What are some of the mistakes you made...where your beer still turned out great!

[sailingbrewer]

I forgot/didnt know to give my first lager a dyactle rest turned out to be the best beer ever

 

[psubrewer]

I forgot/didnt know to give my first lager a dyactle rest turned out to be the best beer ever

Me too, no diacytl rest and severely underpitched a Bavarian lager. It turned out great.

 

[drummstikk]

Me too, no diacytl rest and severely underpitched a Bavarian lager. It turned out great.

Do you guys ever worry that this thread makes people believe they can do things like underpitch a lager and expect it to be "great"?

There are a lot of good brewing habits, especially regarding sanitation and wort production, that are typically overvalued by newbies. As many here have pointed out, you can reach into your unfermented wort to grab a thermometer, and your beer will turn out fine. You can use the wrong hops, leave out an ingredient, or come in 15 points under gravity, and your beer will be fine.

But good fermentation habits are typically undervalued by newbies. It took me months to start pitching enough healthy yeast and doing temperature control, but when I did, my beers got good. Even when I forget ingredients, forget brewing salts, come in under gravity, run out of time and don't adequately cool so I have to leave the wort out overnight in the kettle before racking, all these things: the beer is always ok as long as the fermentation is healthy.

But when I don't have time to make a yeast starter and I pitch one or two vials of yeast straight from my LHBS's cooler, my beer is not fine. It finishes sweet, and the fermentation flavors are generally more muddy. When my fermentation cooler is full and I have to ferment an ale in my apartment at room temp, the fermenting temperature inevitably goes a few degrees too high, and the beer is not fine. It tastes hot, and the esters are never very good after a temperature spike.

I guess what I mean is -- let's be careful about assigning insignificance to the ferment. Please don't encourage the fledgling brewers in our midst to underpitch or ferment hot. We know from experience that unlike sanitation and wort production, small differences in the ferment can have huge impacts on the final beer. A healthy, temperature-controlled ferment is the difference between beer tasting like "beer", and tasting like "a good try". That's not just dogma or ideology: I've experienced it myself, and one commercial brewer after another stresses the ferment as the first place to focus for improved beer quality.

 

[DrunkleJon]

I believe the goal of this thread is to encourage more of a RDWHAHB mentality. Mainly because most new brewers are paranoid as heck that they screwed up. Most new brewers realize that their first batch is not going to be a Chimay or HT or pick your favorite craft brew. This thread is mainly to say that it will become beer, but you do not have to be an expert or a biological scientist in order to make it. If you look at the beginners forum you will see a plethora of "Did I ruin my beer?" posts as well as "Is it infected". This thread is to let the new brewers relax a little and learn as you go and not expect amazing beer right off, but not expect that you are going to be drinking 6 day dead roadkill juice filtered through used TP, but sometimes even us seasoned (I am speaking with a modest 3 years experience here) brewers screw up a step and still come up with something good. Heck, sometimes the best brews we make are the ones that are not recreate-able due to a trial and error, or just plain error. It is not like we are telling them to skip sanitation and not pay attention, just that it is not the be-all end-all if they goof, and some mistakes are not immediate dumpers.

Just my opinion though. Disagree as you will, but in my opinion some learn by positive reinforcement, some by negative, some by reading about it and some by doing.

 

[drummstikk]

Sure, I remember being a newbie and wondering the same things, "Is it infected?" "Did I ruin my beer?" Of course the answer to both is almost always "no".

One of the first beers I ever made, I added some sugar during the ferment. I was so worried about sanitation that after boiling the sugar, I only let it cool for 5 minutes or so before adding it to my fermenter!

The temperature of the beer went up to the high 80's for about 12 hours, and needless to say, it had some off-flavors. It was WLP001, but most people who were trying to be nice said it had some "spicy" or "Belgian" flavors. I entered it in a competition for feedback, and the judges unanimously told me it had too strong of an ester / sulphur profile.

I was so worried about sanitation, but I should have been worried about the fermentation temperature. The best method was of course to boil the sugar, let it completely cool, then add it. But given a choice between the two extremes, I would have been better off just adding the sugar straight to the fermenter without ever sanitizing it.

I wish somebody had told me how important the ferment was, and how unimportant, at least in comparison, sanitation is.

But even that beer wasn't ruined. We finished all 5 gallons after all! So, I think I understand the spirit of this thread.

But don't we serve our new brewers best not by telling them RDWHAHB (Papazian's indelible hippy mark on our hobby), but by telling them what does matter, alongside telling them what doesn't really matter?

Every new brewer wants to make a good beer; that's why they worry. But given that making good beer is the goal, isn't knowing what actually matters for making a good beer the most relaxing thing of all?

Here's an example from cooking: If you watch Good Eats but you've never cooked before, you might think that making breakfast is horrendously complicated. Alton Brown gives recommendations for equipment, ingredients, temperature, seasoning, and on and on. But the only thing that really matters is watching your bacon cook, and taking it off the heat when it looks done.

If you were going to help a newbie in the kitchen relax, this is probably what you'd tell them, "Just watch your food and stop cooking it when it looks edible." That's relaxing advice. But if you told them not to worry about anything, (Relax, Don't Worry, Drink Some OJ), then when their bacon turns out a little well done (edible but not great), they have a giant list of recommendations to try, each with supposedly equal importance. To me, that's anxiety-inducing.

It's obvious not to burn your food because we've all cooked before, but it's not obvious to new brewers that the ferment is more important than wort production. I heard the standard advice to chill out when I was new, but it really just made things worse. I was making beer that was drinkable but not great, and I wanted to make it better. But there was that huge list of techniques and ingredients rolling around in my head, each equal contenders for the cause of my beer's crappiness.

If someone had told me, "Relax, Don't Worry, Do Temperature Control", then I could have actually relaxed, because I would have known one simple thing I could do differently next time.

Maybe the slogans should be this, RDWDCT and RDWMAS (Relax, Don't Worry, Make a Starter".

I think we're right to tell new brewers not to worry, but unless we tell them what to do instead of worrying, we're not doing them any favors.

 

[psubrewer]

Do you guys ever worry that this thread makes people believe they can do things like underpitch a lager and expect it to be "great"?

No, I think its very clear from the thread title.

 

[brewski09]

No, I think its very clear from the thread title.

 

[Rhumbline]

Some people spend their work day dealing with situations where a ten-thousandth of an inch makes the difference between pass and fail or in a world of black and white that doesn't allow for shades of grey.

For me, the joy of brewing is that I can afford to just roll with it. The worst that will happen is I'll waste some time and a few dollars.

My day job satisfies my need for slavish devotion to accuracy and adherence to the rules. Brewing is one of my releases from that.

 

[KavDaven]

I spent the entire brew day sanitizing my equipment in water that I forgot to add starsan to. Beer tastes great. I brewed the exact same IPA a couple weeks later with sanitized equipment and I can't tell the difference between the two.

 

[croakerj]

I spent the entire brew day sanitizing my equipment in water that I forgot to add starsan to. Beer tastes great. I brewed the exact same IPA a couple weeks later with sanitized equipment and I can't tell the difference between the two.

This is excellent

 

[Ianflean]

Did my 3rd brew yesterday.

First brew is bottled conditioned now and I can't believe how good it is. Nothing but astonished praise from friends (mainly Germans, who are not known for their politeness Second was bottled yesterday and tasted lovely.

Couldn't stop myself and did my 3rd after bottling number 2 as my Cascade hops / Carafa Special 3 & wort chiller arrived in the post.

Everything went to plan: steeped the special malts, followed my boil schedule perfectly, then when I put in my wort chiller 15 mins from end of boiler, it reduced the temp to about 90C. I waited and waited, but it just would not get back to 100C! Then I panicked thinking I was messing the hop schedule up so concluded to finish the boil.

No idea if the wort chiller was sanitised or not, but the ale tasted good and 20 hours later is bubbling away steadily.

Maybe i got away with it, we'll see

 

[Cider123]

I didn't realize that I had one of my last batches fermenting in one of my buckets. I had a couple of painful corns and a large bunion on my feet so I soaked my feet in the bucket for several hours. Unfortunately I failed to sanitize my toes before soaking them. I thought it was funny that the soak seemed cooler than usual.

Anyway, I didn't realize until several days later that the beer was supposed to ferment at 64F and my foot soak raised the temp to 66F. Do you think I ruined my beer? Should I add some campton tablets?

 

[Hanso]

Needs more dog.

 

[PastorofMuppets]

one of my first batches was supposed to be a blue moon clone.
I didnt know about late extract editions so it came out much darker than it was supposed to.
The temps for ferment were too high and it had many fruity esters. It turned out to be a really good belgian dubbel and was well received by my friends.

 

[Culbetron]

When bottling my first batch I sanitized everything except the bottle caps.

I made a tripel that I thought waaaay over attenuated and was thinking about adding something or maybe even dumping. After bottle conditioning it was a great great beer. When I bottled it I found the airlock plug in the yeast cake that had fallen in there when I started the ferment.

I made my recipe on Beersmith with 2oz of 5% EKG hops for the 60 min boil. Only after tasting a hydrometer sample after fermentation did I realized that the EKG I used were actually 7%

 

[jonmohno]

Sure, I remember being a newbie and wondering the same things, "Is it infected?" "Did I ruin my beer?" Of course the answer to both is almost always "no".

One of the first beers I ever made, I added some sugar during the ferment. I was so worried about sanitation that after boiling the sugar, I only let it cool for 5 minutes or so before adding it to my fermenter!

The temperature of the beer went up to the high 80's for about 12 hours, and needless to say, it had some off-flavors. It was WLP001, but most people who were trying to be nice said it had some "spicy" or "Belgian" flavors. I entered it in a competition for feedback, and the judges unanimously told me it had too strong of an ester / sulphur profile.

I was so worried about sanitation, but I should have been worried about the fermentation temperature. The best method was of course to boil the sugar, let it completely cool, then add it. But given a choice between the two extremes, I would have been better off just adding the sugar straight to the fermenter without ever sanitizing it.

I wish somebody had told me how important the ferment was, and how unimportant, at least in comparison, sanitation is.

But even that beer wasn't ruined. We finished all 5 gallons after all! So, I think I understand the spirit of this thread.

But don't we serve our new brewers best not by telling them RDWHAHB (Papazian's indelible hippy mark on our hobby), but by telling them what does matter, alongside telling them what doesn't really matter?

Every new brewer wants to make a good beer; that's why they worry. But given that making good beer is the goal, isn't knowing what actually matters for making a good beer the most relaxing thing of all?

Here's an example from cooking: If you watch Good Eats but you've never cooked before, you might think that making breakfast is horrendously complicated. Alton Brown gives recommendations for equipment, ingredients, temperature, seasoning, and on and on. But the only thing that really matters is watching your bacon cook, and taking it off the heat when it looks done.

If you were going to help a newbie in the kitchen relax, this is probably what you'd tell them, "Just watch your food and stop cooking it when it looks edible." That's relaxing advice. But if you told them not to worry about anything, (Relax, Don't Worry, Drink Some OJ), then when their bacon turns out a little well done (edible but not great), they have a giant list of recommendations to try, each with supposedly equal importance. To me, that's anxiety-inducing.

It's obvious not to burn your food because we've all cooked before, but it's not obvious to new brewers that the ferment is more important than wort production. I heard the standard advice to chill out when I was new, but it really just made things worse. I was making beer that was drinkable but not great, and I wanted to make it better. But there was that huge list of techniques and ingredients rolling around in my head, each equal contenders for the cause of my beer's crappiness.

If someone had told me, "Relax, Don't Worry, Do Temperature Control", then I could have actually relaxed, because I would have known one simple thing I could do differently next time.

Maybe the slogans should be this, RDWDCT and RDWMAS (Relax, Don't Worry, Make a Starter".

I think we're right to tell new brewers not to worry, but unless we tell them what to do instead of worrying, we're not doing them any favors.

True. But a new brewer can get overwhelmed with not knowing something. There were a few things that I never learned til after 6 months of brewing. I remember getting all worked up or bent out of shape trying to figure some things out at first. There are things you should be concerned about but then alot of times your worrying about things you dont need to worry about. Also you cant always get answers, people end up repeating themselves to give advice and alot of times what a brewer needs to know exactly doenst get through to him/her or gets left out or not brought up-its hard to troubleshoot what went wrong when someone dosnt know all the exact details of how that persons beer was brewed. For instance what if a brewer had not known his ingredients were old like hops/malt and they were trying to figure out why the beer tasted like azz-when someone just says "you didnt pitch enough yeast" or maybe they simply had chlorinated water but it never got brought about in getting advice. Its why its a good idea to get a book also.

Yes there are certain rules in making good beer and they should be pretty much pointed out in the stickys and from what I remember its discussed in the stickys. A brewer will not get all the advice they need in one or two threads, its an ongoing learning experience. I spent months learning how to brew before buying/beginning-only because I knew it was simple but yet complex. Even after brewing a dozen times I was still learning alot. And there were things I was/wasnt doing that I should have been doing. Its probably rare to have a begginer brewer instantly become an "experienced" brewer. Either your gifted/lucky or practice practice practice.

 

[n00bBrew3r]

constantly taking the airlock out to check for leaks because bubbling is minimal

 

[brewski09]

True. But a new brewer can get overwhelmed with not knowing something. There were a few things that I never learned til after 6 months of brewing. I remember getting all worked up or bent out of shape trying to figure some things out at first. There are things you should be concerned about but then alot of times your worrying about things you dont need to worry about. Also you cant always get answers, people end up repeating themselves to give advice and alot of times what a brewer needs to know exactly doenst get through to him/her or gets left out or not brought up-its hard to troubleshoot what went wrong when someone dosnt know all the exact details of how that persons beer was brewed. For instance what if a brewer had not known his ingredients were old like hops/malt and they were trying to figure out why the beer tasted like azz-when someone just says "you didnt pitch enough yeast" or maybe they simply had chlorinated water but it never got brought about in getting advice. Its why its a good idea to get a book also.

Yes there are certain rules in making good beer and they should be pretty much pointed out in the stickys and from what I remember its discussed in the stickys. A brewer will not get all the advice they need in one or two threads, its an ongoing learning experience. I spent months learning how to brew before buying/beginning-only because I knew it was simple but yet complex. Even after brewing a dozen times I was still learning alot. And there were things I was/wasnt doing that I should have been doing. Its probably rare to have a begginer brewer instantly become an "experienced" brewer. Either your gifted/lucky or practice practice practice.

10,000 hour rule. READ. EVERYTHING.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[unionrdr]

A few months ago,I brewed a couple IPA's,one of them my all-NZ hopped Maori IPA in my ale pail. I realized not cleaning the spigot that time was a bad idea. It got a bad lacto infection by dry hop time,which was 5 weeks. It didn't seem to want to drop into the FG range BS2 determined. Mistake #2. So I skimmed off the lacto funk & sprayed Starsan on it before sealing it up again. On bottling day,I racked out from underneath the smaller amount of funk to the bottling bucket & primed. By the time the bottles had carbed & conditioned,I gave'em a week in the fridge. It came out damn near perfectly normal by drinking time. Just a little tiny bit of Belgiany taste,but it seemed to fit the flavor profile. And I'd dipped the muslin grain bag for the dry hop in Starsan as well. Talk about dodging a bullet!...

 

[brewbama]

I've put isinglass in unsterile water and unsanitized measuring cup into the beer. Right after I did it I thought about sanitation. *Crap*

I've pitched my stir bar right along with my starter. I got it back after primary fermentation. (Glad I have extras)

I've racked my beer from the secondary into a bottling bucket with a leaking spigot. (Why didn't I notice when cleaning and sanitizing?)

I've had the bottling tube come off the spigot during mid keg into the keg. I got it back when the keg was empty.

I've boiled over right after telling SWMBO that I'm becoming a better brewer.

I've left a piece of tubing in Star San solution over night. I only realized it when I was looking for it the next day. I had slime on it and had to re-clean in PBW and re-sanitize.

Broken hydrometers and testing tubes.

I am sure there's more. Wonder what's next. LOL


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[ArkotRamathorn]

Just bottled my chocolate oatmeal vanilla milk stout today and quick did a forced nitrous on 14 oz I didn't feel like putting in a bottle (it was a "sample"). It was in secondary for near as makes no difference 4 weeks with 4 vanilla beans and was in primary for 2 weeks before that so its already super clean, but my screw up.

First, designed the beer thinking 65% efficiency between the oatmeal and the "lets throw a bunch of left over stuff together that's been sitting around" effect. Ended closer to 75% efficiency. Probably due to me sparging the hell out of the grain and ended up having to do a 2 hour boil from a planned 1 hour. Yeast I had didn't seem to be all that viable the wyeast packet didn't swell that much, so with 20 minutes left in the boil, jumped in the car and ran to the lhbs and found the yeast I originally wanted to use, bought that, threw it on top of my defroster and opened the slap pack, got home and brew only went 3 minutes over (123 minute boil written down for future batches).

Took the beer down to the basement to try out my brand fancy spankin new wort chiller, which was working awesome I was at 140 in maybe 10 minutes. My brain literally exploded out of my ears at this point when I realized the cocoa powder addtiion that was supposed to go in right at flame out was still sitting in the garage up stairs. Temp was at like 135 when I got back to the basement and decide "ah, screw it, if it gets infected I'll just say it was meant to be a sour stout from the start" and threw the cocoa powder.

Just did the little nitrous trick I saw on here (with the syringe and stuff) wiith the 14 oz sample. The chocolate comes out so clean with none of the bitter chocolate flavors that I was warned about with using cocoa powder.

This may be the first beer I will feel like I should enter in a competition. I will probably be eviscerated if I enter it as a sweet stout, but I'm happy with it and SWMBO said "I think you did a really awesome job with this one".

 

[binzoq]

A I'm



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[DrunkleJon]

A I'm



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Its posts like these that bring a tear to my eye. The mistake made a beer that killed binzoq. Sanitation is important guys and gals!

 

[Ilan34]

Its posts like these that bring a tear to my eye. The mistake made a beer that killed binzoq. Sanitation is important guys and gals!

Lol

 

[TayHoho]

Down to the last 10 bottles of my first batch and loving it. I managed to drop the bag of steeping grains and had to fish it out, accidentally trapping it against the side of the kettle and giving it a pretty good squeeze in the process. Also realized about a week info fermentation that I didn't completely sanitize my primary fermenter - filled it up with sanitizer to the five-gallon mark, but didn't splash any on the upper section of the bucket. I was dead certain I was smelling apples when I went in to take gravity readings. When bottling, I messed up my bottling wand and had to go straight from the spigot.

But I waited for it to mature, and ended up with something that tasted like beer, and even a beer that I would order over most basic offerings at a restaurant or bar

 

[bleme]

Down to the last 10 bottles of my first batch and loving it. I managed to drop the bag of steeping grains and had to fish it out, accidentally trapping it against the side of the kettle and giving it a pretty good squeeze in the process.

They used to think that squeezing the grains would extract tannins but they have since learned that only heat or pH do that. Feel free to squeeze your bag as much as you like.

 

[boysbrew2012]

I was making a boddingtons clone and propane ran out in a panic I dumped all the hops in and carried it to my stove where I boiled it for one hour .....turned out within 10% of the flavor profile of the real boddingtons ....very happy brewer!!! Only if there was a way to introduce nitrogen into home brew bottling ...if there is let me know!!!!


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[RSpike25]

I've brewed a few dozen batches of beer over the last several years, and I still am just as pessimistic and paranoid as I always was. Part of it is from having a brewing partner who is as anal as I am and we compound each other’s anxiety with an over-cautious and meticulous methodology. The reason I think I'm still paranoid is that pretty much all of the batches of beers we've made from extract to all-grain have had a "taste". The extracts had their own specific recurring "taste," and the all-grains now have had a "taste." Tastes that are described in 'Brew Chem 101' and on-line sources to be results of mistakes or wrong doing. We’ve always been extremely conscious about sanitizing—everything all-the time. We've made many different beers in many different ways: filtered water, treated water, different equipment, different ways of going about everything, yeast starting, fermentation habits, the rate and length of boil, different mashing/sparging approaches. Yet they've all had a similar off flavor or just an off flavor; they've been fine and some good, but usually never what I expect. And there are seemingly no common denominators beyond our habitual meticulousness.
Are we just too anal we're messing up the beer in a consistent way because of our habits? Or will our home-brew never taste like craft brew. Does home brew always have a "taste"? Am I just too harsh, my expectations too high? Because I like beer a lot and have had hundreds of different kinds of beer and those beers never (with the exception of maybe a couple) taste like ours. We always joke and lament over the fact that between the brewing books and on-line opinions there is very little consistency in the details and every time we go to brew one of us has read something that convinces us we did it wrong last time or we need to change how were doing it.
Should I just not be brewing?
Does anyone have any insight in to my problem? Because I think the noobs don’t want to become perpetual noobs like me.

 

[boysbrew2012]

If you are cleaning everything correctly and brewing everything correctly each beer should be unique! If you have your doubts break apart every ball bearing socket, soak your gear in pbw and star San ,bake your wort chiller and run sodium hydroxide through it ....spend a day on thorough cleaning...go purchase a beer kit and get it done according to the directions and see if that beer tastes the same as you remember it...sometimes the only way Is to destroy your foundation and start up again using simple methods


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[brandonman]

After worrying and fretting, as a newbie, I'd just like to pop in for fellow first-time brewers:

Always remember that yeast evolved producing alcohol from fermentable sugars, and that they've been selected for over centuries to do their job DAMNED well, even during times when we didn't even know bacteria existed! :rockin: