Most overrated home-brew topics?

[str1p3s]

Getting snipped - Yay or Nay?

I see that thread pop up a minimum of once a week haha

 

[ZmannR2]

"Is this an infection?"

BUT!! I love reading those posts so keep em coming! As long as it includes pics!

 

[kevink]

CO2 blankets. They just don't exist.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

like sanitizing - it's important. of course. But it's also overrated. For the amount of effort, complexity, time and research it requires, the impact is not that significant - unless your regular tap water is way off in some way. So it's important to know if you are one of those people, but if you are not, it may not be worth the effort, and likely there are other things you are missing that are more crucial.
And for people who don't know what they are doing, its more likely they will mess it up in some way.
I would say for 90% of beers and 90% of brewers, using your own carbon-filtered water, or perhaps cut 1:1 with RO water will work just fine.

Sure, I often make subtle adjustments, mostly for stouts and pale ales, and I even measure pH once in a while, but in terms of ratio of complexity vs. taste improvement, it's going to to up there with decoction and turbid mash.

Not a knock on anyone using it - if you are educated enough to understand pH buffering and know the difference between sodium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate and how each of those additions influences effective hardness - just as one example - great! you should totally do it, and it probably makes a difference in your beer - because you already exhausted all other areas of improvements.

But for most regular brewers it's too complicated and is overkill. That's just my opinion. I own 3 pH meters, and 5-6 different packs of mineral/acid additions that I use once in a while, but I wouldn't recommend it for most brewers who are not already super into water chemistry.

In fact, I bet a large section people who think water treatment improve their beers, do that due to placebo effect (you spent all this time and effort and money - it must be better), and that another large section (overlapping) makes their beer actually worse if they just took their chlorine-filtered tap water.

Agree to disagree then. Doesn't matter.

 

[Nummey]

Any threads discussing the use of fancy overpriced beer guns and oxygenation wands. IMO, both are extremely overrated and unnecessary on the 5-10 gallon homebrew front.

 

[h22lude]

CO2 blankets. They just don't exist.

This is probably the best one so far.

Agree to disagree then. Doesn't matter.

I can agree with this! To each their own. We each do things our own way and we each have things we do that we think improves our beers and things we don't do that we think would hurt our beers.

I personally think mineral additions would improve most peoples beers to some extent and really isn't that hard to learn. You don't need to get into the full blown chemistry of how things are working with the mash. You just need to have an understanding of what each addition can do (http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3...h-ph/using-salts-for-brewing-water-adjustment) and what to do for each beer you brew. Like I said early, I need to add calcium and lower mash pH with acid for most beers. Even if someone has the perfect water for mash pH, they still made need calcium. If someone has 12ppm of calcium and wants to brew an IPA, their mash pH may be ok but that 12ppm calcium is way too low for an IPA. Sure it will make good beer but the hop flavor will come out more with more calcium.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

too many weird additions/adjuncts. Yes, we are all very impressed with your rhubarb/portabella/molasses/brazillian nut/bluefish tuna wheat rye saison, but come on!

rotfl!:d

 

[murphyslaw]

Threads about things being overrated. IPAs, Pliny, etc.

 

[emcfarden]

Necessity of a secondary.

I have to second this (pun intended ), this topic has been beaten to death from what I've seen.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

too many weird additions/adjuncts. Yes, we are all very impressed with your rhubarb/portabella/molasses/brazillian nut/bluefish tuna wheat rye saison, but come on!

This!

 

[TorMag]

Originally Posted by 55x11 View Post
too many weird additions/adjuncts. Yes, we are all very impressed with your rhubarb/portabella/molasses/brazillian nut/bluefish tuna wheat rye saison, but come on!


Does someone have an extract version of this?

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

"stranded on a desert island near an open volcanic fissure with only 2 grains and a wild hop yard ..... what would you brew?"

Dafuq?

 

[h22lude]

"stranded on a desert island near an open volcanic fissure with only 2 grains and a wild hop yard ..... what would you brew?"

Dafuq?

This is a topic you see a lot on here? lol I don't think I have ever seen someone ask any question similar to this.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

This is a topic you see a lot on here? lol I don't think I have ever seen someone ask any question similar to this.

Every year there are numerous variations of this "type" of question.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Overrated home brew topic... I'd honestly say the whole "just add more grain" statements.

I understand that whole philosophy isn't an issue for some, those who've got expendable income or whatever, but for folks like myself when I'm looking at an extra pound of grain at over 3 bucks a pop, I'd rather try to find out my issues on the home front to get the most out of my money spent already.

To me, it's like someone saying, "hey my car's getting crappy gas mileage, any idea what the culprit could be?" And someone replying "eh, just put some more gas in it..." When in all reality, you could just need a new spark plug, new air filter, etc, etc.

Not trying to be a smart @ss about it, and no, I'm not saying chase the efficiency rainbow or whatever, but yeah, when I'm getting getting 60% efficiency and the culprit was because I was trying to fly sparge with a mesh hose manifold (now dumb on my part admittedly) I would have wasted a ton of money on "extra grain" had I not just asked about it or done some research.

 

[brewcat]

extract vs. all-grain

 

[WrQth]

Any thread that starts with "The best..."

 

[day_trippr]

This is a topic you see a lot on here? lol I don't think I have ever seen someone ask any question similar to this.

As a genre, I think this recent thread fits...

Cheers!

 

[normonster]

I like all of these topics. Da faq else are we going to talk about? Cigars? memes? small T Tuesdays.

 

[normonster]

This is a topic you see a lot on here? lol I don't think I have ever seen someone ask any question similar to this.

What is your answer then....just to derail this thread.

 

[h22lude]

What is your answer then....just to derail this thread.

I'm not really sure what this is supposed to mean lol

 

[55x11]

Really? You think 80% mash or brewhouse efficiency is unreachable? You're kidding right?

I don't care about chasing efficiency numbers, but to say people are ignorant or lying if they get 80% mash/brewhouse is just...

I have also seen people report 90%, 100% and even 110% efficiency - on HBT. So yes, some of them (most of them) are not calculating volumes or weights properly, or don't understand what efficiency means.

In any case, this topic is overrated. Nobody should care if it's 50% or "120%" efficiency as long as it's stable and predictable.

(P.S. But good for you on getting 80% efficiency. You may be saving up to $1-$2 per 5G batch.)

 

[Yeastieboy]

Cloning Beer

 

[Stillraining]

I dont see anything on your list that is over talked about for the new brewer. We all join the forum at different times...and thanks goodness, or this place would be so boring who would want to spend time here. Playing it forward and helping the next guy with his question is half the fun of this place. Forums are a meeting place for people with like interests and opinions, a place to get one on one answers in almost real time. Hope this place doesn't turn into a "Go look it up Kid" Wikipedia for brewers...Id be out of here.

Sure people should use the search function to see if their question has been asked before but everyone perceives a possible problem differently and might not know exactly what they should be asking/searching for. Or just plain needs reassurance from someone directly.

I welcome the 'Is this infected " Have I ruined my Beer" "Whats the best_____?" questions

We were all there once after all and greatly appreciated personal attention to our questions. Right? Remove those questions and this is just a good o'l boys club full of mostly pot bellied time wasters. ( that's me right now..I should be fixing that slow bathroom sink drain as I sit here to pee...but you'all are so much more fun craping all over my 90% efficiency numbers it hard to pull myself away )

 

[Michigan_Wolfman]

Cloning Beer

Exactly! I mean, there are some great beers out there that definitely are worth trying to replicate on the homebrew front, but 9 times out of 10, you'll see a thread around here saying "Need a good clone recipe for (insert the name of some insipid mass produced yellow swill such as Bud Lite or Coors here)!"

 

[55x11]

No I do not have a chemistry background. It is easy to understand the basics of water for brewing. But if you read on, I said it is extremely hard to master water chemistry. I got a water report. I read the intro from Bru'n Water. I read Water. I entered my water report into Bru'n Water. Figured out what my water should look like for the style of beer I'm making and then match it with some calcium chloride and gypsum additions. I then correct my estimated mash pH using lactic acid. I do measure my mash pH 15 minutes into the mash to make sure the estimated mash pH was around what it actually is. That is very easy for most people to do. That is all you need. Sure getting into the hows and whats and whys is complicated but most people don't need to know the chemical make up of these minerals and how they interact with the water and grain. Knowing your water report and what you need to do to get the minerals in line with the style you are making and the mash pH is important to making great beer and isn't hard to learn at all.

The reason people ask so many questions is because it sounds a lot harder than it is. Like I said, getting into the actual chemistry of what is happening is extremely tough to understand but 99% of home brewers don't need to know why. They need to understand their water, what minerals to add, why they are being added (i.e. IPAs need more calcium and gypsum is better than calcium chloride for IPAs) and how these change their mash pH. All that is very easy to learn.

If we are talking about two different things, then I apologize. When you say water chemistry my mind goes to mineral additions, grist and mash pH. If you are referring to the actual chemistry of it all; how calcium chloride reacts with the grains to lower mash pH, why lactic acid or acid malt changes the mash pH or why darker beers have a lower mash pH, then yes I agree it is very complicated and most home brewers won't need to get that far into it. I read Water and need to read it again to understand it but it gave me so much good info on the basics of water and the different additions. For me, that is all I need to know and that has turned my good beer into great beer using my tap water.

Ok, Fine. you think water chemistry is easy - tell me 5 other things that are part of home-brewing requires more technical expertise and scientific knowledge, and bring a lot less "bang for the buck" and yet we talk about it constantly. that's the topic of this thread - it's not that it's useless, it's that it's too much work for relatively little benefit.

To me water chemistry clearly one of the most, if not THE MOST advanced and complicated topic of home brewing. I can easily list 20 other things that any beginner or intermediate brewer should do before they even think about chasing Edinburgh or Pilsen water profile, assuming that's the ideal and necessary composition to make a decent Scotch Ale or Pilsner.

Calculating water profiles and plugging in the bicarbonate/sulfate/chloride numbers into a spreadsheet combines the fun of filing taxes and having a root canal, without all the fun of tax refund or anesthesia.

Having routinely done all three (yes, I do actually use Bru'n Water and Beersmith water tool quite a bit - and I vorlauf too, but I still think its overrated), I wouldn't recommend it to a friend who is into brewing as in "Hey, this water chemistry stuff is so much fun, very intuitive and super-easy to understand too - you should totally do this!".

 

[daveMN]

BIAB. It's not the only brewing method out there, but it sure seems so. However, I BIAB and think it's great. I'm surprised it's taken this long for BIAB to getting brought up in a thread.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

BIAB. It's not the only brewing method out there, but it sure seems so. However, I BIAB and think it's great. I'm surprised it's taken this long for BIAB to getting brought up in a thread.

I attribute the popularity to two things,

1) low cost to entry. Mashtuns are more expensive than a grainbag.

2) most biabers use no sparge, or at most a single infusion + a single sparge. This simplifies things a lot more than in the old days of decoction, vorlauf, fly sparge, etc etc.

Also I'm out on this thread. Just negativity.

 

[h22lude]

Ok, Fine. you think water chemistry is easy - tell me 5 other things that are part of home-brewing requires more technical expertise and scientific knowledge, and bring a lot less "bang for the buck" and yet we talk about it constantly. that's the topic of this thread - it's not that it's useless, it's that it's too much work for relatively little benefit.

To me water chemistry clearly one of the most, if not THE MOST advanced and complicated topic of home brewing. I can easily list 20 other things that any beginner or intermediate brewer should do before they even think about chasing Edinburgh or Pilsen water profile, assuming that's the ideal and necessary composition to make a decent Scotch Ale or Pilsner.

Calculating water profiles and plugging in the bicarbonate/sulfate/chloride numbers into a spreadsheet combines the fun of filing taxes and having a root canal, without all the fun of tax refund or anesthesia.

Having routinely done all three (yes, I do actually use Bru'n Water and Beersmith water tool quite a bit - and I vorlauf too, but I still think its overrated), I wouldn't recommend it to a friend who is into brewing as in "Hey, this water chemistry stuff is so much fun, very intuitive and super-easy to understand too - you should totally do this!".

That's is fine if you think that. For AG, i find it to be very important. I dont find it hard at all and the 5 minutes it takes to get what mineral additions i need is well worth the time. Just like someone else said, we will agree to disagree.

 

[alphaomega]

I'd say mash temp control. Don't get me wrong here, if you built a nice shiny stainless RIMS setup with PID control and what not, that is awesome. I'm all for that stuff, because I like tinkering.
I just don't think it will have that much of an impact on the finished beer over just mashing in at the right temp. Or rather, there are a lot of other factors that you'd be better off getting better control over first.