What process / technique / piece of equipment has improved your beer the most?!

[JRTurner1234]

Hi All,

What process / technique / piece of equipment has improved your beer the most?!

JT

 

[Queequeg]

Brewpi & chest freezer

 

[bobo31]

RO Filter

 

[Nagorg]

A fermchamber (old upright freezer) and a STC-1000 DIY dual stage controller for temp control! I'm thinking about trying the BrewPi route cause I'm a bit of a geek but the STC-1000 has been awesome.

 

[Braufessor]

Santitation Processes/Star San/PBW
(Getting away from bleach, chlorine, refining my process and attention to detail)

Understanding my water, carbon filtering, blending with RO.
(This is more or less of an issue depending on your water source..... For me, with very high bicarbonate water, chlorine in water source, it was imperative to making good beer. I went almost 15 years without being able to make good pale/hoppy beers with an real consistency.... that all turned around when I learned more about my water.)

 

[myerstyson]

1. cleanliness;
2. excellent ingredients;
3. temp control.

re: 1, I am anal about cleanliness. If anything touches something I already sanitized, I sanitize it again.
re: 2, I buy excellent ingredients and keep them properly stored. Under this, I chalk up water. The water where I live now is incredible. Same with the honey, so I carbonate with honey when I can and do beers with honey as an ingredient,if it makes sense.
re: 3, while I have no capability right now to have a fridge and a temp controller, I do have a room that stays stable, temp-wise, throughout the year.

Below those three, I'd put things like equipment. Having easy to clean equipment sure makes brew day easier, and thus makes me want to brew more often.

 

[bransona]

First major improvement came with controlling fermentation temp and otherwise using yeast that were right for the job. I only have swamp coolers for ferment temp control, so I frequently use us-05 for clean room temperature fermentation, and I make lots of Belgians that free rise. The swamp cooler gets things like s-04 and Windsor.

The second most significant change was fixing my mash ph. My water is already pretty good, but I do full volume biab, so my ph was atrocious. Fixing that turned my beer from decent to "Wow, you made that at home?"

 

[edroberts]

Like most of of the responses:

1. Fermentation temperature control. By far the biggest improvement to beer quality.
2. pH reading or at least proper estimations with Bru-in-Water calculations.
3. Hop bursting/hopstand/FWH etc. Even for non-hoppy beers, I've had a great deal of success in using first wort hopping with bitterness additions then using late hop additions (10 min or less) and/or hopstand additions designed to pull out less bitterness and maintain more hop oils for flavor.

IMHO, equipment additions beyond fermentation control, pH monitoring have diminishing quality returns and more "ease of use" returns.

 

[JohnSand]

Study and practice.

 

[TheCondor]

Using something besides my crappy tap water

 

[ballandkeg]

Fermentation temp control and kegging.

 

[aangel]

In order of priority:

1/2 - sanitation practices / temperature control for fermentation (equally vital)
3 - kegging

 

[55x11]

In order of priority:

1/2 - sanitation practices / temperature control for fermentation (equally vital)
3 - kegging

1. Temperature control for fermentation
2. Kegging / building keggerator
3. Mashtun/Going All-grain
4. Making yeast starters/banking yeast
5. Scaling up from 5G to 10G brewing

(Sanitation is important but I always did it from the beginning - if anything, i relaxed some of the sanitation practices).

 

[antony]

+1 to temperature control/fermentation chamber

kegging is infinitely easier but doesn't necessarily produce better beer.

 

[55x11]

+1 to temperature control/fermentation chamber

kegging is infinitely easier but doesn't necessarily produce better beer.

I was very skeptical and resisted kegging for almost a year. but after biting the bullet, I disagree.

It DOES make a better beer. Especially for IPAs and other quickly fading flavors. You can drink it earlier and it stays fresh for very long time and prevents oxidation/staling.

Also:
1. you can dial carbonation up and down very quickly - taste it and adjust to your taste. This makes a better tasting beer as carbonation is obviously important to taste.
2. You can dry-hop or oak while continuously drinking the beer and stop dry-hopping or oaking (or adding fruit etc.) when it tastes good enough. That's better tasting beer.
3. No sediment or yeast bite. That's better tasting beer to me.

 

[Bilsch]

Without a doubt, reducing hot side oxygenation was by far the biggest improvement to my beers in 31 years of brewing. Night and day difference.

 

[Jaybird]

NO KIDDING? 31 years brewing huh? Well done man! Well done!

My single most important "USE TO" be fermentation temps and understanding what temps in that process did what. But I think I would have to say now more often than not, understanding ingredient participation in the process. I still like the fact that I can control the ferment temps but MAN does my beer turn out better when I understand what goes into it and what part each ingredient brings to the party.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Bilsch]

Interestingly enough, one of your false bottoms was integral in the upgrade to my low oxygen mash system. So thank you and cheers!

 

[Nagorg]

Without a doubt, reducing hot side oxygenation was by far the biggest improvement to my beers in 31 years of brewing. Night and day difference.

Interesting... Unless you are referencing something else, I've been reading and hearing information that suggests HSA isn't a concern. Certainly not on a home brew scale anyway.

An "ExBeeriment" on the topic:
http://brulosophy.com/2014/11/18/is-hot-side-aeration-fact-or-fiction-exbeeriment-results/

 

[RM-MN]

Paint strainer bag. It moved me from extract brewing to all grain.
Temperature control. Got rid of off flavors and fusel alcohol.

 

[mongoose33]

I can't point to any particular thing except moving to all-grain.

I've followed an approach that might be best classified as "continuous quality improvement" where I'm continually moving toward some idyllic "perfect" brewing process. Much, I suppose, like the old puzzle, "If you move toward a wall cutting the distance between you by half each time, how long will it take to touch the wall?" The answer, of course, is that you never touch the wall--but you can get close!

As I've done this, my approach has included changes such as: the water (RO system now, and additions based on a calculator), predicted and resulting mash PH (bought a PH meter to assess that, and I add lactic acid as necessary), crushing my own grain, stirring the mash at least twice, better sparging (I batch sparge), controlling temp of the mash better.

One thing I haven't changed is cleaning/sanitizing; I've always been pretty anal about that.

 

[Pauldoc1031]

Ss brew tech mashtun
Keggle with norcal conversion kit
Temp control

My efficiancy had risen since i got all 3. Still getting used up them but they are all easy to use, clean, and the main maintains temp like no other.

 

[Chiefer]

Ferm Chamber STC controlled

 

[keggert]

The internet. When I first started brewing in the early 80s if you had something go wrong or a bad tasting batch you may never of found out what caused it.

 

[Sir_niveda]

Temperature control definitely helps a lot, after that the next piece of equipment I need to buy is some stainless steel quality patience.

 

[Jps101]

Each played a significant role...not in a particular order

Plate Chiller
eBIAB - electric brewing
Fermentation control
All Grain

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Buying a house rather than renting.

Stay with me here, I know a 100,000 dollar(my house was actually much less than this I am picking a number out of thin air) piece of brewing equipment sounds absurd.

When you live in a college town moving every year is basically a way of life, the slum lords up your rent the maximum they legally can each year and generally low quality of rentals in general. It doesn't make a lot of sense to invest in more than a 1-2 tap kegerator (gotta move that every year) or a temp control fridge cause you gotta move that too. Now I don't have to answer to some slum lord about any alterations I want to do for my brewing hobby and I can build out the things I need to improve my hobby.

 

[TorMag]

From a noob perspective (Started in Dec 15, 3 extract, 2 All Grain) 1. moving to BIAB, 2. Keezer 3. Conical Fast Ferment

 

[GrainToGlass]

Tone down specialty grains
CO2 racking
Water adjustments & chlorine/chloramine removal

 

[Jaybird]

Interestingly enough, one of your false bottoms was integral in the upgrade to my low oxygen mash system. So thank you and cheers!

Well, I am VERY happy to hear that. Glad its working out for you!

Cheers
Jay