What is that one homebrewing task you just refuse to do? Other than bottling...

[beerisyummy]

+3 on not washing yeast, that always sounded like huge PITA. If I wanna use a 2L starter, I'll make 3 and save 1 in an airtight container in the fridge, then make another starter from that for the next batch. Works great.

 

[PrrCabin]

Been told many times but can't stop....drinking while brewing!

I start my brews about 5am. Way too early to start drinking.

 

[TurnipGreen]

i don’t like making starters at all. I will how ever make a 2 or 3 gallon batch of table lager/ale out of second runnings mostly to build up a pile of yeast. And I keep a lot of jars full of slurry in the fridge.

I also don’t like checking gravity. Original gravity and final is all I check.

 

[grampamark]

I start my brews about 5am. Way too early to start drinking.

You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.

 

[mongoose33]

For me, it's multi-step starters. I happily make a starter with a 1.6 liter jar of canned wort, but stepping up a few stages of different sizes is just no fun for some reason. I'll compromise and use multiple packs of whatever dry yeast is close enough instead of doing that.

I don't even make an oversize starter for lagers. Not sure if I "refuse" to do it, but it's not necessary. I build a normal 1-liter starter, and try to time it so that at about 15 hours--when the starter is going great guns--that's when I pitch it. All of it goes into the fermenter, no crashing, no decanting, nothing like that.

I chill the wort to about the same temp as the starter--typically about 70 degrees--so that when the starter goes in, the yeast are not shocked. Instead, they find themselves in a sugar-rich environment, freshly oxygenated, and they take off. I'll leave the wort at 70 degrees for 6-8 more hours, then start ramping it down to 50 degrees. Hold it there until halfway attenuated, then start ramping up 4 degrees every 12 hours to 66 degrees, where it finishes.

It works. I wonder how much of the advice on how to do starters and such come from the days when yeast was...well, less reliable, less well understood, and certainly at much lower cell counts than we can get today.

 

[PrrCabin]

You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.

Way to funny LOL

 

[CascadesBrewer]

For me, it's multi-step starters. I happily make a starter with a 1.6 liter jar of canned wort, but stepping up a few stages of different sizes is just no fun for some reason. I'll compromise and use multiple packs of whatever dry yeast is close enough instead of doing that.

Many years ago I got a "yeast starter kit" that had a 1 Liter flask. For many years I make pretty solid beer making a 16 oz starter the day before brew day and pitching the entire starter. These days I understand these are more of a "vitality starter" but the process has worked for me and I mostly refuse to do a multi-step starter. I don't often plan my brew days a week in advance or I change my plans the day before brew day.

To some extent, this has pushed me to enjoying my 2.5 gal batches more. I can pitch a pack of White Labs yeast without a starter and not feel guilty. I don't need 1 gal starters for a 1.100+ beer. Often I am just pitching 8oz or 16oz of slurry without making a starter and it is working well for me.

 

[Amadeo38]

-Check pH (aka buy a pH meter) on my kettle sours
-Lodo procedures (except milling on brew day...that one is easy)
-upgrade to the latest beersmith
-sanitize scissors before cutting the dry yeast satchet
-wait the full 60 seconds after spraying with Star San (I usually make it 30-45 before impatience sets in)

 

[Saunassa]

The highly detrimental practice of yeast rinsing (sometimes wrongly called washing, an entirely different thing) is one of those zombie homebrew myths with no foundation in science. Laziness has served you well! [emoji16]

I just do it once to get the major crud out and call it good.

At this point don't dry hop or build up starters.

 

[jonny24]

-sanitize scissors before cutting the dry yeast satchet
-wait the full 60 seconds after spraying with Star San (I usually make it 30-45 before impatience sets in)

YES to these two. Dunno if I always make it to 30, depends how close I was to whatever I was doing.

 

[odie]

yeast starters, water chemistry, worry about oxygen, bottling

 

[balrog]

I just thought of another thing I refuse to do
Take anyone's word for anything unless I test it
If it comes out opposite to common knowledge, I test it again
If it still comes out differently, I figure I'm in some kind of galactic cosmological wormhole where the laws of brewing are contrary to the norm, and I do what works for my corner of the universe.

 

[Robert65]

I figure I'm in some kind of galactic cosmological wormhole where the laws of brewing are contrary to the norm

Or "everybody's common knowledge" is just parroted BS and you're one of the rare individuals who actually questions it and learns the truth. Good for you.

 

[kingmatt]

I actually love making things overcomplicated and tweaking things in an effort to improve my beer. I figure if I am going to put in the time and effort to brew a beer in the first place, I don't mind spending a few extra minutes to check my pH or make a starter if it can make the beer better...

That said, one thing I don't do enough is re-brew the same recipe multiple times.

 

[enkamania]

Adding oxygen before pitching. I pump my wort in the fermenter, pitch my yeast and I'm done.

 

[bleme]

Take anyone's word for anything unless I test it

I'm not quite that bad. I assume 'common knowledge' is true until I prove it false and usually only test those things that don't make sense to me.

That said, one thing I don't do enough is re-brew the same recipe multiple times.

I can think of 3 recipes that I have re-brewed. If that is a rule, it sucks!

 

[balrog]

I have rebrewed recipes few times, owing to raw material changes where I buy (Warminster MO vs Bairds MO, Sterling sub for Saaz, Liberty for Hallertau, that sort of thing) or wanting to try different yeasts with same (essential) grists. Along with process hiccups, it becomes quite the multivariate analyses with significant sparse matrix data gaps. Then there's the drinking...

 

[bobeer]

I refuse to worry, or take myself too seriously.
I do like good beer, of course, and want to make it as good as I can -
so I do take sanitation and such seriously - but if I'm a few points off in my Sg I don't worry too much about it -
FG I haven't had much issue since I went all grain.
I haven't gotten too much into water treatments yet - maybe somewhere along the way.
I take a gravity at pitch, then near bottling / kegging.
Definintely not one to open every day to see how it's going - and taking gravities, therefore using a gallon or so along the way.

I was just going to say "worry." I refuse to worry about most of the stuff that is asked these days. Been brewing for almost a decade and only have produced a few batches of total swill. Overall, i think a lot of brewers overthink and worry too much. I brew beer to have fun and drink the freshest beer in town; not to worry. I can see beginners getting the beginner's worries but once you have a process dialed in and have a general idea of how brewing works you should be all set. Still the love the quote of "If you can make a box of mac and cheese you can make beer."

 

[moreb33rplz]

no aeration, no starters. shlups

 

[jrgtr42]

Still the love the quote of "If you can make a box of mac and cheese you can make beer."

When I tell people I homebrew, and they express amazement, I just shrug and say, "it's like making soup - except for the fermentation part."

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

....Then there's the drinking...

That’s the only part of my process that remains consistent

 

[beersk]

I refuse to get a pH meter. That's been the one thing I've refused since I started brewing. Sure, I'm sure my pH isn't perfect, but close enough is good enough.

 

[Jerome Sidley]

I start my brews about 5am. Way too early to start drinking.

WHAT I'm not supposed to do that???

 

[jschein]

WHAT I'm not supposed to do that???

No, carry on with your process

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I refuse to fly sparge. I just cannot fathom the value vs either no sparge or batch sparge. My day is long enough without adding a 45 minute long sparge process.

 

[Positronic_Matrix]

Conical fermenter because racking into a secondary is not going to happen.

 

[Soulshine2]

For me, it's multi-step starters. I happily make a starter with a 1.6 liter jar of canned wort, but stepping up a few stages of different sizes is just no fun for some reason. I'll compromise and use multiple packs of whatever dry yeast is close enough instead of doing that.

i dont make starters. I use dry yeast, no problems.

 

[Jag75]

Cold crashing

 

[rhys333]

I second that. No cold crashing. I don't need to though, as my beers turn out weirdly clear.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Cold crashing is great if it can be done under positive CO2 pressure. How many (most?) homebrewers do it is a disaster.

 

[day_trippr]

^that^

 

[rhys333]

Cold crashing is great if it can be done under positive CO2 pressure. How many (most?) homebrewers do it is a disaster.

AKA chilled carbonated beer?

 

[Qhrumphf]

AKA chilled carbonated beer?

Not necessarily. Just needs to be enough CO2 to prevent O2 being drawn in by the vacuum created during crashing as the pressure drops. Some people just use a balloon filled with CO2 from fermentation.

 

[friarsmith]

I'm pretty sure the pale I made earlier this month was fermented on lager yeast instead of the Notty it should have had, but it turned out great anyway. Pretty much just grab a jar, smell it, and if it doesn't smell "off" I'll use it, even if the beer I'm pitching it on isn't the same.

Hah Hah. Last fall I accidentally pitched a quart slurry of WY West Coast IPA yeast in a 10g fermenter of CZ Lager but didn't realize it until two days later when I went looking for the jar of the IPA yeast for another beer. Completed the fermentation in the 50's as planned with the ale yeast and the beer turned out great. No esters. Clean. Tasted pretty Czech to me...

 

[tellyho]

Hah Hah. Last fall I accidentally pitched a quart slurry of WY West Coast IPA yeast in a 10g fermenter of CZ Lager but didn't realize it until two days later when I went looking for the jar of the IPA yeast for another beer. Completed the fermentation in the 50's as planned with the ale yeast and the beer turned out great. No esters. Clean. Tasted pretty Czech to me...

Another arrow in the not-to-style quiver. What rules can't we break?