Raising the Bar

[specharka]

Apologies if there's another thread out there like this!

After a series of small investments to improve the quality of my homebrew, I'm in pursuit of some seriously good beer. And I keep wondering...what other improvements to my brewing process could I make to elevate my game?

What changes to your brewing process or system did you make that dramatically increased the quality of your beer?

 

[tomchukj]

Finding a way to control fermentation temp. I used to just leave it in my basement and hope for the best. The last two I have controlled with a son of fermentation box and the difference is pretty apparent.

 

[MrPowers]

Finding a way to control fermentation temp. I used to just leave it in my basement and hope for the best. The last two I have controlled with a son of fermentation box and the difference is pretty apparent.

This. It doesn't matter what type of brewer (All Grain vs Extract) you are, one common denominator we all share is fermentation. I wired up a chest freezer and my beers have improved dramatically.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

again, fermentation control. when I was a young brewer, I brewed a lot "in excess". not meaning I brewed too many batches, but "more of this ingredient will be better." after some advice from folks with more experience I realized and understood that sometimes less is more. keep your recipes simple until you figure out what grains work well together and work well with different combinations of hops and yeast. a lot of times the more complicated the recipe, the more it's muddled and harder to pick up on flavors and aromas from the grains, hops, and yeast.

 

[beergolf]

The two biggest things that you can do to improve your beer.

Fermentation temp control. lIke the others have mention d this is probably the one biggest thing to do to improve your beers.

Second, Pitching a proper sized starter of healthy yeast.

A good recipe is also big. Many times new brewers want to throw the kitchen sink into their recipes. Look up a few good well respected recipes and try them at first, then you can slowly tweak them to your liking. It is a lot like cooking. After a while you will get a good feel what works and what does not.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I began taking very detailed notes, controlling fermentation temps, pitching adequate starters and the other thing which I've found really stepped it up for me was designing my own recipes.

Although from time to time I will brew some of the recipes from other folks on here I have found that when I began building recipes that i knew would work well with my setup, my water, my tastes, and also the tastes of people I'm serving to that my beers greatly improved.

There's also a bit of a psychological factor in my appreciation for my own recipes. After brewing other people's for years I gained a really good handle on ingredients and I feel that I just have a deeper connection with my beers. It's something I designed from scratch and every ingredient and part of the process is intentional on my part to gain a certain end result. If I am successful with this I consider the beer to be "better" in my eyes than another persons recipe I've executed well.

All of these things together took my brewing from decent to really good. Now I'm aiming for great with a bunch of ingredient experimentation I plan on doing.

 

[Brettomomyces]

Being consistent in general is a huge part of improving your beer. Whatever you can do to make your next brew session as consistent as the last. Mash temp and length, fermentation temp and length, amount and freshness of yeast. Consistent crush, consistent efficiency. If you can take the guesswork out of your process, then you are simply substituting ingredients and you will learn how to predict outcomes much better. And take notes!

 

[csurowiec]

The 2 biggest things that have improved my beers is fermentation temperature control and pitching more yeast.

 

[bobeer]

I wont reiterate what's already been said because fermentation temps are the biggest factor in making good beer but instead I'll offer accurate temp control DURING the brew process. Get a thermapen or some sort of digital thermometer so you'll know exactly what temp your strike temp and mash are.

PH meters are good to have too. Hitting a good mash ph will make better beer and so will building your water to fit the style of beer you're brewing. Look in the brew science forum for more information about this. It looks confusing but it's not too bad and there's lots of good information on this site that's relatively easy to understand.

 

[MadHomebrewer]

As others have said, temp control on fermentation has been the biggest gain for me in quality of my beer. My next step is going from bottling to kegging and the use of CO2 to keep oxygen from contacting my beer. Will be kegging my first batch later this week!

I also suggest brewing smash beers. Learn the characteristics of your base malt and hops. Choose a base malt and one hop to bitter, flavor and give aroma to your beer. Take notes and this will be really helpful building recipes in your future.