What's your "burn" rate?

[Willy]

For this thread - your burn rate is based on how many batches you brew before you get a clunker. No, not just the gross throw it out before the CDC shows up, bad... Include a batch that is just lame enough to toss, and you would prefer to replace it cause you ain't feeling it.
Basically - how many batches does it take to get a "tosser".

I did a recount over the last few years and mine is 1 in 30 batches. (Or about 3.3% are not good enough ).

Curious - if you have been brewing a while - what's your burn rate?

 

[mac_1103]

I can honestly say that I have never brewed a beer that was bad enough to just toss. Wines and ciders, yes, but not beers. They certainly aren't always awesome or anything like that, but they've all been drinkable.

Of course I've jinxed it now...

 

[Willy]

I can honestly say that I have never brewed a beer that was bad enough to just toss. Wines and ciders, yes, but not beers. They certainly aren't always awesome or anything like that, but they've all been drinkable.

Of course I've jinxed it now...

Might as well make a batch you can sacrifice. Haha.

 

[Snuffy]

If I brew it, I drink it. I'm a masochist that way.
If I was to dump the stinkers, then 1 in 30 sounds about right.

 

[Ninoid]

Brew beer since 2018 (nearly 300 batches). For the first two years I would throw away almost every tenth batch (mostly due to too much experimentation, especially with yeasts), but after that I don't remember (not to curse) brewing a beer so bad that I would have considered throwing it away. Yes, I had one batch last summer during a severe heat wave when it went to nearly 40'C because I wasn't home to save it and that's where I threw it away.
Always the same process and the same tried and tested yeast and no more problems.

 

[sibelman]

I've been brewing for almost 45 years. My better quality records include 208 batches over the past 18 years. I've dumped two: an incredibly lame porter, and an overhopped ESB that I just couldn't enjoy. Almost dumped a hop-burned NEIPA once, but it settled down.

 

[Flushot22]

I've brewed some pretty disappointing beers, but none bad enough to toss. I've cut a couple short of finishing (1 gallon at most) because I only have a 1 tap kegerator and had a beer I expected to be much better on deck. But I was just being impatient.

 

[dmtaylor]

I am my own worst critic, so... for about the first 10 years, on average I dumped about every 7th or 8th batch. Lots of experimentation, poor recipes, contamination, etc. Since then the average has steadily climbed towards every 11 or 12, to 16 or 17, and now it's been more than 20 batches since I had to dump any, though some of them were not stellar but I drank them anyway -- I mean, not dumpers, but not great beers by any stretch. But many, or -- dare I say -- most batches, these days, are pretty darn great. At least, relatively speaking. Sometimes I feel like maybe I might actually be getting the hang of this. Then as soon as I think that, I get a batch that's very mediocre. If it's bad, I am NOT afraid to dump it out. So maybe I'm overdue now for my next bad one. Not the last few batches, though, they've been great.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

Over 500 batches in and never dumped one. I'm not saying they were all great. I just drank/learned from my mistakes and/or just kept trying the beer after a period of time to see if they improved - they didn't.

 

[Willy]

At my age ... I follow this motto -
you are too old to drink mediocre beer.

One I dumped last year - was using a Belgium dry yeast - clover and peppery. Not my cup of tea. I am sure the beer was fine, I didn't like the yeast taste profile. (I don't like Brussel Sprouts... I am sure they are terrific. Not for me).

The other dumper are a poorly conceived porter with too much roasted malt that didn't carb well in the bottle ... Tried to fix and failed. A while ago.

 

[tdf]

Every mediocre beer I pour out is an opportunity to drink a better one. As long as I have my brewing pipeline going, I'm happy to dump something that wasn't great or (usually) something that stuck around too long. Probably 1 in 4 kegs I will end up dumping 20% or more of it once the beer is past its prime. Probably 1 in 15 will I dump sooner than that.

 

[Willy]

Every mediocre beer I pour out is an opportunity to drink a better one. As long as I have my brewing pipeline going, I'm happy to dump something that wasn't great or (usually) something that stuck around too long. Probably 1 in 4 kegs I will end up dumping 20% or more of it once the beer is past its prime. Probably 1 in 15 will I dump sooner than that.

I understand this. The speed that something gets tossed is directly related to the replacement corny keg.

 

[MaxStout]

It's been a long time, but I had two dumpers in a row. Both infected, completely undrinkable. That's when I REALLY took sanitation to heart. Nothing like that since, though I usually find some little fault or two in each batch so I try to do better. I'm my own worst critic. After about 100 batches, 2 dumpers makes ~1/50. The rest are mostly "ok" to "good," and a few turn out great, but no matter what I'll drink them to remind myself 50 times to not make a certain mistake again.

My friends and neighbors always say my beer is great, but probably being nice so I won't stop sharing.

 

[Lampy]

I have pretty much never actually dumped a batch. I have unfortunately had a couple of hopped LME kits I recently was gifted that are basically undrinkable, but not uncookable!

 

[Tony B]

I’ve been brewing for a little over a year now. Without my notes, I think I’m in the neighborhood of 30 batches brewed. I haven’t dumped any. Some have been great, most have been mediocre and a few were not great, but drinkable.

I just kegged my most recent batch, a Kölsch. I racked it over last night and took a hydrometer sample. I tasted and smelled it. It’s got a bit of banana going on. Not ideal, but I’m hoping it mellows and either way it’s not so unpleasant as to make me consider dumping it.

For me there would have to be a pretty serious issue with a batch to dump it. The thought of throwing away the time in planning, brewing and packaging, not to mention the cost of ingredients doesn’t sit well. Unless, of course it were infected or really unpleasant.
I’m sure I will have some of those in the future. As others have said… I sure hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

 

[Snuffy]

I agree with this. The issue would have to be catastrophic for me to dump it. I think I have the process with the equipment I have now to consistently produce good clean beer. The times I have been seriously disappointed in a brew have always been times when I've colored outside the lines. That is kind of maddening because I like throwing a curve into a recipe now and then. I order ingredients from a place that only sells round quantities. Recipe calls for 9.5 lbs but I have 10. Ah WTH, toss it all in. I have this extra 1/2 oz of Magnum... toss that in as extra bittering. Yeesh that's got a pong to it I don't remember. Not optimal, but drinkable. I'm not perfectionist enough to give up that easy.

 

[HM-2]

In five years of brewing and approximately 70 batches I've had exactly one dumper. That was an Altbier that in hindsight probably just needed four months conditioning but smelled like liquid manure.

Even my horribly autolysed Belgian pale didn't get chucked. It went into a keg with a big dose of a Brett blend for six months and ended up being excellent.

 

[bwible]

Most of the time if I’m trying to get rid of a beer its because I want the tap for something else thats ready or near ready. And one of my kegerators has 2 taps for kegs but that one is also my lagering fridge. So if there’s beer in there I need to get it out before I can make a lager.

 

[BeerNsteadofH2O]

It had been about 5 years since my last Skunk- that one had a swamp cooler failure that led to the fermentation getting to about 90 degrees F..-I bottled It but. It was was worse than undrinkable, I learned more from that skunkfest than I ever did from a sucess..
Recently, my grandson came over with a all grain kit he had been "meaning " to brewed but never had the equipment or opertunity, so against my better judgements, we brewed it, fermented and bottled the year old grains, yeast and hops, well, it's supposed to be an. NEIPA, ,she's got some stale, almost musty after taste, very little hop flavor or aroma, just the bitterness, it's salvaged by serving it Ice cold with a wedge of lemmon...@ 4.6 ABV it c a n be pounded cold and not dump ed- another lesson learned- use old grain as bird food, not brewing ingredients.

 

[jdauria]

I have about 225 batches under my belt and can say I have only dumped two, a stout that was way to tart and a beer that got infected. (knock on wood) Meanwhile I have made just three meads and 1 was a dumper, so my mead burn rate is 33%.

I had made a Catharina Sour with pink guava puree, and when I ordered the puree, the company sent me a 44 lb package instead of a 11 lb that I ordered. 6 lbs of it went in the beer, 20 lbs went into the mead and the rest I gave away. Anyway, i was not really thinking about how to strain the puree bits out of the mead...I let it sit for months thinking it would settle to the bottom...it barely did. So had to pour the mead through a BIAB bag to try to capture the sludge, then had to squeeze the bag to get mead still trapped in the sludge....anyway, you see where this is going...the mead wound up being oxidized crap.

 

[Miraculix]

I experiment a lot with processes and so on, so for me it's probably every fifth. Without that, probably 1 in 30 as well.

 

[tracer bullet]

I did a recount over the last few years and mine is 1 in 30 batches. (Or about 3.3% are not good enough ).

I'd guess something similar. The last one for me was maybe 4 years ago, and I brew maybe 10 times a year. I know that's 1:40 but there were a couple before then that were quicker.

* Very first batch on my AIO tasted like fireworks (sulphur). No copper rod or other tricks got rid of it and it was strong. I don't know if I didn't clean it well enough before first use, or it was the yeast (shipped and took a full week to arrive, in the summer, but the pack swelled so I went for it). 2 lessons learned.
* An experience with my "Catalyst" fermenter, involving hops trapped in a gasket that I missed while cleaning, turning fuzzy.
* An Imperial Stout that had soured, but not in a good way.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

I don't count my batches, maybe I should, but brewing an average of once a month for 14 years is 168 and probably a few more then that, about 7 years ago I stepped up to making 15 gallon batches, I have not dumped a 15 gallon batch to date, when I increased batch size I was even more cautious with my process because it's more expensive to brew on that scale. I have dumped 3 batches of the 5 gallon variety, all of which were experimental, one was my first attempt at a fruited sour, another was a pepper beer that got infected which was disappointing because it was good before the infection, third what a batch that I did early on in my homebrew journey, don't remember exactly what the deal was with that one but it was back before I started kegging, and I recall that I didn't even bother bottling it... I'm not gonna say every beer has been great, but it's gotta be bad for me to dump, as in infected.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

I've been brewing for 40+ years and like most of us have had a few septic tank enhancers. It's part of brewing and learning.

Some batches have been less than stellar but drinkable. Fruit additions can cover a multitude of off flavors.

As noted, good sanitation after thoroughly cleaning is your best way to avoid a bad batch.

 

[Bobby_M]

If I don't love the beer, I don't drink it. That's not as full of snobbery as it sounds but more a fact that I only have 3-4 beers a week and there is isn't enough room in that budget for meh. Another way to look at it is if you're not dumping a few batches, you're not experimenting enough. It's like asking how much do you fall when skiing.

 

[An Ankoù]

I think I've nailed sources of infections and sanitation issues. I tend to experiment with harvesting yeasts. A new culture will go into a small, 10 litre batch to see whether it tastes as it should. I've sometimes been caught out by the brewer using bottling yeasts for "refermentation". These don't work well or taste good.
Rather than dump a batch, I sometimes dump the remaining bottles of a beer I've kept too long and has lost it's freshness. One particular best bitter tasted lovely when fresh, but bcame tired very quickly. I tried it 3 times and I know it was the yeast as I don't have oxidation issues with other beers. Many english yeasts that have evolved in a cask environment, don't necessarily lend themselves ti bottling, I've found.
I may have a dumper through being a complete idiot and pitching a Belgian saison yeast into a pilsner by mistake. Then racked the beer onto a proper pilsner slurry to try to save the day. I need to have a look at this one this morning so I'd better get up.

 

[Miraculix]

If I don't love the beer, I don't drink it. That's not as full of snobbery as it sounds but more a fact that I only have 3-4 beers a week and there is isn't enough room in that budget for meh. Another way to look at it is if you're not dumping a few batches, you're not experimenting enough. It's like asking how much do you fall when skiing.

Beautiful view on things. Couldn't have said it better. Including the amount of beer per week.

 

[bruce_the_loon]

Dumped one batch only so far and that was because it became seriously over-carbonated and I was scared to leave it, so popped all the caps and dumped it. Never figured out why, it was the first attempt at a stout with golden oat malt. Next one worked okay. Still a bit over-carbonated, but not a risky one. Just needs bleeding of the bottles first.

 

[worlddivides]

Two? So no idea what the rate would be, but very low. I dumped one batch before I bottled it because it got infected. I dumped another batch that tasted amazing because I was... "worried" about it (it would be too long of an explanation to go into all that here). Then there was a batch that I didn't dump but had a bottle bomb a few months after I bottled it that I put all the other bottles in the fridge (I think it was only like 6 or 7 bottles left at that point), but none of the other bottles were over-carbed, so I think only one of the bottles got an infection in it. Other than those, I had a few batches early on that I probably would dump now but that I didn't then (such as my first batch which was fermented too warm or one I did maybe 6 months after that with a flavor combination I thought would be good but turned out pretty meh).

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

If I don't love the beer, I don't drink it. That's not as full of snobbery as it sounds but more a fact that I only have 3-4 beers a week and there is isn't enough room in that budget for meh. Another way to look at it is if you're not dumping a few batches, you're not experimenting enough. It's like asking how much do you fall when skiing.

How often do you brew and how many of those batches don't get kept? Do the less than stellar ones get served to your friends? I can see that as a less wasteful option provided they're not horrible. I gave brewed batches that are so good I don't want to share.