Since you started, which techniques/equipment/knowledge yielded biggest improvement

[Ó Flannagáin]

1) Learning/Going All Grain
2) Making yeast starters for liquid yeast
3) Washing my yeast/buying bulk grain (money wise)

 

[DeathBrewer]

So (as another newbie after advice) would you recommend changing the 1-2-3 guideline to 2-2-3?

lately i've been doing 3-6 except when i need a free carboy.

 

[denimglen]

Stopped using kit and kilo - really popular here in NZ.

In general just reading how to brew - so much to be learnt from that book.

 

[Danek]

lately i've been doing 3-6 except when i need a free carboy.

Wow - that's some impressive self-control! :cross:

 

[onecolumbyte]

Patience - it took me almost a year to find this out. Leaving longer in the bottle will lead to better tasting brews (most beer least 4 weeks. Big beers, strong tasting beers longer).

DME - much better attenuation than with LME

Partial Mash - learned from this site. Really opened up all the malt flavors to me and my beer.

 

[mrk305]

I have found it is easier to be patient when you really have a lot of beer! I read HBT every day. My most recent improvement is adding irish moss with 15 minutes left in the boil. My beer has always tasted good, but now it looks good.

 

[Donasay]

1 Full boil and of course the wort chiller that is required to do this.
2 Star san, I was using bleach or idophore, but star san is a much better sanitizer, and you can let it sit for up to two months, now I let my stuff sit in the sanitizer and wait for brew day, it lets me brew beer more quickly, everything is sanitized and clean when I take it out.
3 Brewing more beer and a few variations on some of my favorite recipes. By brewing and rebrewing similar beers you get to understand the differences little changes makes. By brewing more beer you let the beer sit longer in the secondary or in the keg or in the bottle, allowing it to change in charachteristics over time.

 

[Bosh]

1. Keeping the temperature stable (yay giant plastic bucket that I can fill with water and float my fermenters in!)
2. Patience.
3. Avoiding LME. I've got consistently fewer strange/off flavors with DME than with LME. If you can't do AG (I can't my stove isn't up to it and I'm a cheap bastard) use only the lightest DME you can find and steep/do mini-mashes for flavor.

 

[HarvInSTL]

1.) Joining a homebrew club
2.) Fermentation Temp Control
3.) Purchasing/borrowing as many books & magazines (Brewing Techniques, BYO, Zmurgy) as I could, in addition to researching any questions I had on places like HBT, the Green Board,etc
4.) Notes! Take as many notes as you can before, during and after the brew session.

 

[Yooper]

HBT is what improved my beer! I learned more in two weeks on here than I could ever imagine. But the main things I learned were patience and temperature control. Made a huge difference in my beer.

I can't believe that 2 years ago I was intimidated by beer making. Now, I'm AG with many batches under my belt. It's because of the encouragement I got all along here at HBT.

 

[ThomasRau]

I would have to say the #1 thing was learning patience, allowing extra time in the primary and lots of extra time in the secondary has really made a difference in the quality of my brews.
#2 better temp control. I bought a Sanyo fridge (and temp controller) for a future kegerator project and have been using it for primary/secondary temp control. What a huge difference, plus I now can do some really good lagers (near impossible with florida temps)
#3 RELAX

 

[Cheesefood]

You want to know a great tip?

Be familiar with the style you're going to brew. Don't make something you've never tasted on hopes that you'll like it. Have a commercial example in mind when you make a brew.

Know your ingredients. Know how they taste and interact with each other. Know how much to use and how to use each.

 

[Jester369]

For me personally, it has been controlling fermentation temps. So far!

 

[Chad]

I've noticed that the vast majority of folks say controlling fermentation temperature made the biggest difference. Makes sense, but how do you do it? I sit the fermenter in a restaurant bus tub and fill it with cold water if necessary. Is there a more precise method?

I've got a couple of Fermometers coming so I can more precisely gauge the temperature of the wort/beer rather than relying on ambient temps. That'll make things easier.

Chad

 

[olllllo]

I've noticed that the vast majority of folks say controlling fermentation temperature made the biggest difference. Makes sense, but how do you do it? I sit the fermenter in a restaurant bus tub and fill it with cold water if necessary. Is there a more precise method?

I've got a couple of Fermometers coming so I can more precisely gauge the temperature of the wort/beer rather than relying on ambient temps. That'll make things easier.

Chad

I use a fridge with a temperature controller.

 

[HarvInSTL]

I use a fridge with a temperature controller.

I use a chest freezer with a temperature controller. If I am using 14gal fermenters I can normally ferment around 50 gals at a time. Using carboys/buckets I can normally ferment 30gals at a time.

 

[Jester369]

I use a temp controlled fridge, but I have to use a two stage controller - one for the fridge and one for a heat source. This time of year it gets cold enough at night to need the heat, but warm enough during the day to need the cooling (of course, the fridge is in my garage. an indoor fridge wouldn't need the heat!)

 

[WortMonger]

I love my chest freezer conversion to lagerator.

Still haven't used it for lager though I plan on racking up some kegs this winter of lager for march till the end of summer drinking. :rockin: I am even thinking of bottling a couple of kegs worth to free up more kegs for lager production while I have free cold storage space in the garage (never gets below freezing and stays below 45*F most of the winter due to tree shading, yes!!!), lol.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I almost started an identical thread, so I'm reviving this one.

1. Fermentation temp control (65°F for most ales)

2. Proper pitching rate (rehydrated dry yeast or BIG, BIG, BIG starters)

3. Patience. Lots and lots of it. Leave your beer alone and let it do its thing!