Threads you are tired of seeing

[whoaru99]

Seeing the same type of threads repeatedly seems more like an indicator of how poor the kit instructions are for beginners. Granted, some people wouldn't ever read the instructions anyway, but if you are packaging and/or selling kits (either equipment or recipe), you've got to know that there is a higher concentration of new brewers

Is it?

I understand your point about happy customers but I occasionally write service bulletins and work instructions. They are not written at the level or with the expectation that someone with zero or very little mechanical knowledge just steps in and does it.

The same holds true, IMO, about beer kit instructions. They are not written with the intent of being the beer brewer's only point of experience and reference.

Saw a point made on another forum where someone suggested to RTFM but was called rude for saying that. The rebuttal to accusation of being rude was, "What's more rude, someone taking no personal responsibility to become educated about what they're doing and instead expects people to spoon feed them answers, or someone who simply suggests they first make an effort try to educate themselves with readily available information?" Thought that was an interesting point to contemplate.

 

[TheZymurgist]

Is it?

I understand your point about happy customers but I occasionally write service bulletins and work instructions. They are not written at the level or with the expectation that someone with zero or very little mechanical knowledge just steps in and does it.

The same holds true, IMO, about beer kit instructions. They are not written with the intent of being the beer brewer's only point of experience and reference.

I would have to disagree with this. I think they are written for those with absolutely no knowledge of brewing, and assume that the user will make no effort to gain any more knowledge. The fact that they rate fermentation in days rather than gravity points is perfect evidence of that.

I think their expectation is that a random person walks into a brewing supply store, picks up an equipment kit and an ingredient kit and goes home, with no conversations on the actual brewing process.

 

[whoaru99]

I disagree with your disagreement.

My brewing kit came with an instructional CD/DVD, that I assume goes way beyond the one-pager that typically comes with the ingredients kit. I suppose I should watch it sometime...but instead I read FAQs, how-to articles, watched YouTube videos, read forums, etc. before I cracked open the first ingredients kit.

Actually, I had done lots of that even before buying the brewing kit to see if my perception was more hassle than it's worth to me to even start brewing. Brewing didn't look too hard so jumped in having considerably more than zero info from the get go.

 

[TheZymurgist]

I disagree with your disagreement.

My brewing kit came with an instructional CD/DVD, that I assume goes way beyond the one-pager that typically comes with the ingredients kit. I suppose I should watch it sometime...but instead I read FAQs, how-to articles, watched YouTube videos, read forums, etc. before I cracked open the first ingredients kit.

Well, that's kind of an exception, isn't it? I think the vast majority of kits only come with the one page of instructions.

 

[whoaru99]

Brewing equipment kit vs. beer ingredients kit. Ingredients kits generally come with just one pagers. I can only speak to the brewing kit I bought from Midwest having the instructional CD/DVD.

EDIT: Just a quick check shows that Northern Brewer equipment kits come with instructional CD/DVD too, and Austin Home Brew includes an "Illustrated Guide to Homebrewing".

Not implying any of these are the definitive answer for everything you should know but the point is I don't believe the ingredient kit instruction is intended to cover everything for someone starting at ground zero.

 

[boydster]

If someone has brewed more than a few batches of their own, it is safe to assume they only need a fraction of the information in the instructions. The amount of information in the kit is overkill for your experienced brewer and a far cry from easy-to-understand for a complete novice.

No single guide is going to encompass everything you need to know. They could do a much better job explaining things to their target demographic though. I posit that their target demographic is new brewers. That is not to say that they ONLY sell to beginners, or even that they don't sell a lot of kits to experienced brewers - surely, they do. I am only stating that a prepackaged kit with "how to" instructions seems to be targeted at someone with relatively little brewing experience. Example: I rarely buy kits now that I have a good handle on what I am doing - I either make my own recipes or use recipes found elsewhere (thanks, HBT!) and purchase the ingredients.

 

[boydster]

Saw a point made on another forum where someone suggested to RTFM but was called rude for saying that. The rebuttal to accusation of being rude was, "What's more rude, someone taking no personal responsibility to become educated about what they're doing and instead expects people to spoon feed them answers, or someone who simply suggests they first make an effort try to educate themselves with readily available information?" Thought that was an interesting point to contemplate.

Frankly, I'd agree that "RTFM" was a rude response, because the kit instructions usually suck. Hence why I said the kit instructions should be made more clear for beginners.
Step 1: Send out better instructions
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Big Profit

 

[TheZymurgist]

Brewing equipment kit vs. beer ingredients kit. Ingredients kits generally come with just one pagers. I can only speak to the brewing kit I bought from Midwest having the instructional CD/DVD.

EDIT: Just a quick check shows that Northern Brewer equipment kits come with instructional CD/DVD too, and Austin Home Brew includes an "Illustrated Guide to Homebrewing".

Not implying any of these are the definitive answer for everything you should know but the point is I don't believe the ingredient kit instruction is intended to cover everything for someone starting at ground zero.

Now we're talking about two different things. Equipment vs. Ingredient kits. Sorry I wasn't clear. My point was only on Ingredient kits, since I bought my equipment piecemeal, I don't have any experience with the Equipment kits.

 

[passedpawn]

So since "who that guy was" contains...

Maybe you're right.

 

[boydster]

Now we're talking about two different things. Equipment vs. Ingredient kits. Sorry I wasn't clear. My point was only on Ingredient kits, since I bought my equipment piecemeal, I don't have any experience with the Equipment kits.

I've seen the Mr. Beer instructional video but it wasn't any better than the ingredient kit instructions. My kit came from my LHBS but it was only equipment - no paper instructions, no video. I guess I haven't seen what the instructional videos look like from any of the major online vendors. My first post about this was from my firsthand knowledge with the Mr. Beer kit and then the various ingredient kit instructions that I've read.

I think Craigtube and TSA should get together and do a beginners guide to brewing DVD. That would be epic!

 

[Rhumbline]

Maybe we've come upon the reason for a lot of these posts.

I did a lot of reading before I started my first kit. The kit instructions were clear and easy to understand but they were also very basic. If I'd brewed the kit and then came on here I'd be panicking about all of the things that the kit didn't tell me about.

Boiling my water to remove chlorine, aerating the wort, tightly controlling the ferm temp... And a host of others.

All things that many folks feel are critical. I can understand how people can panic after seeing all the stuff they could have been worrying about.

 

[signpost]

I'm pretty sure NB equipment kits also come with an instructional DVD.

*edit*

Whoops, I responded before updating the browser window. Had the window open for a while and didn't notice the other responses.

 

[peterj]

I know there is a search function and it seems to not get used very much so what threads are you tired of seeing popup I'll start The is it ruined because I ( insert object here) was in my wort unsantized am I screwed

Smug garbage like this. Go find a grammar forum if your so hung up on minutia.

Seriously. I hate it when get on their high-horse about crap we learned in second grade. I mean, who expects us to remember that far back? Not like it's useful in today's society. Who cares if someone looks like a complete idiot when they're typing? If they want to appear like a dumb bumpkin from the back-woods, then let them!

I can forgive and overlook a few grammatical errors and mispellings, and while text speech is very annoying to me, it's ok as long as I can understand what you're trying to say. I take issue when the person posting is obviously making no effort and it gets to the point that it's hard for me to understand what they are trying to communicate. When you don't use any punctuation whatsoever it makes it very difficult to read your post and understand what you're trying to say. It doesn't take that much more time to press the period button even if you're on a cell phone. And as you can see, punctuation saves lives.

 

[Dylan42]

I just figured that this thread could use an appropriate chariot

 

[MaxStout]

I can forgive and overlook a few grammatical errors and mispellings, and while text speech is very annoying to me, it's ok as long as I can understand what you're trying to say. I take issue when the person posting is obviously making no effort and it gets to the point that it's hard for me to understand what they are trying to communicate. When you don't use any punctuation whatsoever it makes it very difficult to read your post and understand what you're trying to say. It doesn't take that much more time to press the period button even if you're on a cell phone. And as you can see, punctuation saves lives.

Don't forget the Oxford comma. Soooo important.

 

[erockdoc]

Nothing worse then asking a question only to get "that's been asked before" as a response. This site constantly has new users, and searching isn't always as fruitful as one would hope. Beside, some of us want to start up a conversation rather then just use the search feature. Isn't that the point of a forum? The conversation?

 

[hillybilly]

you are right bur the 100+ threads on I put my beer in ferm chamber and the starsans got sucked into fermenter is it ruined/ what happened or the 100+ on air locks getting clogged and blowing off what happened/ did it get infected do get old

 

[hillybilly]

and no I don't click or reply to them

 

[boydster]

you are right bur the 100+ threads on I put my beer in ferm chamber and the starsans got sucked into fermenter is it ruined/ what happened or the 100+ on air locks getting clogged and blowing off what happened/ did it get infected do get old

You're just doing this on purpose, now, aren't you?

 

[whoaru99]

Nothing worse then asking a question only to get "that's been asked before" as a response. This site constantly has new users, and searching isn't always as fruitful as one would hope. Beside, some of us want to start up a conversation rather then just use the search feature. Isn't that the point of a forum? The conversation?

I agree to a large point that most forum search tools aren't the greatest, or maybe I should just come out and say in many cases they suck.

Google's advanced search can help a lot particularly if not familiar with Boolean operators/expressions and searching that way.

 

[hillybilly]

You're just doing this on purpose, now, aren't you?

Welllll

 

[peterj]

I agree to a large point that most forum search tools aren't the greatest, or maybe I should just come out and say in many cases they suck.

Google's advanced search can help a lot particularly if not familiar with Boolean operators/expressions and searching that way.

Yeah I agree. I almost never use the search function on here and when I do it's terrible. I just search what I want on Google and it usually lists applicable threads from here. If I specifically want to search here I just type site:homebrewtalk.com and then whatever I want to search.

 

[Shakybones]

Yeah I agree. I almost never use the search function on here and when I do it's terrible. I just search what I want on Google and it usually lists applicable threads from here. If I specifically want to search here I just type site:homebrewtalk.com and then whatever I want to search.

The search function works fine for me, as long as it says "Google Custom Search" in the box before I start typing. When I have problems it's because, for some reason, the search is not a Google Custom Search. I haven't figured out why this happens, but sometimes it just loads wrong for me.

Oh, and we're WAY

 

[TheZymurgist]

I think there have been about 20 topics since the original.

 

[two_hearted]

Yeah I agree. I almost never use the search function on here and when I do it's terrible. I just search what I want on Google and it usually lists applicable threads from here. If I specifically want to search here I just type site:homebrewtalk.com and then whatever I want to search.

agreed. Unless you do an advance search and choose "Search Titles Only" otherwise the "Search Entire Port" function never finds anything close.

Its easier for me to just open a new tab and google whatever I'm looking for. The first result is usually an HBT link.

 

[rvegas]

If I have bottled beer and want to age it, do u need to chill it to stop the carbonation process first?

 

[drainbamage]

If I have bottled beer and want to age it, do u need to chill it to stop the carbonation process first?

I can't tell if you're threadjacking or playing along with the joke

If you are being serious, you might want to start your own thread.

 

[lou2row]

You know what grinds my gears?? (Peter Griffin reference in the house)

-I don't usually have an issue, but when the same question is asked three times and are all on the first page shows a little laziness; not just inexperience or lack of search skills.

- When a thread that seems like it would be of interest to many people and open to additional information disappears from sight quickly. I started a thread to see what people recycled / reused / re purposed in their brewing and it got four posts and gone. Not a biggie, just bummed me.

-I read for over a year on here before my first brew; and then see a guy that had a buddy who brewed and he decides to try to make for his first beer a Russian imperial IPA with toasted oak chips and eight pounds of sugar and car parts from a Chrysler Cordoba. And gets eleven pages of responses on how he could better it. Painful. And yes, a touch of jealousy due in part from my previous point.

 

[boydster]

I can't tell if you're threadjacking or playing along with the joke

If you are being serious, you might want to start your own thread.

I think he's saying he's tired of seeing that type of thread.

By " think," I mean "hope". Otherwise, yes, new thread would be appropriate.

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

As I've seen on a different forum unrelated to brewing....

This is meant to be a forum and a great place. Instead of being a rude ******* demanding people use the search function help them out. Otherwise its just a collective source of information when its the people that make the forum what it is. Who cares if you see the same thread every week. Its like that on any forum. Without the people giving personal insight and passing on knowledge then HBT would be nothing more than the info in the wiki. We were all newbs here at some point and for many new to forums altogether.

Look at members like Yooper and Revvy.... Both are great examples that have been answering the same questions for years and continue to do so.