So I have been at this off and on for the better part of 5 years.. I am relatively new to this forum, but not necessarily to the craft.. I thought it would be interesting to start a thread identifying the "walls" we all hit in our progression. I also thought it would be fun to clearly identify the things that nearly knocked us off the hobby for good and how we overcame those roadblocks.. I hate to see potentialy awesome homebrewers get discouraged and walk away... So to you veterans.. Lets air out the frustrations.. The things that nearly did you in.. Let's build a knowledge base for those who are on the same track.. Let's save the homebrewers..
So off I go..
1. Bottling - This got old for me really quickly.. Cleaning boat loads of bottles.. Blowing up bottles and having to clean up the mess.. The endless problems with the buckets and their' fittings and their apendages... Blah.. Blah.. Blah.. Keg it and only bottle when you anticipating travelling with your creations.. Bottling sucks.. Period..
2. Fermentation Temperatures - Could never get a repeatable batch.. Beer always tasted like bananas or some other noctious concotion of fruits and rubbing alchohol... I live in texas where summers are hot and winters are hot also.. We dont have any reasonable degree of temperature stabiloty where-in I can find a place in my home to ferment at contant and acceptable temperatures.. My solution.. I bought an el-cheapo aquarium water chiller and use it to keep my spare bath-tub at appropriate temps.. The carboys go in after fermentation has started and we have +-1 deg fermentation temp control year round.. All of the sudden we are making consistently descent beer...
3. Attenuation Issues - I started to notice that my brews all had a similar "character".. This sweetness that i never could pin down.. Regardless of the hop character or style, there was this similarity that just started to get under my craw.. Solution for me was patience and the mastery of the hydrometer.. Some beer take longer than others.. Some yeasts run at different rates... OG and FG... Make it happen..
4. Full-Boils - Holy Crap! Why dont we make a bigger deal of the full-boil step in the brewers progression.. This turned OK beers into truly awesome brews in my particular case.. I know there are gobs of threads on water chemistry and stuff but moving from the ~2.5 gal boils on the stovetop to 10 gal batches in the 15 gal Blingman on a burner in the garage pushed my brews to a new level overnite..
5. Partial Mash - Dunno exactly what it adds to the beer itself, but it ceratainly adds a degree of complexity that I found intoxicating.. Yeah I've been mixing ingriendents, following boil and hop schedule instructions, and making some good beers, but the mash is where the art begins.. Once you get here you are home free.. From here on out you make the descisions, you are designing the beer, you are a brewmiester.. Make yourself a legend..
JT..
Yup..I'm loaded on my own beer.. An IPA that just makes you wanna scrape the IBU's off you tonque and recycle them for the next batch..
So off I go..
1. Bottling - This got old for me really quickly.. Cleaning boat loads of bottles.. Blowing up bottles and having to clean up the mess.. The endless problems with the buckets and their' fittings and their apendages... Blah.. Blah.. Blah.. Keg it and only bottle when you anticipating travelling with your creations.. Bottling sucks.. Period..
2. Fermentation Temperatures - Could never get a repeatable batch.. Beer always tasted like bananas or some other noctious concotion of fruits and rubbing alchohol... I live in texas where summers are hot and winters are hot also.. We dont have any reasonable degree of temperature stabiloty where-in I can find a place in my home to ferment at contant and acceptable temperatures.. My solution.. I bought an el-cheapo aquarium water chiller and use it to keep my spare bath-tub at appropriate temps.. The carboys go in after fermentation has started and we have +-1 deg fermentation temp control year round.. All of the sudden we are making consistently descent beer...
3. Attenuation Issues - I started to notice that my brews all had a similar "character".. This sweetness that i never could pin down.. Regardless of the hop character or style, there was this similarity that just started to get under my craw.. Solution for me was patience and the mastery of the hydrometer.. Some beer take longer than others.. Some yeasts run at different rates... OG and FG... Make it happen..
4. Full-Boils - Holy Crap! Why dont we make a bigger deal of the full-boil step in the brewers progression.. This turned OK beers into truly awesome brews in my particular case.. I know there are gobs of threads on water chemistry and stuff but moving from the ~2.5 gal boils on the stovetop to 10 gal batches in the 15 gal Blingman on a burner in the garage pushed my brews to a new level overnite..
5. Partial Mash - Dunno exactly what it adds to the beer itself, but it ceratainly adds a degree of complexity that I found intoxicating.. Yeah I've been mixing ingriendents, following boil and hop schedule instructions, and making some good beers, but the mash is where the art begins.. Once you get here you are home free.. From here on out you make the descisions, you are designing the beer, you are a brewmiester.. Make yourself a legend..
JT..
Yup..I'm loaded on my own beer.. An IPA that just makes you wanna scrape the IBU's off you tonque and recycle them for the next batch..
