Top improvements you have made

[klars]

I have a few brews under my belt. I am an extract/PM guy.

I would like to know things that have made your brewing exponentially better. For me it was:

- Full 5g boil
- Partial mash
- wort chiller
- fermenting at a lower temp even though it is slower to finish sometimes
- Patience on fermentation
- Kegging (not that it improves my beer, but really improves my qualify of life

Any adds?

 

[passedpawn]

• Going electric made the brewday exponentially better.
• Biggest improvement in my beer was by far going all-grain.
• I've just started kegging, and I must say it is a real joy, both in the ease of getting it in there to the clean pour without yeast or dirty bottles, etc

 

[Hammy71]

For me the greatest improvement was fermentation temperature control. Hard to imagine I used to let the ambient temperature control my beer....

 

[PT Ray]

.....temperature control.

Ditto!

 

[shutupjojo]

1. PH control
2. Fermentation temp control
3. Going electric
4. Clean in place with a shop vac
5. Locline
6. Oxyclean
7. An understanding, tolerant wife.

 

[vfinch]

Letting my beer age. It sounds obvious but I needed the patience to wait to try my beers. Except for the hefes, they all get so much better if you wait.

 

[ajf]

1. Joining HBT
2. Getting old. (The quality of ingredients is so much better than it was when I started in 1974).
3. Going A.G. (Although this could be that when I was doing extract, the extract was always stale).
4. Fermentation temperature control
5. Using liquid yeast. (Although you can now get quality dry yeasts, I started using harvested yeasts on my third brew. It made a fantastic difference in those days).
6. Getting a grain mill, and buying in bulk. (OK this didn't improve the quality, but it saved me a whole bunch of time and money).

-a.

 

[LVBen]

1. Using RO water instead of tap water
2. Temperature Control

 

[BrewThruYou]

I'm convinced that fermentation temp control is probably the most important thing you can do provided you don't do anything dumb (like a bad recipe or not sanitizing anything).

Sent from my iPhone 4S using HB Talk

 

[jafo28]

For me the greatest improvement was fermentation temperature control. Hard to imagine I used to let the ambient temperature control my beer....

^^^This^^^

 

[Seven]

1. Temperature control made a huge difference in my beers
2. Using a stir plate and making yeast starters
3. Aerating with pure oxygen is so much easier
4. Kegging and giving beers sufficient time to condition in the keg
5. Crushing my own grain

 

[WortIfied]

I'm convinced that fermentation temp control is probably the most important thing you can do provided you don't do anything dumb (like a bad recipe or not sanitizing anything).

Sent from my iPhone 4S using HB Talk

Whats a quick, easy, cheap way to control the temp of my carboy? I keep my a/c at 74, but i do live in Southeast Georgia, where who the heck knows what the temps will be tomorrow.

I plan on using a analog controller and fridge when i can eventually afford one, so im not looking to invest a whole lot of money at the moment. Just looking for a stable cheap way to control the next couple batches.

edit: I plan on using or trying rather both US-05 in a batch and 1056.

 

[SCHUWEET]

Whats a quick, easy, cheap way to control the temp of my carboy? I keep my a/c at 74, but i do live in Southeast Georgia, where who the heck knows what the temps will be tomorrow.

I plan on using a analog controller and fridge when i can eventually afford one, so im not looking to invest a whole lot of money at the moment. Just looking for a stable cheap way to control the next couple batches.

Swamp Cooler. Cost effective & efficient.

 

[unionrdr]

I know this may seem obvious to some,but I think knowledge of ingredients was a bigger one for me. Once you learn what works & what doesn't,the back of your mind just goes to work on autopilot (journey to the center of your mind? Da Nuge). That,& one I feel sorta foolish for not realizing earlier. Instead of filling the sink with water around the hot BK of wort,then topping off with ice, with my Burton ale yesterday I filled the empty space with ice. Then topped off with water. The hot wort went down to 68F in exactly 20 minutes!
The cold break material was about the size of a BB. That usually makes for less chill haze that dissipates quicker during initial fridge time.
Also,having the fermenter,lid,& tap squeaky clean & ready for the next brew day,so all you need to do is sanitize while the wort in the BK is steeping after late additions.
I also found over a few tries that when using dry yeast, 1.5C of boiled water to which 2tsp of dextrose is added makes re-hydrating work much better. For my latest,a Burton ale,I used 4-7g sachets of cooper's ale yeast in one of these. But I raised it to 2C,with 1TBSP of dextrose for some 25 mins total. High krausen was an understatement. By morning,that blow off was getting a real workout. Still going pretty strong now.
So,some of these little things can make a difference as well as fancy equipment. A good process is more important to me than fancy equipment. Just get all the basics together & you'll do fine for some time to come.

 

[Yooper]

For me the greatest improvement was fermentation temperature control. Hard to imagine I used to let the ambient temperature control my beer....

This for me, too, along with proper pitching rates. Before I knew better, I would pitch a vial of White Labs yeast into my wort when it got "below 80 degrees"! Now, I pitch my starter into 60 degree wort and ferment at 65 degrees. What a HUGE difference in the quality of my beer!

The other stuff that came later- AG, kegging, electric brewery, etc, all make life easier. But it didn't really improve the quality of the beer as much as taking care of my yeast did.

 

[harrydrez]

Whats a quick, easy, cheap way to control the temp of my carboy? I keep my a/c at 74, but i do live in Southeast Georgia, where who the heck knows what the temps will be tomorrow.

I plan on using a analog controller and fridge when i can eventually afford one, so im not looking to invest a whole lot of money at the moment. Just looking for a stable cheap way to control the next couple batches.

edit: I plan on using or trying rather both US-05 in a batch and 1056.

Get a big rubbermade tote and place the carboy in that. Then fill the thing with water and use frozen 2 liter water bottles to keep the carboy cool. You should replace them every 12 hours or so.

Oh, I would not do this on a nice floor and I would put plastic underneath the totes. Also, a dehumidifier is recommended. Big, cold surface + humid air= puddles on the ground.

 

[unionrdr]

Or set the tote on top of it's upturned lid. Maybe a beach towel folded under that.

 

[squirrelly]

Some of the improvements my wife and I have made over the years that helped us make better beers and win more competitions include:

-Switch from iodaphore to Star-San
-Start using PBW
-Study and understand the chemical and molecular changes that occur during each step in the brewing process
-Upgrade to a B3 1100 10 gallon sculpture
-Temp control fermentation
-Oxygenate wort for high yeast attenuation
-Upgrade to a fully digital system for a more consistent outcome each brew day
-Begin making large yeast starters and using a stir plate
-Perform mash outs with each batch
-Use float switches to control sparges
-Study and understand yeast profiles and how they affect each style of beer
-Study and understand the BJCP categories and brew as closely to style as possible
-Join a homebrew club and have experienced brewers evaluate your beers
-Listen to the brewing network and heed the advice given on the show

For extract we did the following:

-Upgrade to a kettle able to complete full wort boils
-Get a wort chiller counter flow or immersion
-Begin doing large yeast starters
-Replace all plastic equipment with glass and stainless
-Temp control fermentation

[email protected]. on tap: easy virtue blonde, fruity monk belgian wit. primary: American pale ale, American stout, blow your top steam, and heffewitzen

 

[stbnj]

For the quality of my beer its been using yeast starters and using a swamp cooler. I currently have no room in our townhouse to add a fridge for fermentation control but that's ok, the ambient temp is always 68-70 and the swamp cooler improves on that. Using yeast starters (and a stir plate) has been huge as well. Its hard to believe just back in April I pitched a little packet of dry muntons yeast on my first batch fast forward to Friday and my batch of Chocolate Mint Stout was made with pacman I harvested and stepped up over the course of a week.
I can not believe how much I have learned since starting in the spring. I think I have read every major homebrew book; definitley never though I'd be reading a book on yeast for fun. Also I now formulate my own recipes on BeerSmith using Designing Great Beers as a guide in addition to doing research on here. I like doing this so I can buy my grains at the LHBS when I find the time to brew. Its a very addicting hobby and every time someone likes my beer it makes me want to try that much harder to make an even better batch.

 

[birvine]

In no particular order:

- reading LOTS of HBT
- leaving the fermenting wort alone and not fiddling with it
- keeping careful records and being consistent with procedures
- using balanced recipes and leaving them balanced (ie not changing 15 variables)
- swamp cooler for fermentation

B