with more experienced brewers before me so that first beer was drinkable and tasty!

What seems to be the problem with your brews?
 
Hey Tr08, as a fellow newbie, I would say you should definitely be making some good beer by now. I have about 10 batches under my belt and have yet to have to dump any. Maybe you should reach out to another local home brewer during your next brew day. You may be making a fundamental mistake over and over again.
 
I have brewed 93 batches - all but one drinkable and tasty. Some better than others and the one that I didn't finish was an extreme experiment. It was way too sweet. I used a lot of it making beer bread. That one was in the middle of the 93.
 
My first batch was good and drinkable, I think you need to look up a club and get some help.
 
To all,

Thanks for the great advice. The first two batches I brewed lager without knowing temperature control was important. So I brewed them at my room temp at 30+c.

Also, I lacked a lot of equipment like imersion chiller, autosiphon, good mash tun, etc.

The third batch was also a lager. I used swamp cooling technique I found on the internet but couldn't get the temp below 25 somehow. This was the time I bought a fridge and stc1000 to control my ferm temp. And I bought the equipment said above.

The fourth batch I brewed WitBier without following the recipe. I used wheat malt instead of unmalted wheat. And I used wit dried yeast instead of wyeast 3944. My beer now became more drinkable but not good as expected.

The fifth batch was Weizen Paulaner clone which is now in the bottle for one week and let's see how it tastes like.
The current batch is Wit Again now in the fridge fermenting. Followed everything in the recipe. This batch is what I expect the most.

So this is my story.
 
tr08 said:
To all,

Thanks for the great advice. The first two batches I brewed lager without knowing temperature control was important. So I brewed them at my room temp at 30+c.

Also, I lacked a lot of equipment like imersion chiller, autosiphon, good mash tun, etc.

The third batch was also a lager. I used swamp cooling technique I found on the internet but couldn't get the temp below 25 somehow. This was the time I bought a fridge and stc1000 to control my ferm temp. And I bought the equipment said above.

The fourth batch I brewed WitBier without following the recipe. I used wheat malt instead of unmalted wheat. And I used wit dried yeast instead of wyeast 3944. My beer now became more drinkable but not good as expected.

The fifth batch was Weizen Paulaner clone which is now in the bottle for one week and let's see how it tastes like.
The current batch is Wit Again now in the fridge fermenting. Followed everything in the recipe. This batch is what I expect the most.

So this is my story.
Click to expand...

I think you can see the importance of following the instructions now

brewing is not hard, and about everything you need to know is that you follow simple steps easily found in a number of books or even on the net.
following your recipe, keep a checklist of steps next to you, it is just to easy to forget something simple like forgetting to drop in some whirlfloc or something like that.
Temperature control
Cleanliness and sanitation
accurate measurements
keeping notes on everything
These are the roads to success, follow them and you will be drinking great beer real soon
 
tr08 said:
I'm a newbie homebrewer here. Have been brewing for 6 batches now. The last batch was still not quite good. Now i'm waiting for my Paulaner clone to finish conditioning. Let's see how it tastes like.

So guys, How many batches of beer have you made until it's drinkable and tasty?:rockin:
Click to expand...

My very first batch was great.
 
Brewing for a long time. Given one uses reasonable brewing ingredients, the difference between drinkable beer and outstanding beer is in fermentation temperature control. Until you can create an environment with a consistent temperature, preferably near the middle of the yeast range, your beer will likely be less than it can be. Doesn't mean bad, just not as good.

Enjoy the process of continual tweeking in search of the unicorn.
 
Anyhowe said:
Brewing for a long time. Given one uses reasonable brewing ingredients, the difference between drinkable beer and outstanding beer is in fermentation temperature control. Until you can create an environment with a consistent temperature, preferably near the middle of the yeast range, your beer will likely be less than it can be. Doesn't mean bad, just not as good.

Enjoy the process of continual tweeking in search of the unicorn.
Click to expand...

I prefer at or just below the low end of the range.
 
My first one was good.

I see you want to make lagers. Are you pitching enough yeast? The common advice is to pitch twice as much as a same gravity ale. If you don't want to buy two or more packs of yeast you can try Wyeast 1007. It's an ale yeast but works great to get some lager characteristics. You could also try pitching lager yeast at higher temps (65-72) and drop the temp as fermentation starts to shorten the lag time.

The other thing about lagers is to do a diacetyl rest. Raise the fermentation temp by 10 degrees close to the end of fermentation. Then on to lagering where you want temps as close to freezing as possible for a month or more. (There is quick lager method).
 
Temp control is the first big step - 25-30*C is likely way too hot for ales let alone lagers. Also it sounds like you are brewing all grain, are you paying attention to water chemistry at all? If using tap water are you treating for chlorine/chloramines?
 
brewcat said:
My first one was good.

I see you want to make lagers. Are you pitching enough yeast? The common advice is to pitch twice as much as a same gravity ale. If you don't want to buy two or more packs of yeast you can try Wyeast 1007. It's an ale yeast but works great to get some lager characteristics. You could also try pitching lager yeast at higher temps (65-72) and drop the temp as fermentation starts to shorten the lag time.

The other thing about lagers is to do a diacetyl rest. Raise the fermentation temp by 10 degrees close to the end of fermentation. Then on to lagering where you want temps as close to freezing as possible for a month or more. (There is quick lager method).
Click to expand...

I quit brewing lager for now as it requires too many steps to finish. At that time, I had no idea what the lager was, and I liked to drink lager, I treated it like a normal ale brewing. That's why the result wasn't good.
Thank you for your advice though.
 
chickypad said:
Temp control is the first big step - 25-30*C is likely way too hot for ales let alone lagers. Also it sounds like you are brewing all grain, are you paying attention to water chemistry at all? If using tap water are you treating for chlorine/chloramines?
Click to expand...

I just used charcoal filter to treat the water.
 
tr08 said:
I just used charcoal filter to treat the water.
Click to expand...

I think if you're doing that slowly enough it should take care of the chlorine and chloramine. If you don't know the ion content of your water though, and aren't following the pH of your mash that could be something to look into. Hard to say, you haven't mentioned what exactly is wrong with your beers.
 
chickypad said:
I think if you're doing that slowly enough it should take care of the chlorine and chloramine. If you don't know the ion content of your water though, and aren't following the pH of your mash that could be something to look into. Hard to say, you haven't mentioned what exactly is wrong with your beers.
Click to expand...

I believe my mistakes were temp control like others have mentioned, and a lack of experience and techniques of brewing.
 
Got back into brewing last august, this time small batch BIAB. Getting better each time. Some of those batches were the equivalent of finger paintings. Yeah, technically it's art, but only your friends and family will tell you it's good.

I currently have a John Palmer Elevenses (brown ale) partial mash from NB on tap and my best to date. While toasting the oats is pure genius, in addition to a good recipe I think it's better technique that comes with confidence from experience.

As I gained confidence constructing recipes using software, and got better at executing on brew day, I started to looking into two areas that seemed information over load when I first stated brewing:


Fermentation Temperature
I've been fortunate that my apartment temperature has been consistently 63° - 68°, but that will quickly change when the AC will be in the mid to upper 70's. I just ordered peltier cooling parts (10amps) to build an ale fermenting chamber. This won't due for lagers, however, I think it's a low cost solution to lower ambient temperature up to 15° and keep things in the low to mid 60's.

Water Profile
I took out of a lot of the guess work by reading my public water report. It's a bit soft and my pH strips are useless. While I may eventually spring for a pH meter, I am confident that am making small adjustments that put my mash in the mid range for balanced beer. This may or may not account for my results being more predictable, but I was missing them initially and the calculators were suggesting that that my pH wasn't in a desirable range for an efficient mash.


And on a last note, I mentioned the Palmer ale was my best to date. Funny thing about it, it pours from my tap at 45°- 47° with about 12psi carbonation and it tastes a slightly harsh dry and over carbonated. If I give it a few minutes to warm up a bit, all those unfermented sugars and other flavors come through to balance out that dry roast significantly, IMO, improving the taste to an extremely pleasurable experience. Interesting how a few degrees of serving temperature can change a good beer into a very good beer.
 
I'm on my 21st batch.
My #1 was a kit. It was... fine, but unremarkable. (Like you, I did a lager, but fermented primary at room temp.)
#2 was a fabulous Baltic Porter.
#3 was a hot mess. It was supposed to be a Berliner, but I a) used dark wheat instead of white wheat, and b) tried to run my lacto at 60 degrees. So it didn't sour, and instead became a watery amber wheat beer. Just awful. I threw some raspberries and brett into it, and after 8 months it wasn't bad.
#4 was pretty good.

Moral of the story: you win some, you lose some. Just keep at it, keep improving, keep experimenting, and if it doesn't taste good right away, don't be afraid to stick it in the cellar and forget about it for a while. Time doesn't heal all wounds, but it smoothes out most faults.
 
I have 2 completed batches under my belt. First one i split in two, half was drinkable have got dumped. Batch 2 was excellent, VERy tasty. Batch 3 is in the fermenter.
 
Can't help you with lager as I've never brewed one. Are you using recipe kits? If so I recommend keeping using them follow every step until you have your process down before designing your own recipes. I used kits for the first year before I ventured in my own recipes. I've never dumped a batch of it's not up to standard I figure it's punishment and meant to make me try harder.
 
I don't recall ever making anything good or of the Mr. Beer back in the late 90s :(
 
Dixon9717 said:
Can't help you with lager as I've never brewed one. Are you using recipe kits? If so I recommend keeping using them follow every step until you have your process down before designing your own recipes. I used kits for the first year before I ventured in my own recipes. I've never dumped a batch of it's not up to standard I figure it's punishment and meant to make me try harder.
Click to expand...


I am a big fan of starting with a simple recipe (like a basic single hop APA) and making it a few times, noting your evaporation rate, trub loss etc. This way you have something to with which to compare each batch, nail down those numbers unique to the brewer & his/her equipment and iron out those little mistakes that can only occur with actually brewing.
 
In my case, it was my 6th batch that finally hit. First time I'd brewed a beer that I'd rather drink than anything I could get at the local watering hole.

The first three batches were extract, 4th and 5th were all-grain. The primary changes were controlling fermentation temperature and getting the water right.

Ever since, each and every time I brew, I try to do something better than before. Over time it's been things like controlling fermentation temps, better water, using starters, rehydrating dry yeast, paying more attention to the percentage of Alpha Acids in hops, eliminating O2 as much as possible post-fermentation, oxygenating the wort, most recently using a little dab of yeast nutrient in the starter....
 
There's no magic number of batches that after X you're all of a sudden brewing good beer.
In the case of the OP, brewing Lagers at high ale temps is a big issue. Sorry, but you're probably not going to get decent beer like that. I would recommend stepping back, get a good pale ale kit and go that route. Get your basics down and when you get the equipment to keep a brew fermenting in the low 50-s F and then to lager at near freezing, go ahead and retry those recipes.
Don't worry terribly about water quite yet - if you can drink it with no chemical taste, you're in good shape. Later on, with a lot more experience under your belt you can work with water profiles.
Personally it was my third batch that was pretty tasty. I started with a pale ale kit, then an oaked something that ended up tasting like chewing on sticks.
Then I went with a Hefewiezen kit, with that yeast being tolerant of high temps, it worked out nicely. After that, I didn't brew in the heat of summer (didn't have much temp control in my apartment) so when I did, the temps stuck in the mid-60's F.
 
From the very first batch I ever made till now 17 batches later. I had 1 that wasn't astoundingly awesome. A stout last month I poured out
 
ZmannR2 said:
From the very first batch I ever made till now 17 batches later. I had 1 that wasn't astoundingly awesome. A stout last month I poured out
Click to expand...

I've brewed 514 batches over the last 19 years. I've dumped maybe 3 of them becasue they were bad. I've dumped others becasue I just didn't like them. So, since you've dumped one already, you're well on your way to not dumping more in the future!
 
I had to brew five or so until I started consistently liking the results. A lot of things were probably going on, and I didn't scientifically test or anything to see what it was. I have several theories:

I was fermenting S-05 too low and getting a (to me) nasty estery taste.
I don't like Crystal 60 as much as the people who design kit recipes at Northern Brewer.
I was buying several kits at a time and using specialty grains too long after they were milled.
I was using tap water with a mineral profile that didn't play nice with LME.

I just ended up investing in an 8 gallon pot, learning to BIAB, and going mostly all-grain. Everything is much better now, and I just make my own recipes. If I needed to brew a beer bigger than 1.06 or so, I'd add pale DME to make up the gravity. This process works great for me.
 
my first brew turned out fine, and each one after as been good. My advice when starting out is just to keep it simple no need to get into anything to advanced where you need special equipment or to babysit to much. A nice wheat beer is a nice easy beer to start with
 
I'm and expert at being a rookie:). Made the same mistake on my first brew when I tried a lager without proper fermentation equipment to do it. I live in Florida so a refrigerator is mandatory for lagers. Switched to Ale and was able to ferment easily with a swamp cooler type setup. 1 year later and 11 batches since the lager fiasco. All beers coming out great or at least good enough my friends can drink it and lie about how good it is.
so I triple what others here have said and would go with a brew you can control fermentation temp on(any ALE) Good luck:mug:
 
Knightmare1 said:
I'm and expert at being a rookie:). Made the same mistake on my first brew when I tried a lager without proper fermentation equipment to do it. I live in Florida so a refrigerator is mandatory for lagers. Switched to Ale and was able to ferment easily with a swamp cooler type setup. 1 year later and 11 batches since the lager fiasco. All beers coming out great or at least good enough my friends can drink it and lie about how good it is.
so I triple what others here have said and would go with a brew you can control fermentation temp on(any ALE) Good luck:mug:
Click to expand...
I live in Maine, so all that stuff people say about ales being super easy to brew without temp control? I find not so much. I've had several ales stall out on me during the winter because we keep the thermostat at 60, and our spare room (where I ferment) is colder than that. Don't even get me started on sours and saisons.
Lagers, though, are easy for me because our cellar stays at a pretty consistent high 40s/low 50s all winter.

Edit: Nottingham and Wyeast 1728 have never failed me, though, even in the dead of winter.
 
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Yea, I guess didn't think that one all the way through. sounds like the OP is in my situation trying to obtain cool enough temps to even ferment an ALE.
Will one day setup a way to make lagers, but next in line would be kegging for me.
 
I am eight brews in and waiting on two in the mail. I have learned something each time I have brewed, always something new that I had not thought of, I find being able to be consistent is important. After my first two batches I immediately purchased a ink bird dual temp controller and sacrificed my chest freezer for a fermenting chamber. Having control of temperature has greatly helped me be consistent. Although using a freezer may not be the best due to moisture and the mold i have been finding. I also made a 50' copper wort chiller, very necessary. I also have been making one of the same brews. Fresh squished IPA. I have brewed this three times so far. I have learned a lot doing the same kind. Different things you do can affect the outcome. I try a new brew usually a stout along with the IPA. I like to brew two or three the same day it seems easier when dragging everything out the same day to brew more than one. Its makes for a long day but the outcome is worth the effort. So far no major problems, no infections and everything has tasted good. All the effort cleaning, sanitizing and being organized pays off. I recently confused my brews and put additions in the wrong fermenter. I put chocolate nibs in the Double IPA and the Hops in the Stout. See always learning something. I even made name tags for the brews but i did not put them on the when I transferred to secondary.
 
it sounds like you don't like to follow instructions. That makes the learning curve take longer. Starting with extract ales, any monkey can make very drinkable beer on the first try. For all-grain you will either need to learn about water chemistry, get lucky with your water supply, or use RO water and measured amounts of minerals to make drinkable beer right away, but a lucky monkey can still make good beer right away.
 
Txcheddar said:
I am eight brews in and waiting on two in the mail. I have learned something each time I have brewed, always something new that I had not thought of, I find being able to be consistent is important. After my first two batches I immediately purchased a ink bird dual temp controller and sacrificed my chest freezer for a fermenting chamber. Having control of temperature has greatly helped me be consistent. Although using a freezer may not be the best due to moisture and the mold i have been finding. I also made a 50' copper wort chiller, very necessary. I also have been making one of the same brews. Fresh squished IPA. I have brewed this three times so far. I have learned a lot doing the same kind. Different things you do can affect the outcome. I try a new brew usually a stout along with the IPA. I like to brew two or three the same day it seems easier when dragging everything out the same day to brew more than one. Its makes for a long day but the outcome is worth the effort. So far no major problems, no infections and everything has tasted good. All the effort cleaning, sanitizing and being organized pays off. I recently confused my brews and put additions in the wrong fermenter. I put chocolate nibs in the Double IPA and the Hops in the Stout. See always learning something. I even made name tags for the brews but i did not put them on the when I transferred to secondary.
Click to expand...

Try using Damp Rid in your freezer.
 
My first one turned out great, but the quality went way down when I started using tap water even with campden tablets. Try doing a batch with gallons of "spring water" from the store using your current process. If it turns out great then great you identified water as the problem. If it is still bad then I guess you are out 5 or so $ and still looking.

You'll figure it out.
 

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