I like to do things my own way. It is one of the things that attracted me to homebrewing. In the end everyone is alone in their kitchen and has the right to accept or ignore advice given. I am a new brewer and have made some mistakes, taken some of my own best council and listened to a lot of sage advice. Here are some successes and failures I have achieved and and cursed in my brewing infancy -
EZ-Cap/Grolsch bottles don't seal well. The LHBS guy south and west of me told me this, but I didn't listen and fought these bottles for two batches. The first batch was ok, but after that I was dealing with poorly primed beer. Every bottle in my last batch that I sugar primed and bottle capped has been perfectly carbed. Bottle caps are a tried and true method. I can't say I won't have problems in the future, but my gut tells me I have solved my priming problems with reused bottles and standard bottle caps.
As soon as you think you can create your own recipe, do it. Nothing creates a sense of ownership like well ownership. Recipe 1 a kit and it wasn't bad. Recipe 2 a clone and I didn't put the right amount of stuff in it. Didn't turn out great. Recipe 3 (my own), awesome beer, if only it could have been carbonated right. Recipe 4, Wow, world class beer. I can't believe that I made this beer in such a short time brewing. Thanks HBT!
Use a bottling bucket. Why not prime with some sort of regular sugar. It works great and is practically free. Tabs and lozenges may seem easier, but the extra step during bottling is kind of a pain during all but the smallest batches. Putting in conditioning tabs without touching them is difficult. Coming from a clean room background I know for a fact that the largest vector for contamination comes from stuff you touch. No need to touch sugar water tossed into a bottling bucket.
5 gallon batches are an awesome standard that really streamlines at lot of typical homebrew hiccups, BUT is not even a little bit necessary. Most 5G brewing setups are easier to use outside. This opens up A LOT of advantages, but also some opportunity costs, like climate controlled brewing, simple sparge and equipment cost. A lot of people have a five gallon pot and a stove top. Not as many people have a 10G bottom spigot, sight glass thermometer pot. Nothing wrong with this gear, but to suggest it is part of a beginners equipment ... I don't know. Many Canadian brewers should ignore this advice and head straight to 5G or more. The ease of kegging makes 5G very attractive, but not everyone between friends and family drinks enough beer to make 2 or 3 5G kegs cost effective. I can honestly say that my 2G setup is comparable to standard commercial craft brew prices. If you make a mistake, 5G is a sucky waste to dump or a bummer to have to drink your way through. The LBHS guy north of me tried to convince me that one gallon brews didn't work due to blow off. That advice was not even a little bit accurate.
DME can make great beer. All my batches have used DME, but my last two were ridiculously good beer. Sure AG is more hands on, but DME can make good beer and for those of us that are still working on getting our process procedures solid, this is one less thing we have to worry about. My mother in law watched me making my last batch and said, "Wow, that looks complicated." She didn't even know about the effort I have put in behind the scenes and this is without having to worry about protein rests, decoction and fly sparging. I will probably go all grain at some point, but for now I'm going to enjoy great beer that I have created from recipe to glass. Keep in mind that DME has minerals from the water it was created from so RO or low mineral waters are best to use for DME brews.
As an addendum here are several things that I have learned while going through the process. BJCP style standards give a great jumping off point for making great beer. Having fun with opinions and subjective matters is awesome. Make some labels for your beer, have fun with your brand and be a part of the community. Focus and only make your beer as complicated as you can handle. Get some Starsan as soon as possible. Put in the time to figure out the little things like that priming sugar adds .004 or .005 to your FG. Online resources are invaluable. I particularly google "FG OG styles chart", "ABV calculator" "All grain OG FG ABV Calulator" again and again for insight.
Good luck and I can't wait to brew my next 100 batches!
EZ-Cap/Grolsch bottles don't seal well. The LHBS guy south and west of me told me this, but I didn't listen and fought these bottles for two batches. The first batch was ok, but after that I was dealing with poorly primed beer. Every bottle in my last batch that I sugar primed and bottle capped has been perfectly carbed. Bottle caps are a tried and true method. I can't say I won't have problems in the future, but my gut tells me I have solved my priming problems with reused bottles and standard bottle caps.
As soon as you think you can create your own recipe, do it. Nothing creates a sense of ownership like well ownership. Recipe 1 a kit and it wasn't bad. Recipe 2 a clone and I didn't put the right amount of stuff in it. Didn't turn out great. Recipe 3 (my own), awesome beer, if only it could have been carbonated right. Recipe 4, Wow, world class beer. I can't believe that I made this beer in such a short time brewing. Thanks HBT!
Use a bottling bucket. Why not prime with some sort of regular sugar. It works great and is practically free. Tabs and lozenges may seem easier, but the extra step during bottling is kind of a pain during all but the smallest batches. Putting in conditioning tabs without touching them is difficult. Coming from a clean room background I know for a fact that the largest vector for contamination comes from stuff you touch. No need to touch sugar water tossed into a bottling bucket.
5 gallon batches are an awesome standard that really streamlines at lot of typical homebrew hiccups, BUT is not even a little bit necessary. Most 5G brewing setups are easier to use outside. This opens up A LOT of advantages, but also some opportunity costs, like climate controlled brewing, simple sparge and equipment cost. A lot of people have a five gallon pot and a stove top. Not as many people have a 10G bottom spigot, sight glass thermometer pot. Nothing wrong with this gear, but to suggest it is part of a beginners equipment ... I don't know. Many Canadian brewers should ignore this advice and head straight to 5G or more. The ease of kegging makes 5G very attractive, but not everyone between friends and family drinks enough beer to make 2 or 3 5G kegs cost effective. I can honestly say that my 2G setup is comparable to standard commercial craft brew prices. If you make a mistake, 5G is a sucky waste to dump or a bummer to have to drink your way through. The LBHS guy north of me tried to convince me that one gallon brews didn't work due to blow off. That advice was not even a little bit accurate.
DME can make great beer. All my batches have used DME, but my last two were ridiculously good beer. Sure AG is more hands on, but DME can make good beer and for those of us that are still working on getting our process procedures solid, this is one less thing we have to worry about. My mother in law watched me making my last batch and said, "Wow, that looks complicated." She didn't even know about the effort I have put in behind the scenes and this is without having to worry about protein rests, decoction and fly sparging. I will probably go all grain at some point, but for now I'm going to enjoy great beer that I have created from recipe to glass. Keep in mind that DME has minerals from the water it was created from so RO or low mineral waters are best to use for DME brews.
As an addendum here are several things that I have learned while going through the process. BJCP style standards give a great jumping off point for making great beer. Having fun with opinions and subjective matters is awesome. Make some labels for your beer, have fun with your brand and be a part of the community. Focus and only make your beer as complicated as you can handle. Get some Starsan as soon as possible. Put in the time to figure out the little things like that priming sugar adds .004 or .005 to your FG. Online resources are invaluable. I particularly google "FG OG styles chart", "ABV calculator" "All grain OG FG ABV Calulator" again and again for insight.
Good luck and I can't wait to brew my next 100 batches!
