How many batches to make quality beer?

[brettg20]

Good beer is a matter of opinion...but the fact we are all making beer is what matters...cheers to all

 

[brettg20]

And...with the quality of ingredients available today vs when myself or others started brewing I wouldn't be surprised if someone brewed a quality beer early on.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

sometimes I feel like I need to remind you people.

 

[Rcbandl]

My 2nd beer was quality. But I was one of those that did my research and had all the right equipment (yeast starters, temp controlled fermentation) which in my opinion is what can make the difference between a good and great beer.

I have brewed 23ish AG batches since I started 6 months ago and most have turned out great. There have been a few that were not quite up to par but were drinkable.

My 5th brew which was a lager won a gold in Best Florida Beer Compitition.

 

[fivepointslow]

Lol, well like others have said it is subjective, and I would love to try your first couple batches. So funny you think you can brew quality beer not knowing your system. Tell ya what buddy, if your beer is half as good as say Firestone Walkers anything, I will spread your good word and call you a god. Something tells me I am not to worried about it lol... I started on this forum before my first batch and read three books and am a general fanatic at whatever I get into. Sure you can make beer people will like, and that is good, but high quality you can measure all the way around with no faults? Don't think so.... Like I said man, prove me wrong, I will do tasting on this sight just to prove how awesome you are LOL. I have seen you on here before and your posts so bring it all day buddy :cross:

Wow what a dick head comment. Sorry man but maybe you don't understand everyone learns differently and at different rates. Send me one of your famous brews so I can taste what beer should taste like. Apparently I brew donkey piss compared since Iv only been at it for 7-8 months.

 

[mhermetz]

I love how many people were making fantastic quality beer on their second and third brew. I thought my first batch was great, but to be making consistently fantastic quality beer....100 plus batches and that was my experience and most pro's will tell you the same. It is a matter of balance and adjusting to your system to really get there. 2-3 batches my ass lol.... Would love to try these peps brews lol...

Agreed... I'd love to sample these "quality" beers

 

[iijakii]

Always love the "got to know your system" guys. Whatever the **** that means. Hitting your mash temps? Not hard. Pitching healthy yeast and good aeration, ferm temps in line? Not hard. Boom - if you had a good recipe that's a great beer without offlfavors. Brewing really is simple. Designing unique great beers is hard, but the actual brewing of great beers is easy.

Sure you "got to know your system" to exactly duplicate it again, but if you brew it next time and it's 5 OG higher? Still probably a great beer, even if you don't have an identical one. It's all in the recipes bruh.

 

[1977Brewer]

Always love the "got to know your system" guys. Whatever the **** that means. Hitting your mash temps? Not hard. Pitching healthy yeast and good aeration, ferm temps in line? Not hard. Boom - if you had a good recipe that's a great beer without offlfavors. Brewing really is simple. Designing unique great beers is hard, but the actual brewing of great beers is easy.

Sure you "got to know your system" to exactly duplicate it again, but if you brew it next time and it's 5 OG higher? Still probably a great beer, even if you don't have an identical one. It's all in the recipes bruh.

This I get. My pastor's son started easily a year before me, and he's been throwing all kinds of stuff at the wall trying to make the most complicated things he can. He's frustrated that he can't quite nail it. I started with a SMaSH, added a little to that same SMaSH recipe for my APA, then took a shot in the dark at a still simple recipe for the IIPA that's in the fermenter now. All three beers have been based on basic recipes I found here except the last one, which I gleaned some info on a beer I love and tweaked in Brewer's Friend until I hit the OG and IBU count. It's not a clone by any means, but I'm just cocky enough to say, two days into fermentation, that it will be my best yet. It may be awful, at which point I will drink it in silence and try again.

It's not preposterous to say that you can make good quality beer right off the bat. I'll make a bad beer, I know that for a fact. In fact, I already did, the pari-gyle part of that first batch was really just a whim, it was weak, thin, and lacked anything in the way of decent character. I hated it, but it found its audience even among avowed beer lovers.

 

[sboyajian]

Much like most people, I probably spent 9-12 months reading, watching videos, visiting forums, asking questions before I brewed batch #1.

I've had some failed experiments, but I make consistently good beer.

 

[zippyclown]

Yeah... what's up with the puffed out chests guys... take it down a notch. Grab a beer and chill out.

Or, do we harness the energy? I propose we create a "Smack Down" series on HBT. After all, without chest thumping and competition, the bar for "quality" would be nowhere as high as it is today.

Pick a style and send me your beers, boys. I'm happy to settle this publicly and fairly.

All rise. The honerable Judge Hopner, presiding.

zc

 

[SnakeRidge]

I'll volunteer for this jury. We the people have certain duties in this democracy.

 

[mhermetz]

"good quality" is so subjective. Unless you have entered a beer and received a good score I don't think you should be saying you have brewed "good quality" beer. How many of these 1-3 batch guys entered any of those beers and had good results?

If you asked me 3 years ago if I was brewing good quality beer I probably would have said yes. However, I had never entered a competition, never been to a HB club meet or won an award. If you ask me now I would say it took a lot of batches to get this so called "good quality" and I would slap my older self for ever telling anyone I made good beer. And 5 years from now I'll probably think what I'm making now is **** and slap my current self.

 

[gometz]

I have a weird start to the hobby. I started doing extract batches when I was 16 (2002). Made some decent and some good beers by pure luck between 16 and 21 (by then had moved on to partial mash and was making my own recipes).

Then I moved to campus and quit brewing. Spent the next 2 years being moved around by work and never brewed. Finally when I got a permanent job I tried a few more partial mash recipes. I think I made 3 in a year, and none were particularly good or bad. Same old mistakes, mainly pitching rates and water quality.

Finally began getting serious about learning details in early 2013, and since then my beer has improved drastically. I have made 2 beers that were ill advised, but mostly stick to my mantra of making a good base beer before trying to experiment with the style. I am still working to perfect a Munich Helles (even though mine won 3rd place in the Dixie Cup), and get an IPA recipe together that I am truly happy with (I think the last one might have been good, but I had all of 1 bottle of it while I was drunk at my wedding).

So, after a long boring story:
~11 years, probably 30 batches if counting from the first time I brewed
~4 months, 3 batches if counting from my "re-entry" to the hobby

 

[kombat]

I've got 95 batches under my belt, and I still end up with the occasional batch I'm not crazy about. But that's because I'm still trying new things, new process, new ingredients, new techniques. I made a bacon smoked porter that turned out kinda badly. I could've spent that day brewing my tried-and-true Pale Ale recipe instead, and had another keg of a beer I know I can make with no problems, but I wanted to try something new.

I read that dry yeast doesn't need aeration. So I made a batch where I didn't aerate the wort at all. I ended up with banana-flavoured nail polish remover. I made another batch where I was trying to see if I could trim a few days off my lager-brewing schedule. I'm still working my way through my keg of Green Apple Pilsner.

They're not all home runs. But I'm not trying to nail down 2-3 perfect beers and repeat them over and over. I'm trying to have fun with this, and experiment, and that carries risk with it. The risk of making the occasional dud. But every now and then, it works out better than you even dared to hope, and I find that exceptionally rewarding.

 

[gometz]

"good quality" is so subjective. Unless you have entered a beer and received a good score I don't think you should be saying you have brewed "good quality" beer. How many of these 1-3 batch guys entered any of those beers and had good results?

If you asked me 3 years ago if I was brewing good quality beer I probably would have said yes. However, I had never entered a competition, never been to a HB club meet or won an award. If you ask me now I would say it took a lot of batches to get this so called "good quality" and I would slap my older self for ever telling anyone I made good beer. And 5 years from now I'll probably think what I'm making now is **** and slap my current self.

Depending on how dedicated and obsessed you are, 3 years is more than enough time to learn and correct mistakes. Water, temperature control, yeast control, and recipe selection are the four biggest drivers that lead to mistakes. If you feel confident that your water chemistry is right, you are controlling your temperatures correctly, pitching the right amount of yeast, and finally using a good recipe, then you are making quality beer.

 

[Braufessor]

Depending on how dedicated and obsessed you are, 3 years is more than enough time to learn and correct mistakes. Water, temperature control, yeast control, and recipe selection are the four biggest drivers that lead to mistakes. If you feel confident that your water chemistry is right, you are controlling your temperatures correctly, pitching the right amount of yeast, and finally using a good recipe, then you are making quality beer.

And sanitation/general handling of beer during transfer, etc....

 

[gometz]

And sanitation/general handling of beer during transfer, etc....

Sanitation? What's that?
Just kidding. Yea, forgot about that one because it's so ingrained in me now that I don't even think about it. That's really the foundation upon which everything is built. If you can't keep your equipment clean enough, you will NEVER make quality beer.

 

[Braufessor]

Sanitation? What's that?
Just kidding. Yea, forgot about that one because it's so ingrained in me now that I don't even think about it. That's really the foundation upon which everything is built. If you can't keep your equipment clean enough, you will NEVER make quality beer.

Yeah - as simple as it sounds, I think sanitation is almost something we take for granted. Even after my first 10+ years of brewing..... once I sort of refocused, rededicated myself, started reading and learning more.... changes to my sanitation process made a BIG difference in my brewing. Switching and going to pbw/starsan with a much more thorough process helped my beer.... even after having brewed a long time.

 

[Zepth]

They're not all home runs. But I'm not trying to nail down 2-3 perfect beers and repeat them over and over. I'm trying to have fun with this, and experiment, and that carries risk with it. The risk of making the occasional dud. But every now and then, it works out better than you even dared to hope, and I find that exceptionally rewarding.

I think this is an important point to make. I'm somewhere in the 40 batch zone. I have tried to make a repeat of a previous batch a grand total of 4 times. One of which is BM Cent Blonde, one of which is a simple Cali Common, and a 50% pale 50% wheat hefe. None of which are terribly complex to repeat.

The other 35 or so batches have been mostly of entirely different styles. Not recipes, but different styles entirely. A pils here, an irish red there, chocolate stout somewhere else. Still on the list of things to do is a proper barleywine (waiting on aeration system), porter, RIS, and more. I've heard the kottbusser name tossed around lately, probably whip up a batch at some point.

Problem with this is with all the bouncing around it makes it impossible to perfect any particular recipe. The subtleties between Spalt and Saaz are lost when one goes into a pils and the other a dunkleweizen. This means that later on down the road I can't say "Maybe my pils would be better with Saaz" because I never had the chance to have a true side by side.

 

[brew_ny]

I think this is an important point to make. I'm somewhere in the 40 batch zone. I have tried to make a repeat of a previous batch a grand total of 4 times. One of which is BM Cent Blonde, one of which is a simple Cali Common, and a 50% pale 50% wheat hefe. None of which are terribly complex to repeat.

The other 35 or so batches have been mostly of entirely different styles. Not recipes, but different styles entirely. A pils here, an irish red there, chocolate stout somewhere else. Still on the list of things to do is a proper barleywine (waiting on aeration system), porter, RIS, and more. I've heard the kottbusser name tossed around lately, probably whip up a batch at some point.

Problem with this is with all the bouncing around it makes it impossible to perfect any particular recipe. The subtleties between Spalt and Saaz are lost when one goes into a pils and the other a dunkleweizen. This means that later on down the road I can't say "Maybe my pils would be better with Saaz" because I never had the chance to have a true side by side.

I have done 60 batches 11.5 gallon since July 2013, I have not had to force myself to drink any of them really

but I did a lot of SMaSH brews to taste malts and hops combos

I am getting down where I have about 6 house recipes that are 6 different styles

they work well for me and I like them, I don't need Mario Batali telling me that my wife makes great pizzas to know it

all the best

S_M

 

[electrolight]

Or, do we harness the energy? I propose we create a "Smack Down" series on HBT. After all, without chest thumping and competition, the bar for "quality" would be nowhere as high as it is today.

Pick a style and send me your beers, boys. I'm happy to settle this publicly and fairly.

All rise. The honerable Judge Hopner, presiding.

zc

But if that's case the showdown should be in December... and count me in ^^