Stone Cold Lead Pipe Lock'd N00b Advice

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Bobby_M said:
It is highly unlikely that your batch is completely ruined. Never dump potential beer down the drain until you wait it out and taste it in finished condition.
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Even after you have waited the 'rule of thumb' timeframe and your beer still tastes funny - DONT DUMP IT!!

Unless its non-palletable chances are it WILL IMPROVE and really surprise you!
-Me
 
The thing is about searching the forum, some people having read 3 or 4 posts which are merely giving opinions can be left feeling somewhat confused and are looking for confirmation that what they are about to tip into their precious beer isn't going to ruin it, god forbid. And let's face it, a lot of the information on beer making is personal preference or personal experience. Yet other people, like myself, may have a tendancy to seek constant reassurance from those around them and while fully competent in carrying out a fairly clear set of instructions, like to ask "is this what everybody else is doing?" and in doing so are also participating in the community aspect of a forum which would not really be classed as participation in a one way interaction of search, click, read, search, click, read.
 
1) Use a bottling bucket, it is much more precise than priming each individual bottle.

2) To make sure your priming sugar gets dissolved and mixed into the beer properly, measure out your priming sugar, boil a quarter to half cup of water, stir the priming sugar into that and let the sugar dissolve, pour the sugar mixture in the empty sanitized bottling bucket. Rack the beer on top of that, stir gently and bottle.

3) To empty a carboy very quickly, insert a length of hose, turn the carboy upside down and make sure that the hose is in the airspace at the top of the carboy. Instead of the "glug-glug" you normally get you will have water gushing out like crazy.
 
when you post a question don't argue with the responders.... if ya do you get one of these and a time out....

stfu.jpg
 
Best advise I ever had. It just took me about 7 brews to take it to heart:

Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew.

Little unexpected things can and will happen while you brew. Learn how to fix the problem or how to not worry about it. The beer more often then not will turn out great no matter what!
 
One day a year... take off work, school, whatever it is you do, and brew your favorite batch of beer. Nothing better than a stress-free day of making beer.
 
My first batch mistakes:
Pitched yeast at too high of temp
Transfered to secondary too early
Light was left on for 2 days while sitting in the carboy
I "sanitized" using only hot water from my tap
Put dextrose directly in the bottles in powder form.
Used my mouth to start a siphon
Let to much air in my beer while racking

....... My first batch was amazing, yours will be too.
 
Every homebrewer has been told by their friends they should sell this stuff. No, it's not legal. Going pro is tough and expensive but not impossible. A lot of people will tell you you can, a lot will tell you you can't. Who to prove wrong is your decision.
 
All of the information on how to brew can be overwhelming. Don't be intimidated. Just do it.

You will hear 'don't dump your beer' a million times, but if you don't like your beer, you shouldn't keep it. Just figure out WHY you don't like your beer and how to fix it. Brew another batch and see if you corrected your problem before dumping the old batch.
 
Polecat said:
You will hear 'don't dump your beer' a million times, but if you don't like your beer, you shouldn't keep it. Just figure out WHY you don't like your beer and how to fix it. Brew another batch and see if you corrected your problem before dumping the old batch.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but most of us would not agree with the above statement. In fact it is repeated several times throughout this thread AND the forum...Think about this, there must be good a reason that so many people say not to throw out your beer, right?"

JoeMama said:
Even after you have waited the 'rule of thumb' timeframe and your beer still tastes funny - DONT DUMP IT!!

Unless its non-palletable chances are it WILL IMPROVE and really surprise you!
-Me
Click to expand...

Bobby_ said:
It is highly unlikely that your batch is completely ruined. Never dump potential beer down the drain until you wait it out and taste it in finished condition.
Click to expand...

If you are new to brewing and don't like your beer, more than likely your beer is simply still green.....You will find tons of stories on here about waiting and having our beer turn out better than expected...

Don't Dump Your beer.....put it in a closet and forget about it for at least a month, then revisit it....99% of the time you will be pleasantly surprised.

Read this for inspiration.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

And this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

As you can see there are a lot of stories of beer turning out in time, often being the best batch the brewer made....

If you dump your beer immediately there is 100% chance the beer is undrinkable, if you wait the odds that your beer IS DRINKABLE greatly improve....

And if you are judging your beer in a fermenter, you can't get an accurate picture of how your beer tastes until it is carbed and conditioned. If it's in the bottle or keg, then put it away for awhile.....
 
Revvy, I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. Some beer faults can't be cured with time.

My key point in saying you can chuck it is understanding WHY it has a fault and correcting it before you chuck. It took me a couple of batches to work out my carbonation problems, I was underfilling bottles and no amount of time was going to correct that.

I feel that sometimes the 'let it age' approach is overemphasized here, rather than troubleshooting. I agree that it's rash to throw something out if you don't like it at first taste (especially if you are tasting in the fermenter, that's just silly).
 
Polecat said:
Revvy, I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. Some beer faults can't be cured with time.

My key point in saying you can chuck it is understanding WHY it has a fault and correcting it before you chuck. It took me a couple of batches to work out my carbonation problems, I was underfilling bottles and no amount of time was going to correct that.

I feel that sometimes the 'let it age' approach is overemphasized here, rather than troubleshooting. I agree that it's rash to throw something out if you don't like it at first taste (especially if you are tasting in the fermenter, that's just silly).
Click to expand...

I agree with you, but I think the 'Dont Dump It' motto comes from the fact that while its okay to 'troubleshoot' what went wrong, lots of newer brewers try to do their troubleshooting WAY too early. (Which causes them to obsess, and one bad thought leads to another etc until the beer is prematurely dumped) When in reality you should just set it and forget it. "Troubleshooting" it to death isnt going to do much good especially if it has no age behind it. :)
-Me
 
Polecat said:
Revvy, I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. Some beer faults can't be cured with time.

My key point in saying you can chuck it is understanding WHY it has a fault and correcting it before you chuck. It took me a couple of batches to work out my carbonation problems, I was underfilling bottles and no amount of time was going to correct that.

I feel that sometimes the 'let it age' approach is overemphasized here, rather than troubleshooting. I agree that it's rash to throw something out if you don't like it at first taste (especially if you are tasting in the fermenter, that's just silly).
Click to expand...

Well, it's really hard to diagnose a GREEN beer, because young beer tasting the way that it often does, IS PERFECTLY NORMAL

And if you ever helped a new brewer on here it won't take you too long to realize that Most new brewers try to judge a beer while it is still in the fermenter, and either dump the beer or start a panic thread. OR they taste the beer under three weeks in the bottle, dump the beer OR start a panic thread.

Because green beers OFTEN HAVE OFF FLAVORS, but the difference between green beer and a beer with problems to be troubleshooted, is that the green beers improve with time.

Or they misdiagnose a beer, because honestly it is often difficult for someone without experience to diagnose a beer from something they read...ESPECIALLY if they are tasting green beer.

And if you follow up the new brewer's threads OFTEN they come back down the line and say, "Oh my god, I am so glad I listened to you and didn't dump my beer, I realize now that it WAS just green, it taste great now. "

You don't have too far to look, just search for "is my beer ruined" or "Off Flavor" and you will see.

That's why the first question those of us who help ask is, "How old is this beer."

It's great to trouble shoot your beer, or get help, but you first have to figure out if there was a problem to begin with. And that can only happen if first you give the beer a bit more time....

And you can't do that if you dump your beer.

So I'm sorry you disagree with those of us who advocate waiting, but your advice to just arbitrarily dump a beer, is simply bad, we have hundreds of threads, and stories that prove you wrong.
 
First I am going to apologize because I have not held true to the rules that I laid out for this thread.
Rules.

1) KISS
2) If I disagree or am convinced it can't be summed up in a sentence or 3, I'll delete it.
3) Eventually all discussion posts will be deleted or edited so that only the KISS advice remains.
4) One topic per post. Keep it minimal or it will be MERCILESSLY edited or deleted at my whim.
5) Again. Stuff will be MERCILESSLY deleted at my whim.
Click to expand...

I envisioned this to be cue card length.
1- 3 sentences.
Easy to remember.
I have not edited mercilessly as I intended.

Someday in the next 15 years when I am recovering from a prostate surgery, I'll come back and edit out the lengthy posts.
 
And now, as it pertains to our latest imbroglio.

I think it would be fair to say that you should taste you beer at various points and reserve judgement until bottling time.

If at that point it tastes bad; and you have more money than time; or you are more impatient than curious dump most of it.

Bottle 3 and prime with carb tabs and evaluate after 1, 2, 3 months later.
 
olllllo I agree with you.

Why wait for beer to correctly age and meld the flavors together like its supposed to? If it doesn't taste right from the get go, like they all do, then its obviously gone bad and is beyond saving. Might as well dump it because the hundreds of thousands of gallons of craft brewed beer on this forum are in fact NOT the same as your beer that has obviously gone bad. Yours is somehow different and unique to the millions of bottles of beer that have been properly aged and cared for by the HBT.com forum members that tasted funny after the primary, tasted still a little weird after secondary, and then at 1,2,3 weeks in the bottles just tasted not quite right, yet.

Ahhh... reverse psychology, I love it.

Unfortunately for me, my first batch had a bad case of DiMethyl Sulfide and even after 5 months in the bottles it did not go away.

The difference is that I waited it out to see if my beer would turn out rather than dumping it like a professional n00b.
 
Don't write articles in other peoples threads!
Keep advice and answers short and to the point.

If you feel the need for a reply that runs to more then a paragraph or so then link to a separate thread or the wiki.

Repeatedly copy and pasting the same information is not necessary.
 
Canadian twist offs can be capped with wing cappers, and mine seal better than the flip tops.
Wait,give it time, instructions are not for everyone.
If the instructions say "IMPORTANT", it probably is.
It is quite hard to ruin a beer before boiling and fermentation, don't panic that you might have missed something.
Clear questions are much easier to answer.
Not everyone has tried everything. "Would this work" on ridiculous things need to be found out by someone, try it yourself.
Pictures are worth 1000 words, use them if needed.
 
You will need to learn what EAC is by yourself. Yes it will take time to search for and find it. Just accept that fact and move on to soaking up all the great advice on the forum.
 
If you are brewing on your stove, do yourself a favor and take the burner off before you start and line the stove with foil a few inches around the burner and then replace it. If you do boilover its not as messy to clean and even if you dont you wont get those hard-to-get-off black spots from drips etc. This will keep the SWMBO happier and you brewing longer.
 
Don't waste everybody's time by posting a thread with topics like "bottle bomb", "broke carboy" or "huge blowoff" unless you have pictures to document it.
 
olllllo said:
And now, as it pertains to our latest imbroglio.

I think it would be fair to say that you should taste you beer at various points and reserve judgement until bottling time.

If at that point it tastes bad; and you have more money than time; or you are more impatient than curious dump most of it.

Bottle 3 and prime with carb tabs and evaluate after 1, 2, 3 months later.
Click to expand...

The only problem I see with this method is after 3 months you might have just finished enjoying your last bottle of something that actually ended up tasting pretty good, and then start kicking youself for wasting the other 18 litres of it!
Sometimes ignorence is bliss ;)
 
A few tips from my first brew day:
If your LME has a cap ring when you take the cap off remove it before pouring
Plan ahead if using a Brita water filter jug
Freeze some small blocks of water the night before for your ice bath
 
A lot of new folks, a lot of repeat questions. This is a great read for starting out to learn from the vast wealth of experience here.

My tip; If you've read it here 20 times, you will probably remember it. All the other great tips you hear less than that, take notes.
 
Before you brew, lay out all your ingredients, check them against your recipe, measure them out, then get to boiling.
 

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