Unnecessary brewing practices

[rcsarver]

What well-known brewing techniques are unnecessary? What shortcuts do you take?

For example, racking to secondary. Beginner books say it, my first recipe kit said it, but I know many brewers on here don't unless they are aging or dry hopping. What else am I doing that I definitely or probably don't need to do?

 

[Captain Damage]

I don't even rack when dry hopping.

Not reusing your sanitizer. - You don't need to mix it new every time.
Filling your carboy to the top with sanitizer. - Just use a gallon (or less) and shake it.
Checking your gravity while the beer is still fermenting. - Serves no positive purpose unless you're trying to graph the attenuation out for research.
Checking your final gravity more than once. - The mantra has been "three consecutive stable readings, then bottle." But if you practice long-primary, as many of us now do, your beer is certainly done fermenting by 3 to 4 weeks. Take one gravity reading immediately before bottling.

 

[CraptainWirtz]

Checking your final gravity more than once. - The mantra has been "three consecutive stable readings, then bottle." But if you practice long-primary, as many of us now do, your beer is certainly done fermenting by 3 to 4 weeks. Take one gravity reading immediately before bottling.

I think this one is good practice. I had a stout that had gravity readings that continued to drop for over 5 weeks. As it was, I think I bottled too early and had over-carbonated bottles; if I'd bottled after 3-4 weeks it would have been even worse.

 

[martinworswick]

i never sanitise my bottles and i never have a problem,my theory is if the beer was good out of the bottle then the beer came from an environment that suited it, i drink the beer then rinse the bottle until clean and store upside down until reuse.on bottling day the bottle gets rinsed twice with the hose refilled with beer and capped.

 

[Hammy71]

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

 

[Kampenken]

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

Hmmm, will be interesting to read responses to that one!

I replied to follow this thread. Hope to hear what others are saying.

 

[adiochiro3]

I don't even rack when dry hopping.

Not reusing your sanitizer. - You don't need to mix it new every time.
Filling your carboy to the top with sanitizer. - Just use a gallon (or less) and shake it.
Checking your gravity while the beer is still fermenting. - Serves no positive purpose unless you're trying to graph the attenuation out for research.
Checking your final gravity more than once. - The mantra has been "three consecutive stable readings, then bottle." But if you practice long-primary, as many of us now do, your beer is certainly done fermenting by 3 to 4 weeks. Take one gravity reading immediately before bottling.

I agree with every one of these thoughts. I just pH checked a spray bottle of StarSan that was mixed at least 4 months ago, and it was spot on.

I think this one is good practice. I had a stout that had gravity readings that continued to drop for over 5 weeks. As it was, I think I bottled too early and had over-carbonated bottles; if I'd bottled after 3-4 weeks it would have been even worse.

I have had this happen also; however, I neglected to check the recipe to see if I was in the expected FG neighborhood (I was not). The other possible reasons for such a slow fermentation rate are things like poor oxygenation and fementation temps below optimal. To prolong good yeast contact, I shake/swirl the primary bucket/carboy around days 3 & 5, and then let it ride to day 14+ before bottling. Clearing has never been a problem with this practice, and I rarely cold crash before bottling.

To address the OP's original question, I would add to the list of unnecessary practices the cleaning with PBW/OxyClean and bottle brushing of bottles before sanitizing and filling. If you are disciplined enough to rinse your bottles out immediatley after pouring, all you need to do is dry them appropriately and santize right before bottling the next batch. If the bottles need de-labeling or originate from someone other than me, I always use OxyClean.

 

[LovesIPA]

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

No flame. Technically I can't even disagree because it's not strictly necessary. But then neither are starters for liquid yeast, proper fermentation temp control, good sanitation practices, etc etc

Sure you will make beer. But if you adhere to best practices including rehydrating dry yeast, you will make better beer.

But the bottom line is that it's your beer and if you like it, do whatever you want.


Sent from my iPhone while cruising down the freeway

 

[CraptainWirtz]

I have had this happen also; however, I neglected to check the recipe to see if I was in the expected FG neighborhood (I was not). The other possible reasons for such a slow fermentation rate are things like poor oxygenation and fementation temps below optimal. To prolong good yeast contact, I shake/swirl the primary bucket/carboy around days 3 & 5, and then let it ride to day 14+ before bottling.

I agree with your points here; I just wanted to point out that it may not be the best advice to say that taking only one FG reading is the best practice, or is even USUALLY the best practice. Especially when your other brewing practices are suboptimal, like poor oxygenation, etc.

 

[Yooper]

i never sanitise my bottles and i never have a problem,my theory is if the beer was good out of the bottle then the beer came from an environment that suited it, i drink the beer then rinse the bottle until clean and store upside down until reuse.on bottling day the bottle gets rinsed twice with the hose refilled with beer and capped.

Clean is good, but clean and sanitized would be better. I mean, I bet you get get away with brewing and not sanitizing anything at all for a while, as long as everything was clean. But it takes about 5 minutes to sanitize, and is good practice as I'd rather prevent an infection than have to dump out a bad (expensive) batch that would have been cheap and easy to prevent.

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

Yeah, me too. I almost never rehydrate dry yeast.

 

[kh54s10]

Shortcuts?!?!?

Yes it is quicker not to sanitize, pitch dry yeast directly, take no gravity readings. You will create beer. You could be getting better beer if you skip the shortcuts.

If you don't sanitize your bottles or take final gravity readings and we meet, tell me, so that I can have YOU can open the possible infected bottle bombs.

 

[krackin]

^ Yup.

Happy B day Yooper.

 

[BigFloyd]

Needless (usually just following kit instructions) racking of every batch to a secondary has to top my list. I fault the outdated kit instructions, not the brewer who has no reason to doubt them (until they come here and learn better).

 

[icebob]

Here's mine, no need to rush your first brew, you've been drinking commercial stuff before! A couple more weeks waiting won't kill you and you'll still be able to get a buzz

 

[Paradigm]

My bottle sanitation has always been mediocre at best. Never sanitized the caps, and I only boil the bottles for like 5 minutes.

 

[myelo]

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

Adding yeast at all is unnecessary.

Sanitation is also unnecessary.People were making beer for thousands of years before they know what yeast was. Before they knew the first thing about sanitation. It usually worked and they got beer.

Sometimes it didn't.

 

[masonsjax]

Boiling and chilling are not technically necessary.

 

[Bobby_M]

If we're going to get into all the things you can get away with, you can skip right to the fact that brewing beer yourself is completely unnecessary.

 

[martinworswick]

Clean is good, but clean and sanitized would be better. I mean, I bet you get get away with brewing and not sanitizing anything at all for a while, as long as everything was clean. But it takes about 5 minutes to sanitize, and is good practice as I'd rather prevent an infection than have to dump out a bad (expensive) batch that would have been cheap and easy to prevent.



iv'e been doing it for several years now without issue,i still sanitise everything post boil on brewday but the way i see it with the bttles is they never really leave a sanitary state,if stored with a bit of thought.
how do you sanitise your bottles?it used to take me way longer than 5 minutes for around 35 bottles


i originally read about a guy doing it on another forum and i was looking after my young boy on weekends(wife works)i had to try and coincide all the time consuming stages with his sleeps,not sanitising bottles got rid of a good half an hour for me.

works for me anyway, i don't imagine many others will copy me though!

 

[smccarter]

Boiling or baking bottles.

Just wash them, and sanitize with whatever solution you prefer.

 

[smccarter]

I think I remember seeing a post that talked about using a pressure washer to clean carboys. I thought that might be a bit extreme as well.

 

[freisste]

Really depends on your definition of "necessary." If you have to have clear beer for some reason (doesn't matter what the reason is), then maybe you have to use gelatin or cold crash or use whirlfloc...or whatever. I certainly wouldn't call those steps necessary. (But I don't care about clear beer.)

It was alluded to before: strictly speaking, the only absolutely necessary step is mashing. After you have sugar, wild yeast or bacteria will contaminate it (in fact it would be pretty well contaminated just from the grain without a boil) and ferment to give you some form of beer.

Edit: regarding the spirit of OP's post - I would add chilling. I would say it approaches 100% in America, but elsewhere in the world it is common to seal up a brew after boiling and let it cool overnight to pitch yeast in the morning. Never tried it, but I've heard that if done correctly and carefully it produces a nearly identical beer to one that was cooled very quickly. As such, I think it perfectly meets the criteria of the original post.

 

[h22lude]

I've been doing it for several years now without issue,i still sanitise everything post boil on brewday but the way i see it with the bttles is they never really leave a sanitary state,if stored with a bit of thought.
how do you sanitise your bottles?it used to take me way longer than 5 minutes for around 35 bottles

It takes me about 5 to 7 seconds to sanitize 1 bottle. Anything longer than that, you are doing it wrong. 4 or 5 pumps in the vinator, dunk the top in and the let it sit on the bottling tree until I use it. Very easy. That is the easiest part of my bottling days. Sanitizing bottles for a full batch won't take more than 4 to 5 minutes.

 

[Brewmenn]

iv'e been doing it for several years now without issue,i still sanitise everything post boil on brewday but the way i see it with the bttles is they never really leave a sanitary state,if stored with a bit of thought.
how do you sanitise your bottles?it used to take me way longer than 5 minutes for around 35 bottles


i originally read about a guy doing it on another forum and i was looking after my young boy on weekends(wife works)i had to try and coincide all the time consuming stages with his sleeps,not sanitising bottles got rid of a good half an hour for me.

works for me anyway, i don't imagine many others will copy me though!

When I'm bottling I likely have a bucket of sanitizer mixed up so I just toss them in bucket and then on the drying rack. I doubt it even adds 5 minutes to the process.

 

[insanim8er]

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

I laughed at this. I wonder who will be the first to bring up what Jamil and palmer said about rehydrating yeast.

Never done it, never plan to.

If we're going to get into all the things you can get away with, you can skip right to the fact that brewing beer yourself is completely unnecessary.

If I could down thumb this I would! It is 1000% necessary. As a matter of fact it should be law.

 

[Zuljin]

i never sanitise my bottles and i never have a problem,my theory is if the beer was good out of the bottle then the beer came from an environment that suited it, i drink the beer then rinse the bottle until clean and store upside down until reuse.on bottling day the bottle gets rinsed twice with the hose refilled with beer and capped.

Confession. Me neither. I rinse them soon after drinking. Then, I wash them in a sink of Ajax dish washing liquid once the windowsill of empties gets full, and then store them in a closed box. On bottling day, I look in each bottle before filling it with beer just to be sure it looks clean. I've done this for years with no problems.

Re hydrating dry yeast, unneccesary.....flame away.

It's a piece of mind thing. I used to think I was really doing something. Now, I just like to know the bugs work. What I have noticed though, re hydrated bugs show signs of fermentation sooner than dry pitched bugs. That makes me happy.

 

[insanim8er]

It's a piece of mind thing. I used to think I was really doing something. Now, I just like to know the bugs work. What I have noticed though, re hydrated bugs show signs of fermentation sooner than dry pitched bugs. That makes me happy.

There have been studies that claim you get better pitching rate due to more viable yeast—something like 50% vs 80%. But I'm about as worried about that as I am with worrying about hot side aeration.

 

[CUrchin]

I frequently skip the bottling bucket and just stir my priming sugar in the primary. I let it sit while I sanitize my bottles and then bottle with an autosiphon/bottling wand combo. Fridge knocks down any floaties and it saves time.

 

[MidTNJasonF]

Secondary,
Hour long mashes,
Long sparges (longer than 15 minutes),
Decoction mashes,
Sanitizing anything pre boil. I have run into numerous new brewers that thought they needed to sanitize their mashtun and kettle.
5.2 PH stabilizer,
Bottling (kegging rules)

 

[dzlater]

airlock

 

[Gameface]

Well, I'm going to call "unnecessary brew practices" things that many of us do that has no positive effect on the outcome of our beer.

If you sprinkle your dry yeast right into your wort that doesn't necessarily hurt the outcome...as long as there are still adequate numbers of viable yeast to ferment.

If your bottles are not infected then they don't need to be sanitized, just cleaned. (not always possible to know)

If your beer clearly isn't at F.G. then taking a hydro sample isn't doing anything to get it to F.G. If you have provided proper fermentation conditions and allowed plenty of time for fermentation then chances are the gravity you read is F.G., weather or not it's where a kit or brewing software calculator tells you it's supposed to be. Taking hydro samples doesn't make beer better (but it can make brewers better at brewing).

But I'll add my own.

Leaving you beer in the fermenter for 4 weeks. If it fermented on the cool side, had an adequate pitch and proper aeration then congratulations, you didn't produce a whole lot for the yeast to clean up after they hit F.G.. You can cold crash and package that goodness up in under 14 days. Certainly depends on a few specifics, but for a typical ale you're probably good to go. Nothing is gained by letting your beer sit there a couple extra weeks.

Disclaimer: if you're a new brewer and you don't 1) pitch adequate amounts of healthy yeast http://www.mrmalty.com/ 2)aerate well and the big one 3) control fermentation temps on the cool side of the yeast's range then please don't rush your beer. Let it sit there for 3-4 weeks. It can actually help fix deficiencies in your process. But if you go about tackling those deficiencies feel free to tighten up your brewing time table.

 

[h22lude]

^^^^ this disclaimer is definitely needed for new brewers. A lot of the things being said in this thread work for some but may not work for all. One example, not sanitizing your bottles is ok if you wash them right after use, don't drink from the bottle, dry properly, etc. For new brewers I highly recommend sanitizing your bottles.

 

[troy2000]

I think I remember seeing a post that talked about using a pressure washer to clean carboys. I thought that might be a bit extreme as well.

Actually, a pressure washer sounds like a good idea - if you happen to have one handy.

The first time I used my mini-fridge fermenter after adding a ceramic reptile heater bulb to it, the hot air pooled at the top and I got a ring of crud in my carboy that was no fun to get rid of. I finally filled it with water, added an obscene amount of Sun Oxygen Cleaner, and let it set for 24 hours. I'll bet a pressure washer would've worked a lot faster....

By the way, I solved that problem by adding a Radio Shack fan, that comes on along with the heater.

 

[jonmohno]

For being a new brewer a lot of things can get overlooked or not yet learned. The idea is to make beer and then learn to make better beer. Shure not hydrating dry yeast or not sanitizing your bottles will work maybe most/all of the time but is more of insurance and in more sense your own personal quality control. The way I clean and use homebrew bottles I may not even need to sanizize them but since bottles blowing up is kind of a big deal to me and Ive had great results with safe bottleing then I will keep sanitizing my bottles

. Again if the practice and results meet or exceed your expectations then I would keep with your own technique. But sometimes if you change or learn/study things you may see an improvement (sometimes not) if you try other ways of brewing. Finding things unnessasary may come with experience, but its not always easy to tell what things made your beer better sometimes.

Shure not taking gravity readings or not writing brewing notes down will work. But to fine tune your beer I think its important to write everything down on brew day,so you can go back and see patterns of your better beers. Some brewers may not find it necessary to do any of those things and keep it simple and I say go for it as long as they think their beers are always great. For me I have a lot of beers that I try troubleshooting as to how they could have been better or what I didn't like about them. A lot of times that is simply yeast and even water and even carbonation and hop quality wich seems most of the times my case. All in all Im still experimenting with all the ingredients and haven't even come close to using all of them available, but since small batch brewing gave me great experience with using as many varieties of ingredients/yeast that I can, Ive only learned more from each brew.

 

[kharper6]

Longer than necessary fermentations.

Yeast health, proper stir plate starters, pitching the right amount, I am typically grain to glass in 8-10 days unless I'm aging something or secondary fermenting on purpose.

I always shake my head a bit when I see people leaving their primary for 2 weeks+ for no good reason.


My biggest one : wort aeration

I've never done it, all but one of my beers were/are fantastic. We just won't talk about the one that didn't turn out great...

Dat olive oil

 

[Minky]

Longer than necessary fermentations.

Yeast health, proper stir plate starters, pitching the right amount, I am typically grain to glass in 8-10 days unless I'm aging something or secondary fermenting on purpose.

I always shake my head a bit when I see people leaving their primary for 2 weeks+ for no good reason.


My biggest one : wort aeration

I've never done it, all but one of my beers were/are fantastic. We just won't talk about the one that didn't turn out great...

Dat olive oil

kharper6 gives some perfect examples of how all successful brewing techniques are interdependent. The reason no aeration is necessary in his brews is due to the stir-plate starters. The yeast requires the oxygen to build cell walls and reproduce correctly. Fermentation requires NO oxygen, so this technique works. The guy who hits his wort with pure oxygen and then pitches the yeast straight from the tube has partially compensated for the improper yeast preparation by aerating the wort.

Both techniques produce beer, but kharper6's beer likely has the advantage of a better start, and a more complete fermentation. Therefore he does not require extra time in the fermenter that others seem to need for cleaning up the nasties.

I have drastically revised my own brewing techniques over the years as I have learned more. I also find that aeration beyond that which occurs when transferring wort from kettle to fermenter is unnecessary when properly aerated starters or rehydrated dry yeast is used. My beers have improved markedly while doing so, and I have the medals to show for it!

 

[brownrice]

Longer than necessary fermentations.

Yeast health, proper stir plate starters, pitching the right amount, I am typically grain to glass in 8-10 days unless I'm aging something or secondary fermenting on purpose.

I always shake my head a bit when I see people leaving their primary for 2 weeks+ for no good reason.


My biggest one : wort aeration

I've never done it, all but one of my beers were/are fantastic. We just won't talk about the one that didn't turn out great...

Dat olive oil

Do tell about dat olive oil. . .

 

[kharper6]

Do tell about dat olive oil. . .

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2011.tb00472.x/pdf

page 217, first paragraph.

Not to speak poorly of homebrewtalk or the sharing of anecdotal information, but I am a believer in legitimate research and have been trained relentlessly in the field of conducting graduate level research and reviewing the research of peers.

If someone makes a claim, I don't really follow it until I know the mechanisms and inner-workings, all of the "why".

Olive oil instead of wort aeration seems to have enough research around it to answer my questions, so that is what I do, and that is why I don't invest in aeration equipment or spend my calories shaking 5-10 gallons of sugar water.

 

[Captain Damage]

This thread is great! For every I-don't-bother I posted, there's one or two from other brewers that absolutely makes me cringe! I know I'm not alone in that. Just proves that one way or another, people will make beer.

 

[Brewmenn]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2011.tb00472.x/pdf

page 217, first paragraph.

The document you linked to started at page 268 and went to page 284. There was no page 217.