What advice would you have for yourself back when you started out?

[carnevoodoo]

Temperature Control.

 

[DD2000GT]

In order of importance as my experience has found and why:

1 - Use Star San to sanitize instead of bleach! Bleach is hard to rinse completely off (especially since I was VERY anal about sanitation) and gives your beer a bad funky taste in unusually small amounts.
2 - Patience! Green beer sucks and good beer takes about 3 weeks in the primary and 4 weeks in the bottle.
3 - Control fermentation temps! It really is more important to the final product than you initially think.

 

[mmb]

Advice to myself:

Beer takes time. You can't rush it.

 

[McDegga]

My top three are, in almost no particular order;

Buy a wort chiller. This is crucial for lowering your wort to pitching temps very quickly and easily. I built my own in no time and I wish, more than anything else that someone would have told me this when I started.

Sanitize everything. Don't cheat. Do it, and that does include your hands.

RDWHAHB. Seriously. I can't tell you the number of times a beer that was a bit...off came together and was great after I let time do it's magic. There is a reason everyone here says RDWHAHB, it's true. When one thinks of beer, normally the images associated are thos of relaxation, friendship, sports etc. Keep those images in your head, and relax don't worry have a home brew. It's good advice, and true!

Welcome to the addiction!

-E

 

[greywolf]

Sanitize.
Brew in a bag.
When boiling wort on the stove-don't look away or try to do something else, It's just waiting to flood out and soak the stovetop. Especially if your married and only in the kitchen for 'special projects'.

 

[NoCornOrRice]

- Don't shy away from ancient threads, lol
- Don't listen to elitist twits
- Brew what you enjoy
- Don't be afraid to try all-grain
- Kegging is great

 

[Kharnynb]

get steel fermenters, they don't cost the world(should be able to get some decent ones around 80-100 dollars/euro's), they're easier to keep clean, don't break and ruin your day and you can dump them in a cold water bath and the metal will conduct any heat out fast, meaning you can just dump the hot wort straight into the fermenter and avoid one contamination risk of having cold wort in an open fermenter.

 

[toothandnailbrew]

So this would be like whats a mistake I wish I didn't make?
Don't do beer stuff on carpet.
When you go pro buy a good boiler and good floors before you bling

 

[layd0g]

Star-San is reusable
Time heals all things... even beer

 

[Knightshade]

Watch/participate in somebody else's brew session.
Relax......
Don't try to figure it all out at once...RELAX!!!!