Tips from the trenches

Since starting to brew a year ago I have spend countless hours reading about brewing, listening to people talking about brewing, and of course brewing!
This is a brief compilation of lessons learned over my first year cutting my teeth in this hobby (not in any particular order).

1. Understanding the process. I started out by reading Charlie Papazian's "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing". This book does an excellent job of breaking down the brewing process, ingredients, etc. Another must read title is John Palmer's "How to Brew". Palmer has excellent info, this book will push your brewing to a whole new level.

2.No matter how bad you screw up it will usually end up being beer, or vinegar, or bad wine. So don't worry, just brew something!

3. SANITATION SANITATION SANITATION!! Brewers are just janitors who can cook :). Keep things clean, especially things coming into contact with unfermented beer. Nothing gets uglier quicker than nasties in your unfermented wort. Also stay away from Bleach as a sanitizer. Stick with Star San (my first choice) and Iodophors (my second choice).

4. Yeast. Yeast is an incredibly important and often overlooked ingredient. All yeasts are not created equal. Buy good quality liquid yeast and grow nice, big, healthy starters. You will notice such an improvement in you beer once you start using the appropriate yeast and you start pitching big healthy starters.

5. Extract Brewing. No matter what some brewers will tell you, Extract Brewing is NOT the devil. I have made lots of REAL good extract beer, good enough to win awards up against all-grain brews. Refine your brewing process, use fresh ingredients, keep everything clean, use lots of healthy yeast...that is what matters. That being said, all-grain brewing is the ultimate way to take control of your brewing. Don't let anyone tell you that Extract Brewing isn't real brewing.

6. Podcasts. Listen to the Brewing Network's podcast's. The Sunday Session, the Jamil Show, Brew Strong and the "Other" show are a wealth of information. They will also make your spouse homicidal if you make them listen to it in the car on road trips.

7. Kegs. Get away from bottling. I have found peace and inner happiness by not bottling for hours on end! Kegging is one of the best things that will happen to your beer and to your sanity. Transferring 5 gallons of fresh beer into bottles is time consuming and exposes your beer to oxygen...no bueno! Being able to completely control the carbonation, dry hopping in kegs, addition of additives like coffee...all things that are made easy by kegging. It is something that everyone puts off because of the expense and then immediately wishes they would have done it months or years ago. I now bottle for competitions or for friends and there is a VERY simple way to do this straight off the keg and without buying a counter-pressure filler...keep watching the blog and I will show you how to do it in the near future.

8. Enter a competition! If you have any interest in refining and perfecting your recipes, entering a competition is the way to do that. Your friends will chug your beer all day and blow sunshine up your ass about how awesome your beer is..mainly because it is free and cold! Not to say that I blame them. If you truly want un-biased objective feedback on your beer enter a comp. It usually costs only a few dollars and it can help you detect fix flaws in your beer.

9. Monitor your gravity. THIS is how you know when your beer is finished. Disregard the airlock or the instructions on your beer about leaving it in the fermenter for X amount of weeks. Take gravity readings throughout your brewing process. Once you see that gravity number stabilize (this will be different for every batch of beer) and level off you are done.

10. Brew Something. There is no better learning tool than trial and error. Brew and brew often. you can read all the book you want but this is where the rubber meets the road. Pay attention to your process and sanitation and get brewing!

11. Fermentation. Process of transferring all of your beer into a secondary fermentation vessel is normally totally unnecessary and potentially damaging to your beer. Unless there is a compelling reason (aging, clarification, etc.) leave your beer in a single fermentation vessel until you bottle or keg the beer.

Brew Strong!!

Joel