Recap 2012: The good, the bad, the bubbles

I used to take the cooled wort down the basement stairs to pour into the fermenter. Now I take the carboy outside and pour from the pot without disturbing as much, I get a lot less sediment in the filter that way.

Also made a pumpkin beer with 4 oz. of wheat that somehow came out tasting like a wheat beer. Don't think I'll be using wheat again any time soon.

 

Memorable experience: Stuck sparge when using adjuncts - happened multiple times. Problem solved by transferring mash to paint strainer. Lesson: use rice hulls and keep strainer bag on hand.

 

I just started brewing in January after reading about it for a while. I brewed about 15 or so batches, including 2 partial mash beers and have learned a lot along the way. I've learned I can never drink as much as I brew so I share a pretty good amount with friends and family. I like experimenting with the harder to get hops such as Nelson and citra because I can rarely find commercial examples. Although I should have already known, I learned at if you want to brew a Belgian style that is hoppy you need a lot more hops than with a neutral yeast.

I've had a blast brewing and even built my own kegerator this year and never looked back. Hopefully in 2013 I'll move to all grain and I already have a stir plate coming in the mail to improve my starters.

Memorable experience: brewing the beer served at my wedding.

Oh and I make sure to use blow offs when fermenting the first couple days. I brewed a double IPA with yeast that I had from a local brewery and not only did the airlock blow off but the krausen was actually coming out of the carbon with 1.5 gallons worth of headspace.

 

I've been brewing for about a year and it just occurred to me that I've gained exactly 1 pound for every batch of beer I've made. Dammit! This does not bode well for 2013. And here I am trying to scale up my operation......guess I need to share more......anybody want a beer? I'm pouring

 

Water chemistry for me. I started brewing with hard water and never really got into the chemistry and seldom had to adjust mash pH for any beer.

Then I moved and everything was different. Found out I now had soft water, so I started with the water chemistry. Definately makes a difference.

 

I learned that I do not like brewing outside in 90 degree heat!

 

Successes: All of my IPAs, pale ales, elderberry wheat, American stout.

Failures (or at least partial failures): English IPAs (2), failure to add enough priming sugar on an ESB. For whatever reason my English IPAs haven't been all that great, but they were drinkable.

Improvements: moved to all grain successfully. Invested in a freezer chest with controller, and a turkey fryer for outdoor brewing. No regrets there!

For the new year: Maybe kegging if I can afford it. Improve and perfect my all grain processes. Get my brother to start liking IPAs.

 

this year I finished rebuilding the brewery, turning it into superheat direct steam injection RIMS. It's been a great project from me and my brewing buddy having a few and coming up with the idea, to design and buliding and finally learning how to brew on it. haven't perfected it yet but so far i'm diggin it.

 

My worst and best experience of the year revolved around a pale ale I brewed for a friend's birthday bottle share. I decided to make a hop bomb of a pale (Hopbursted, huge whirlpool addition, hopback and double dry hopping) centered around falconer's flight, citra and amarillo, with a light and biscuity malt bill, calculated: 45 IBU, O.G. 1.050, F.G. 1.010. I brewed the beer later than expected and was only able to do a single dry hop before fining, kegging and carbing. I tasted the beer, hated it, but had to take it to the party... other than the overly gracious hosts, it seemed that no one liked the beer, and the feedback I got universally was "Smells great, but just tastes generic and is overly bitter". Reactions from my homebrew club were identical.

Since I brewed a 10 gallon batch, I took the remaining 5 gallon keg, and added a mix of Citra hops and amarillo hops for my second dry hop, left them in for 2 weeks at lager temps, and bottled for competitions. After I sent off bottles, I decided to taste one, and was blown away how much better the beer was, very dry (finished at 1.006), but had a nice biscuity malt backbone, and was incredibly fragrant and flavorful. Three weeks latter it netted me a best of show at a ~300 person comp, beating out my own milk stout (A beer I liked from the beginning). Goes to show you to not give up on a beer, and also, my personal opinion here, that dry hopping can add a ton of flavor and aroma, especially since aroma and flavor perception are so linked.

 

My only real flop this year was a Berliner Weiss. I made 10 gallons, split 5 and 5, treated both of them the exact same, and one turned out nice, and one had an extremely off-putting rubbery flavor to it. So, I added about 5 lbs of frozen raspberries to it, and it tasted like raspberry rubber, with a touch of musty flavor. I got thru it mostly, giving a lot of it away. The other 5 was great, winning a few medals, but I'm not sure what happened to the other.

It's been an awesome competition year this year. Took the Midsouth Brewer of the Year and GA Brewer of the Year, and took BOS medals in 5 out of 6 competitions I've entered. That said, I didnt take any 1st place BOS this year, which kind of sucks. I won my first Mead medal(s) this year which was another goal I had.

Next year, I am not going to compete all that much, and going to focus on experimenting and playing with sours and such. I'm (hopefully) moving into a house soon, so I hope to build a nice brew set up in the coming year, as well. Between the move and building that, I should be pretty busy. I would also like to make a bunch of big beers next year, for future comps and drinking.

I would like to compete in the NHC again, but might wait until 2014. The timing isnt the best for me and my usual brew schedule, but we will see.

 

I've been experimenting a lot recently with 100% Brett beers. I would say this year I've learned and improved the most on water chemistry and I can finally control my fermentation temperature. I've also learned that I really don't like lactose, even if its just a small amount...now I have 2 cases of a beer I don't want to drink.

Next year I'm going to hopefully start kegging and hopefully start entering competitions. I'm also going to get my souring program running so I have more then just one batch every year and a half :/

 

First I want to thank all of the BA homebrewers because not only have I learned from having my questions answered but have probably learned more from reading all of yours. This is a great community and I thank you for letting me be part of it. I started researching back in March and brewed my first batch in June. I have honestly learned more about beer in the last 6 months than I learned in 10+ years of drinking craft beer.

My most memorable moment so far was my first brew day. I had a brand new outdoor burner that I had never used. Got everything prepared and started my water and cracked a beer. However for some reason it took me over an hour just to get a tiny boil going. By the end of the day it seemed like everything went wrong and I was half drunk because I started drinking to early. I was dejected and thought my first brew was ruined.

The next day I came on here and posted about the burner. Someone suggested that I might have opened the valve on the burner 1st before opening the valve on the tank. I went home and tried the correct order and I could tell right away that was the problem since my burner now sounded like a rocket engine. I immediately felt better knowing that I would not have this problem next time. And in the end the beer turned out a lot better than I thought it would.

 

I learned (the hard way) that my mash tun holds 28lbs. of grain and strike water (not 30lbs).

 

The good: I started actually participating on BA forums this month instead of lurking all the time. Clicked on this section for the first time about a month ago and brewed my first batch, a chocolate oatmeal stout on Thursday, so far so good.

The bad: I've spent way too much money on beer this year.

For next year, instead of investing in beer other people brewed, I will continue to invest and improve on brewing my own.

 

Well, this being my first full year in Philly, a few things finally hit me that hadn't really sank in before (and the first two go for all consumables, since I work as a cook, not just my homebrewing).

1. Most people prefer to be critics, they are afraid to create.
2. A good amount of people who take up a hobby will half-ass it so their feelings won't be hurt if it doesn't turn out right
3. "Wow, this tastes like real beer" is a great compliment.
4. Adapt to your environment. Brew more Belgians than you can drink in the summer, and don't be afraid to experiment. Brew your heavies in the winter, they'll last and the journey they make over a year is incredible. There aren't many problems that more hops won't take care of (as a stop-gap solution).
5. Golden promise works as a great base malt for many, many styles

 

Mash thicker! That's my solution...

 

Just started in September, on my 5th batch, key learnings from the first batch, which was dishonhorably discharged down the drain.

1. Wort chillers are great, but late summer ground water is too warm for quick cooling (took 1 hr)
2. Aerate the wort, don't just stir like the queen with her afternoon tea, shake the bejeezus out of it (thanks Vikeman).
3. Control fermentation temps, bathtub with ice is great when too warm.
4. Read, read, read, and keep taking notes so you can accurately deduce what worked and didn't

 

These are all good lessons. Did you stir while you were chilling? If not, that should help. Also, I prefer using an aeration stone and oxygen supply to shaking. Much easier and more effective.