Here are my lessons learned in no particular order.
So, I began brewing in earnest probably sometime in early 2017 (I think). I started with a couple of Mr. Beer starter kits where I pretty much just followed the directions, let it do it's thing and enjoyed whatever came out. It wasn't enough though. First, I didn't know anything about temperature (nor did I care) during the fermentation process. I've come to respect temperature A LOT when it comes to fermentation and I can't stress how important it is if you want your beer to come out even close to what you expect. Too high (which seemed to be the usual case on my first batches - even after I dove in and got the Brewers Best 5 gallon kit) made the beer have a citrus flavor that was ok but not really what I was looking for obviously. Too low and your yeast won't do what they are supposed to do (which isn't good either). Lagers are especially difficult because they generally need to ferment at lower temperatures - high 40's to low 50's seems to be the sweet spot and if you're a beginning brewer, it's really difficult to maintain that unless you have some equipment for that specific purpose. Anyway, as I've learned temperature control, my beers have gotten much better (for obvious reasons). Aside from that lager which I kept in the sweet spot by switching out bottles of ice in a bath of water for 2 weeks (not ideal but it worked), I've done ales, ipa's, stouts and even took a shot at a gluten free stout last year which I wouldn't mind doing again after learning some lessons from that brew.
Lesson 2 and it really should be number 1 is sterilization. I know you've probably heard it more times than you'd like to think about but nothing is more important to a successful brew (so I've heard) than proper sterilization. I've never had one go bad so I must be doing something right. There are several products you can purchase for sterilization but I'm old school and just use bleach. It's cheap and effective. You just need to be REALLY good about rinsing out your equipment so that none of it is left behind. So far, so good. Almost 2 years of brewing and all have turned out fine so far.
Lesson 3 (for me at least) is about bottling. I've got a couple of different bottlers but they all do the same thing. The BIG thing was learning that attempting to reuse commercial bottles can end wind up with broken bottles. I don't know why. I finally ended up just purchasing several cases of the generic brown bottles they sell where I buy my grains and such and have never had one break while bottling. On the other hand, with several commercial bottles including Heineken and Coors, I did have bottles break while I was capping them which was no fun, let me tell you.
Lesson 4 Mixing and matching can be fun. I don't have any specific brew I like to do. I've done kits, I've done recipes with dme and lme and I've done full grain brews. I pretty much choose what I'm going to do based on what type of beer I want and how lazy I'm feeling for brew day. Kits and extract recipes are both pretty easy. Full grain are more work but when I want to do one that is when I really get to do some shopping and mix and match my grains. Even with the kits or extract recipes I tend to change things up or necessity may determine that I need to - like with my last ale, which I bottled today, where I discovered that I had purchased too little lme and had to improvise - I ended up using corn syrup to make up for the missing lme. It won't taste the same as the original recipe but I don't think it really matters, unless I'm shooting for a clone of one beer or another (I wasn't - just a generic ale). I also started playing with hops in various recipes to tweak the flavor profile which is fun. So I guess what I'm trying to say is - don't be afraid to either change a recipe on purpose or because you screwed up. It doesn't matter. You'll still end up with beer and I've enjoyed some of my beers where I blew the recipe.
Lesson 5 I've learned that I like all types of beers and enjoy the process of creating them. I also learned that full grain brews (in my opinion) should have a steep of longer than 60 minutes since I think 90 minutes seems to pull more sugars from the grains than 60 minutes. Maybe I'm just imagining that but until I learn otherwise, I'm sticking with it.
Lesson 6 I've got all kinds of leftover hops and grains from previous brews and pretty soon I'm going to put them all to use and do a Frankenstein beer and see what pops out. The "type" of beer as I've come to learn is largely determined by the yeast you use so I could do an ale with whatever grains I have lying around. Right now I have a bunch of pale malt 2 row and crisp maris otter, both of which are on the light side (color wise) so could make a delicious ale.
I also have a large variety of leftover hops from various brews so I'm certain I can get a good hop profile in it.
Finally, I think I'm ready to try and design my own beer from scratch. I would actually like to do a wet hop ipa so I'm going to have to do some research on the proper grains and their amounts and the correct hops and when to add them. I think Cascade are good for a wet hop ipa and perhaps a saaz at the end for a little aroma. I'll just need to figure out the amounts. But I'm at that point. I'm POSITIVE there are far better or at least far more experienced, brewers on these forums but when I'm in on something I'm all in. I'm ready for the next step. I also need more equipment (something to cool my wort down faster would be nice but I got a good tip on that from a brewer I know - put 3 gallons of water in the fridge the night before brew day and put that directly into the wort to cool it down. Much faster than an ice bath he says so I'm trying that with this batch).
Enjoy your brewing and stay thirsty my friends. Many great adventures await all of us as we learn to brew.
So, I began brewing in earnest probably sometime in early 2017 (I think). I started with a couple of Mr. Beer starter kits where I pretty much just followed the directions, let it do it's thing and enjoyed whatever came out. It wasn't enough though. First, I didn't know anything about temperature (nor did I care) during the fermentation process. I've come to respect temperature A LOT when it comes to fermentation and I can't stress how important it is if you want your beer to come out even close to what you expect. Too high (which seemed to be the usual case on my first batches - even after I dove in and got the Brewers Best 5 gallon kit) made the beer have a citrus flavor that was ok but not really what I was looking for obviously. Too low and your yeast won't do what they are supposed to do (which isn't good either). Lagers are especially difficult because they generally need to ferment at lower temperatures - high 40's to low 50's seems to be the sweet spot and if you're a beginning brewer, it's really difficult to maintain that unless you have some equipment for that specific purpose. Anyway, as I've learned temperature control, my beers have gotten much better (for obvious reasons). Aside from that lager which I kept in the sweet spot by switching out bottles of ice in a bath of water for 2 weeks (not ideal but it worked), I've done ales, ipa's, stouts and even took a shot at a gluten free stout last year which I wouldn't mind doing again after learning some lessons from that brew.
Lesson 2 and it really should be number 1 is sterilization. I know you've probably heard it more times than you'd like to think about but nothing is more important to a successful brew (so I've heard) than proper sterilization. I've never had one go bad so I must be doing something right. There are several products you can purchase for sterilization but I'm old school and just use bleach. It's cheap and effective. You just need to be REALLY good about rinsing out your equipment so that none of it is left behind. So far, so good. Almost 2 years of brewing and all have turned out fine so far.
Lesson 3 (for me at least) is about bottling. I've got a couple of different bottlers but they all do the same thing. The BIG thing was learning that attempting to reuse commercial bottles can end wind up with broken bottles. I don't know why. I finally ended up just purchasing several cases of the generic brown bottles they sell where I buy my grains and such and have never had one break while bottling. On the other hand, with several commercial bottles including Heineken and Coors, I did have bottles break while I was capping them which was no fun, let me tell you.
Lesson 4 Mixing and matching can be fun. I don't have any specific brew I like to do. I've done kits, I've done recipes with dme and lme and I've done full grain brews. I pretty much choose what I'm going to do based on what type of beer I want and how lazy I'm feeling for brew day. Kits and extract recipes are both pretty easy. Full grain are more work but when I want to do one that is when I really get to do some shopping and mix and match my grains. Even with the kits or extract recipes I tend to change things up or necessity may determine that I need to - like with my last ale, which I bottled today, where I discovered that I had purchased too little lme and had to improvise - I ended up using corn syrup to make up for the missing lme. It won't taste the same as the original recipe but I don't think it really matters, unless I'm shooting for a clone of one beer or another (I wasn't - just a generic ale). I also started playing with hops in various recipes to tweak the flavor profile which is fun. So I guess what I'm trying to say is - don't be afraid to either change a recipe on purpose or because you screwed up. It doesn't matter. You'll still end up with beer and I've enjoyed some of my beers where I blew the recipe.
Lesson 5 I've learned that I like all types of beers and enjoy the process of creating them. I also learned that full grain brews (in my opinion) should have a steep of longer than 60 minutes since I think 90 minutes seems to pull more sugars from the grains than 60 minutes. Maybe I'm just imagining that but until I learn otherwise, I'm sticking with it.
Lesson 6 I've got all kinds of leftover hops and grains from previous brews and pretty soon I'm going to put them all to use and do a Frankenstein beer and see what pops out. The "type" of beer as I've come to learn is largely determined by the yeast you use so I could do an ale with whatever grains I have lying around. Right now I have a bunch of pale malt 2 row and crisp maris otter, both of which are on the light side (color wise) so could make a delicious ale.
I also have a large variety of leftover hops from various brews so I'm certain I can get a good hop profile in it.
Finally, I think I'm ready to try and design my own beer from scratch. I would actually like to do a wet hop ipa so I'm going to have to do some research on the proper grains and their amounts and the correct hops and when to add them. I think Cascade are good for a wet hop ipa and perhaps a saaz at the end for a little aroma. I'll just need to figure out the amounts. But I'm at that point. I'm POSITIVE there are far better or at least far more experienced, brewers on these forums but when I'm in on something I'm all in. I'm ready for the next step. I also need more equipment (something to cool my wort down faster would be nice but I got a good tip on that from a brewer I know - put 3 gallons of water in the fridge the night before brew day and put that directly into the wort to cool it down. Much faster than an ice bath he says so I'm trying that with this batch).
Enjoy your brewing and stay thirsty my friends. Many great adventures await all of us as we learn to brew.
