Best advice/method/product for moving from good to great beer

[Soulshine2]

Who the hell can disagree with this?? Not me.

"crawl, walk, then run"? Solid advice.

Seriously, thanks for posting this.

No problem. Sometimes I end up pointing out the Elephant in the room.
Keep brewing, do research and keep taking good notes . Youll improve by small tweak improvements here and there.

 

[eric19312]

@Timmy83 thanks for coming back with additional information. Since you asked about going from good beer to great beer and mention you have a decade of brewing experience (not sure if that is really 10 years sounds like it be a couple years ten years ago followed by hiatus and then recently returned to brewing -- I did something similar for same reasons my hiatus was about 15 years).

Good to great unfortunately means you already have taken care of the low hanging fruit. Campden to eliminate chloramines, reasonable sanitation and brewing ales in the 60s instead of in the 70s are all changes that I think will get most beginning brewers from from making bad beer to pretty good beer.

The other helpful information you provided is what style you like. Light colored hoppy citrusy beer. That being the case I'd focus on water and packaging, and not necessarily in that order.

On the water - what can you share about the water you have? Can you get a city report describing where you are? I am lucky to have very nice soft water that is easy to work with using some brewing salts and a pH meter and a bit of free or nearly free software. I brew a lot of very light colored beers 100% base malt or base + flaked adjuncts and the beers are successful. On other hand there are lots of people working with difficult water and if you are one of them you might find investing in a RO system gets you a huge improvement in one go. You could test this theory by brewing a batch with RO water from the store (built up from RO with minerals) before paying for the system. If you share a water report here or over in brewing science you will undoubtedly get good advice on how to adjust it and perhaps on whether this is a big issue or little issue for your brewing.

On the packaging since you are bottling and brewing in buckets/carboys I do think there is room for improvement with reduction of cold side oxygen exposure. This is especially relevant for modern hoppy juicy IPAs. This probably means getting into kegging but kegging alone with open transfers followed by burst carbing is likely worse than bottling. If you go the kegging route you will want to figure out how to limit Oxygen during dry hopping, how to fully purge a keg, and how to do a closed transfer from your fermentor. You may choose to go all the way to spunding for carbonation. It is possible to do closed transfers with carboys and buckets but an easy upgrade if you are going to kegging anyway would be to brew in kegs. Lots of advice in these forums on how to do that, I think it would let you focus your investment on buying some kegs and kegging equipment and if you decide to get into conicals or SS buckets down the road you will still have a use for the kegs. If kegging is not for you, you can examine your bottling procedure and look for ways to eliminate oxygen. I'd probably get a CO2 tank for flushing containers and closed transfers and maybe a beer gun. I bet it would be possible to get close to typical homebrewer closed transfer kegging oxygen levels, and with bottling close is good enough because the bottle refermentation for carbonation will get you the rest of the way.

 

[mattdee1]

When it comes to water, I reckon there are 3 broad categories of home brewers:

1) novices who are too busy learning other fundamentals to be worrying about water. They may even be completely oblivious to the subject.

2) those who have had some really good results with certain recipes using nothing but tap water and maybe a campden tablet, causing them to kid themselves into believing that their tap water is not affecting their results in general.

3) those who are resigned to the inviolable fact that water must receive careful attention if the goal is to make the best homebrew possible with the best hit-rate possible. Some basics of the subject are learned and understood, and the final water profile for each brew is devised using proven tools, preferably with RO/distilled water as a starting canvas

For brewers who are "reasonably happy" with their beer but come to the forums to post threads expressing exasperation at slight rough edges or unwanted mystery flavors that seem to pop up with no rhyme or reason despite crazy-OCD sanitation, rip-roaring yeast starters, and rigid attention to fermentation temperature control, I would be willing to bet that upwards of 95% of these brewers are in group #2. Imagine that.

Aside from water, I'm surprised "recipe" isn't cited more often - and with more emphasis - in threads like this. Someone said earlier (paraphrasing) "the best recipe in the world won't do you any good if your process is bad."

I agree with that, but I'd argue the reverse is also true. A flawless process won't magically make great beer out of a subpar combination of ingredients. Recipe and process are yin and yang. And great recipes usually require iteration with small tweaks. This is an easy step to ignore in home brewing, where there is often high allure to doing all kinds of different crazy things batch to batch.

As for sanitation, I often wonder why it always gets brought up in threads like this. I mean, of course it's very important and you have to pay attention to sanitation. But if we're specifically looking for levers we can pull to make our beer better, how does sanitation fit? Seems to me it's not so much a lever, but a switch. As in, either you do it or you don't. In my system, sanitation amounts to 1) ensuring all "gunk" is washed away from all things that touch beer; 2) sanitizing all (mostly cold side) things that touch beer with heat, starsan, or both. I don't see much middle ground between doing this and not doing it.

 

[McKnuckle]

I would say that my own critical nature is responsible for my progression from bad to (usually) great beer. Not just this or that technique, piece of gear, or bit of information.

After every brew, I would have a post-mortem and review what went well, and what annoyed me. That's the process improvement part. Then after sampling the beer and monitoring its development over time, I would have a similar review of how I could improve the recipe, or remove a flaw.

Gradual refinements over a period of years should then occur. It's part of the way I enjoy the hobby.

If you are always pretty happy with your beer, there may be no incentive to move past that (which is totally fine). But if you want to improve your process and your product, you have to pick things apart, then voraciously seek information about whatever has been revealed.

To me, this kind of critical introspection is (mostly) fun. To others, it's a bother. Hence we have a wide range of attitudes on display in the homebrewing community.

 

[greywolf]

Eliminate chlorine/chloramine and oxidation. After that, focus on patience and process.

 

[Rackrunner]

@Timmy83 - As others have stated, good-to-great can be subjective, but wanted to weigh in with what has helped me, and might be applicable based on your experience and comments thusfar

In general, it sounds like you pretty much have the brew day components down, with maybe the exception of water chemistry. I tend to agree that this can be a key factor in going from good to great, but since I've never had a glass of water at your house, I couldn't tell ya for certain One relatively cheap and easy experiment you can do is to brew a batch with RO/bottled water with some basic mineral additions - that will at least give you a view of "I can't tell the difference" or "oh, man, I can't believe my water was an issue this whole time!". From there you can decide on the water testing, adjustments, etc.

Two key things I keyed in on from your description of your process:
1: Fermenting at 68 degrees ambient temp with no cooling. You didn't really comment on what in particular you would consider "not great" about your beer, but this was a red flag for me. Fermenting at 68 ambient means your wort/beer-to-be is probably getting up to 72-75 depending on how active fermentation is, especially in the first few days, which can produce some significant off flavors for most ale yeasts. You say you're not looking to drop a lot of cash on the process (totally get it), but there are some very cheap options like swamp coolers you could leverage here to counter that fermentation temperature rise. (Swamp cooler meaning a simple cold water / ice bath to sit the fermenter in, and a tshirt or cloth wrap around). I would try doing this for at least the first few days of fermentation to keep that temp spike down in the mid 60s. I would look up the yeast you're using and see if you are getting any of the off flavors commonly associated with the strain fermenting at higher than ideal temps.

2: Kegging - Great! As others have mentioned, oxygen exclusion can be a big factor. If you're not doing closed transfers and/or filling with starsan/co2 purging your serving keg this could make a big difference. Lots of vids out there on how to do this with a basic carboy or better bottle as well as other fermenter setups. I don't have any experience on how to do pressure transfers with a bucket fermenter, hoping others can comment there. I doubt you'll see much argument that reducing O2 exposure on racking makes for a better beer, it's just a matter of degrees.

Lastly - you didn't really comment on fermentation, cold crash and ageing times. There was a considerable difference in the quality of my beer after I gave them an extra week in primary (2 to 3 weeks) and at least a full week of cold crash time. I get fairly hung up on having a nice clear beer (depending on style of course) but I would definitely consier patience as my #3 on the list.

Hope that helps!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

OP Here. I have been intentionally absent from the thread as I was looking for a non-directed discussion of homebrewers feelings, rather than an overly academic dissection of what I've been doing. I've read a number of things, starting with Papazian's book and Palmer's book, as well as a lot of other articles and posts about brewing, and am generally happy with my homebrew methods.

I suspect you have enough information to go from good to great. If you have a copy of How to Brew, 4e you will recognize most of what's been posted here (and recognize how many details are being left out). If you follow the author on various podcasts (since about 2016), you are likely up to date on topics like "oxygen ingress".

Next step is to apply what you've read to your current processes.

(... -challenging with a baby)

I'll suggest Simple Homebrewing: Great Beer, Less Work, More Fun as a good starting point for ideas on how to brew with limited time.

 

[cactusgarrett]

I'll put a notch in the "Water Chemistry" column, but expound on it a bit, because i know it's frustrating for a new/inexperienced brewer to just have someone tell them "get your chemistry in order." That's a vast topic which is definitely a rabbit hole.

My two cents on it: first & foremost - know YOUR water and what you're dealing with. Hardness and chlorine situation are paramount.
If you're doing extract, you can still benefit from adjusting your water from a flavor aspect. You don't have to futz with mash/kettle pH. Get your hardness in check and get your Cl:SO4 ratio where you want it. You'd be surprised what changing nothing but that ratio can do to a beer's flavor profile.

Same issues above go for all-grain, but then you have to spiral out and manage a number of other variables that aren't as absolutely imperative to making great beer (ex mash pH, kettle pH, etc.). Even then, it could be argued all the stuff people are saying you "should" do related to chemistry could be contributing to Marginal Gains in the end.

 

[mattdee1]

I'll put a notch in the "Water Chemistry" column, but expound on it a bit, because i know it's frustrating for a new/inexperienced brewer to just have someone tell them "get your chemistry in order." That's a vast topic which is definitely a rabbit hole.

It's only as big a rabbit hole as one wants it to be.

Not every mechanic at the local garage necessarily has intimate familiarity with combustion stoichiometry, but they can probably still pull your engine out and repair it.

My point being, for most purposes, I think it's enough to spend a little bit of time figuring out how to fill in a tool like Bru N Water and just go with what it spits out. You don't need to understand all of the calculations or even what each of the components means. You will still benefit from having a known water profile, and, especially if you're starting with a blank slate of RO or distilled, you'll have arguably the biggest variable accounted for if/when you find yourself trying to pinpoint some kind of problem or issue with your beer.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

As a really new brewer, the thing I'm learning is that the temperature and its stability really matters a great big deal. With no special equipment except a hydrometer and a thermometer, the rest is kitchen saucepans with plastic water bottles or demijohns to ferment in. I'm finding in a cold UK home, in winter, that wort can be too cold to ferment properly, plus newly conditioned beers can be too cold to condition properly. So temperature definitely matters. I haven't even started on water. This thread is a good one for all your suggestions and help.

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

Solid advice about doing a known recipe but using 100% RO water and building up water profile based on style results using 1 of the many water calculators out there. Would be even better if you had a bottle of same recipe on hand to do a side by side comparison.

RO water and the additions are relatively cheap, and can provide near instant feedback (sampling’s).

I also agree with the above statement that water is only as complicated as you want it to be. Get your water tested and enter those values in to a spreadsheet, or start with RO and build up according to spreadsheet. You don’t have to know anything other than what chemicals to add. Conversely you you go balls deep in the learning mode and have an intimate knowledge of all the interactions, and tweak or modify the spreadsheet results, or not.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I also agree with the above statement that water is only as complicated as you want it to be. Get your water tested and enter those values in to a spreadsheet, or start with RO and build up according to spreadsheet. You don’t have to know anything other than what chemicals to add. Conversely you you go balls deep in the learning mode and have an intimate knowledge of all the interactions, and tweak or modify the spreadsheet results, or not.

Simpler yet: if one is willing to brew with RO/distilled water, Homebrew Beyond the Basics offers two water profiles (hoppy and malty) that are ready to measure for five gallon batches. Nothing to download, nothing to "dial in". I have been using those profiles recently with good results. I'm not opposed to water chemistry software - just reinforcing the idea that if one starts with RO/distilled water, one can start brewing better beer without a deep understanding of "water chemistry".

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I've followed a philosophy of continuous quality improvement in my brewing. Each and every time I try to do something better. Over time, that adds up and it's worked very well for me. I do a little tweaking here and there to see what I can learn, tweak recipes, play with yeast a bit, try different ferm temps, dry hopping alterations, but mostly I come back to the tried and true, the recipes that I'd use if I opened a taproom.

I took a 2.5 year break from brewing and got back full force in late 2018. I think a big motivator for not brewing was that I was brewing mediocre beers living in an area with plenty of good breweries. I got back into brewing with a focus on making great beers (with a lot of motivation from the Brulosophy articles). I made a number of improvements in 2019.

For me the biggest improvement ties in with mongoose's comment and a focus on constant improvement and learning. Small batches and experimental side by side batches have been incredibly educational. Do you know what Columbus hops actually contribute? Do you know the impact of a 150F vs 156F mash temp? Do you enjoy hops added at 10 min or at flameout? The list of variables in a batch of beer are near infinite.

For years I was in a cycle where I would brew a batch of a beer following my standard process, then maybe 12 months later I would brew a similar batch following my standard process. I could not really evaluate if that batch was better. If I thought it was better I did not know for sure why.

As far as specifics: For me Water Chemistry and Ferm Temp Control were minor improvements because I have decent tap water and I have a cool lower level for fermenting. For others, these might be critical. Reducing oxidation improved my hoppy beers. Back when I moved to kegging, that was a major improvement.

 

[WestMichBrewer]

OP Here.
Fermentation happens at a loosely controlled 68 degrees (my basement - no chiller or heater)

This is going to result in a higher active fermentation temperature that is only optimum for a few types of beers, namely characterful English and Belgian ales for the most part.
I suggest finding/buying/building a temperature-controlled fermentation chamber.
The one I made markedly improved my beers and allowed me to diversify into brewing beers from any ferm temp range.
You could start with a low-tech "swamp cooler" to try driving down that fermentation temp, but it is harder to control.

 

[Robert65]

^^^^
Not even English. English brewers pitch at or below 60°F and generally hold temperature in the ferment to the low 60s.

 

[WestMichBrewer]

^^^^
Not even English. English brewers pitch at or below 60°F and generally hold temperature in the ferment to the low 60s.

I was looking at a chart of Wyeast yeasts and their optimum ferm temp ranges and most of the ones that stuck out as allowing for higher temps (70+) were english and belgian ale yeasts.

Overall though, I agree, being able to keep the fermentation temps in the low 60's is optimal for a large range of beers/yeasts.
If the ambient temp is 68, the active fermentation will probably take place in the low 70's which is high for most styles.

 

[Robert65]

Also note that the manufacturers often recommend temperatures based on parameters other than best flavor results, or in light of the original source's practices. They may base it on laboratory analytics of growth and fermentation rates, for example, or simply may approve of what they expect homebrewers to be capable of in order to avoid scaring them off.

 

[eric19312]

Also note that the manufacturers often recommend temperatures based on parameters other than best flavor results, or in light of the original source's practices. They may base it on laboratory analytics of growth and fermentation rates, for example, or simply may approve of what they expect homebrewers to be capable of in order to avoid scaring them off.

Best flavor will depend on the beer and desired level of ester expression. I believe many of the yeast makers test ester expression and attenuation across a range of temps in making recommendation for the pitching range. Doesn’t mean middle of the range is right place to be for any given beer - I know brewers who use same yeast in different beers at different temperatures in order to drive specific flavor profiles. As for low vs high 60s I use a lot of US-05 and harvest and repitch over several generations. I really like 68F for that yeast in IPA/APA.

 

[PrrCabin]

Water chemistry.

 

[kh54s10]

For yeast optimum temperature, I have not gotten into controlling temperature to affect flavor profile. I go near the mid range and get good results. I might be missing something but feel at the mid range you cannot go wrong. Where as, if you push one end it could go wrong.

I would suggest pushing the limits only if you are sure you know what you are doing.

 

[balrog]

Those ^
And I must add:
4) Ferm Temp Control

Also, not in any lesser way:
Removing Chlorine from all my brewing water (pinch of K-Meta or 1/4 Campden).
Milling my own grain.
Reading HBT (and quite a few other awesome places, such as The Mad Fermentationist).
Drinking/sampling other people's homebrew.

Eliminate chlorine/chloramine and oxidation. After that, focus on patience and process.

Stick your toe in water chem or dive in the deep end, but I recommend trying the simplest, post #1, stickied here.

I started extract w steeping, went to partial mash, went to all grain, adding temp control ferm and yeast starters along the way, then it was suggested to add some salts as my darker beers were missing something, and that helped which led to water testing and here I am. But I also have made a couple particular recipes more than 2 dozen times, keeping ludicrous notes and extravagant reams of measurements so I don't have some incomprehensibly multivariate experiment with no way to determine cause and effect.

I want repeatability and therefore recommend those who say consistency.

 

[jswillbrewforbeer]

Sounds rather obvious but brew styles you love, not just like. Brewing styles which are new to me is really exciting but the best beers that I've brewed are all the recipes I've brewed multiple times. Even if I follow someone else's recipe, (which I rarely do because I love researching and designing recipes,) I'm prepared to brew it 5 or more times until it's perfect for my tastes.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Sounds rather obvious but brew styles you love, not just like. Brewing styles which are new to me is really exciting but the best beers that I've brewed are all the recipes I've brewed multiple times. Even if I follow someone else's recipe, (which I rarely do because I love researching and designing recipes,) I'm prepared to brew it 5 or more times until it's perfect for my tastes.

A focus on recipe refinement is something that has helped me quite a bit lately. Over the years I tended to brew a beer based of some recipe, kit or idea. Maybe it turned out blah, good, or great. I was not very organized about keeping my recipes, notes on the brew day, or tasting notes. I would cycle back to that style a year or two later and it was like I was starting from scratch.

It is a slow process to brew a batch, get it to the point where it is mature enough to evaluate, then fit a rebrew into the brewing calendar. I am trying to focus on nailing a few core recipes; I thought I would make more progress in 2019. I am very happy with an American IPA on the 3rd brew, very close on an English Porter after the 4th brew. After 3 brews of an Imperial Stout I am not sure how close I am (3rd is still aging on oak cubes).

With my one off brews, I am doing a better job of tracking my recipe, process and tasting notes...so when I cycle back to brewing an Irish Red, American Brown Ale, or Milk Stout I at least have a base to start with.

 

[eric19312]

A focus on recipe refinement is something that has helped me quite a bit lately. Over the years I tended to brew a beer based of some recipe, kit or idea. Maybe it turned out blah, good, or great. I was not very organized about keeping my recipes, notes on the brew day, or tasting notes. I would cycle back to that style a year or two later and it was like I was starting from scratch.

It is a slow process to brew a batch, get it to the point where it is mature enough to evaluate, then fit a rebrew into the brewing calendar. I am trying to focus on nailing a few core recipes; I thought I would make more progress in 2019. I am very happy with an American IPA on the 3rd brew, very close on an English Porter after the 4th brew. After 3 brews of an Imperial Stout I am not sure how close I am (3rd is still aging on oak cubes).

With my one off brews, I am doing a better job of tracking my recipe, process and tasting notes...so when I cycle back to brewing an Irish Red, American Brown Ale, or Milk Stout I at least have a base to start with.

I like this answer it reminds me of importance of keeping good notes and making incremental changes based on results. Good brewing software makes this fairly easy but a decent notebook and good note taking practices can do the same.

For me the value of BeerSmith and similar software is it forces a certain level of consistency in note taking and recipe design. It encourages you to link both recipe and process to outcome and makes it easy to pull up brewing details when tasting the resulting batch over time.