Top Three "ah-ha!" Moments

[jason.loxton]

Oh yeah. Star San is the BOMB. If you aren't already, get on that train right now.

[amartin]

I'm a little late on this one, but here are mine.

1 - Not using a secondary fermenter. I learned to brew mostly from a Dave Miller book from the late 80's, so the idea of not using a secondary fermenter was heresy, so I was hesitant to give it up. I only use them now for when I want to age something for a while, or when I'm making more beer soon and need my buckets back before bottling day.
2 - Not using a protein rest. Again, see above. I only use protein rests for wheat and rye beers now.
3 - Using sugar in beer. I like my beers fairly attenuative, and sugar is cheap and easy to work with. It's definitely not for every style, but I use it in the majority of my beers.

[GuingesRock]

Ah Ha moments from a great amateur comedian…He keeps a straight face the whole way through.

[Maritimer]

Most of my Ah ha's have been covered, except this one...
1. Putting a racking cane on each end of my siphon tube. Minimizes aeration and the tube is clamped to both containers, meaning I can do other stuff while racking.

[GuingesRock]

Christifaun, I read two more great posts from you this am, but I just noticed they got lost, along with quite a few other posts + an entire thread, when the server malfunctioned this morning. Apparently the hard drive became damaged and the site was restored from a backup.

It's Groundhog Day! what were your Ah Ha moments?

[LeafMan66_67]

Really late to the game, but here are mine :

1. Ditch the secondary fermenter and leave it in the primary to finish up.

2. Refractometer - great for quickly checking gravities during the boil on brew day. No waiting around for wort to cool for a hydrometer reading.

3. Fermentation temperature control - a key to great beer. I still use a swamp cooler in the shoulder seasons to keep everything cool, but later in the fall, winter and early spring there's a room in my basement that stays at half decent ferment temperatures.

[darndt]

I've heard a lot about ditching the secondary fermentor. Do people like this because it is simpler, or because it generally produces better beer? I'll definitely be trying it for my next batch. Is it enough to just leave it in a bucket without an airlock? Is it the same to leave it in a glass carboy with an airlock?

[bluenose]

I've heard a lot about ditching the secondary fermentor. Do people like this because it is simpler, or because it generally produces better beer? I'll definitely be trying it for my next batch. Is it enough to just leave it in a bucket without an airlock? Is it the same to leave it in a glass carboy with an airlock?

both, IMO... there's also less chance of introducing infection caused by transferring... fire and forget brother, or in this case ferment and forget The last beer I did stayed in the primary for about 6 weeks because I got too busy to do anything about it, and then chilled in the keg for another 4 weeks... best beer I ever made and it's clear as a whistle

[mr x]

This

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[Two Wheeler]

Going to revive an old thread here, but here's a couple things I've recently done that really improved my brewing life... not really related to the final product but more so making the process easier.

1. I got a short hose for my kitchen. Being an apartment brewer, this makes everything easier as I can wash stuff in my kitchen now, fill buckets, spray out kegs, carboys, biab bags etc. Before I was cleaning stuff in my tub. Anyway, I bought a garden faucet adapter, a 6 foot braided washing machine hose, and a nozzle. The washing machine hose holds up to hot water, but has two female ends so you need another male-female adapter. I don't use the hose for brewing water though, just for cleaning.

2. Using a Q-tip to apply keg lube to the O-rings! Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I was using my fingers and had sticky hands for an hour.

[Keith]

2. Using a Q-tip to apply keg lube to the O-rings! Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I was using my fingers and had sticky hands for an hour.

I'm in that boat right now. Just finished cleaning and sterilizing 7 kegs.

So far my big ah moments.
1) Fermcap is fantastic, prevents those nasty boil over messes. (Thanks Leafman for showing me this)

2) It's ok to experiment and try new things. Worst case scenario you feed your buddys the bad beer first.

3) Bottles are for the birds, kegging is the way to go.

[Keggermeister]

Building my keg washer.

[GuingesRock]

Building my keg washer.

Patent it ...you'll make a fortune!

[AllanMar]

As mentioned already.

StarSan using a bug sprayer, super easy to spray down kegs/carboys/etc.
Keg/Bucket washer - Easy to build but I bought mine out of laziness (Marks Keg Washer).
No secondary.

[GuingesRock]

My biggest ah-ha lately is dry hopping. I know I'm a bit behind the times. Oh and the water thing. I was worried when I started adding the salts, especially since I made 30g of different beers that way. But it's all turned out better than before.

[mikeorr]

Ooo, now I'm aware of this keg washer contraption! That looks pretty handy to have...

[saosborne]

1. using the shop vac to suck the fruit flies out of the air in the brewery
2. take that damn bazzoka tube out of the kettle its useless
3. oxyclean. its way cheaper than pbw

[GuingesRock]

I wish someone had told me about bad hops. Apparently most people have been burnt by bad hops at some time, but it happened to me this summer. I bought the hops online and used them right away so it was the last thing I thought about. I even remember walking past them in the dish that they were in, ready to throw in the pot, and thinking that smells like rotting feet (cheese), but it was a new variety of hop that I wasn't familiar with and I thought maybe they are supposed to smell like that. My beer was horrible. It took me a few months and hours and hours of brewing to sort out what the problem was, and I totally lost confidence in my brewing. It was miserable. Then I started getting competition results back and the comments started rolling in that I was using gone off hops.

My latest Ah-Ha is to only use Hop Union N2 pillow packed hops, packed in the hop union factory and not re-packaged by any online dealer ...ever again! To hell with saving a few bucks.

At the very least smell your hops before you throw them, and if there is a hint of cheese, DON'T use them.

[jeffsmith]

My latest Ah-Ha is to only use Hop Union N2 pillow packed hops, packed in the hop union factory and not re-packaged by any online dealer ...ever again! To hell with saving a few bucks.

Where do you get your Hop Union hops from, Mark?

[GuingesRock]

http://www.torontobrewing.ca/servlet/StoreFront" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GuingesRock]

ps. Jeff. Look who's number 3 in the brewer of the year ...Geof Trail, one of the sales people from Toronto Brewing. Maybe it's because he is one of the few getting good hops ...maybe.

[jeffsmith]

It's quite possible. Thanks for the heads up re: hops.