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Author Topic: Honing Your Skills  (Read 5529 times)

Offline curtdogg

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #30 on: January 18, 2017, 05:08:43 pm »
It's amazing...the original post was a simple question about honing one's skills at the basic level. Keep it simple, SMASH brews to get your process down, and other things to help get along the way of all grain. Poor guy is wanting to learn how to walk, and you guys are throwing decoction mashing, fly sparging, and water chemistry, all things you do when you are ready to run. He's still at the point of figuring out water volumes.

I wonder how many people start out homebrewing, and then give it up because it is too much information too fast.

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THIS^^^^homebrewers can be so enthusiastic that they overwhelm new brewers in an attempt to help.
I agree I'm still relatively new to home brewing and in the beginning i struggled with all the info and which techniques to use. I would of loved to have a brewing basics book in the beginning.
Sweet home of the Beer Lords.

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #31 on: January 18, 2017, 05:20:11 pm »
I wonder how many people start out homebrewing, and then give it up because it is too much information too soon.

THIS^^^^homebrewers can be so enthusiastic that they overwhelm new brewers in an attempt to help.


Definitely. I've been guilty of this myself. I want to get better about helping new brewers in a more approachable way.
Jon H.

Offline chinaski

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #32 on: January 18, 2017, 06:29:17 pm »
One additional thing I'll add (because I'm an enthusiastic homebrewer) is to consider learning about tasting your beer critically.  This can be done a number of ways.  I might start by reading what you can about off-flavors (and positive flavors too) and see if you can recognize them in your beer or other beers.  You can steward at a homebrew competition; at my club's our stewards will usually taste beers alongside more experienced judges and learn that way.  Randy Mosher's book "Tasting Beer" is a good resource.


Offline 69franx

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #33 on: January 18, 2017, 06:47:26 pm »
I have to say, I am glad that when I started in 2013, I did not even think of looking online for help. Call me old school, but it was books and trial by fire for me. I was almost a year into brewing before I really even heard of the AHA, let alone the awesome online resource that this forum is. Some beginner questions and the resultant unending flow of semi relevant responses would have had me tearing my hair out. The folks here are great, but when 10 or 20 or 50 people answer with varying similarities in their responses, it can leave a noob wondering where to start, or which answer to trust. One of the biggest problems I remember when I started was hearing: "just experiment and find out what/how you like it" it's a classic informative answer for an intermediate to advanced brewer, but a noob just wants to know where to start without ruining the first several batches trying to find out what they like. On the other hand, there are so many great responses and great ideas here, I would recommend this forum to anyone thinking about starting in the hobby. Maybe those thoughts don't add up, but this is still a great resource as long as you remember to "trust, but verify." Sorry to ramble, 3 Duvel in the last hour or 2

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Offline denny

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #34 on: January 19, 2017, 09:59:25 am »
I wonder how many people start out homebrewing, and then give it up because it is too much information too soon.

THIS^^^^homebrewers can be so enthusiastic that they overwhelm new brewers in an attempt to help.


Definitely. I've been guilty of this myself. I want to get better about helping new brewers in a more approachable way.

One thing I have to continually remind myself about is to think of THEIR situation and not mine.  Too often I answer based on my living space or brewing preferences rather than really listening to what the other person's situation is.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline lizaambler

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #35 on: January 19, 2017, 10:04:31 am »
It's amazing...the original post was a simple question about honing one's skills at the basic level. Keep it simple, SMASH brews to get your process down, and other things to help get along the way of all grain. Poor guy is wanting to learn how to walk, and you guys are throwing decoction mashing, fly sparging, and water chemistry, all things you do when you are ready to run. He's still at the point of figuring out water volumes.

I wonder how many people start out homebrewing, and then give it up because it is too much information too fast.

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LOL I'm not a guy. And the info wasn't too much! I was actually a Biology major in college, and took a lot of Chemistry. I got this :)

Offline bboy9000

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Honing Your Skills
« Reply #36 on: January 19, 2017, 10:40:18 pm »
LOL I'm not a guy. And the info wasn't too much! I was actually a Biology major in college, and took a lot of Chemistry. I got this :)
Go girl! Cheers!
Brian
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Offline curtdogg

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #37 on: January 20, 2017, 12:08:59 am »
Yeah, she mentioned her husband in a previous post.
Sweet home of the Beer Lords.

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #38 on: January 20, 2017, 09:39:04 am »
I agree I'm still relatively new to home brewing and in the beginning i struggled with all the info and which techniques to use. I would of loved to have a brewing basics book in the beginning.

Isn't this covered by How to Brew or Joy of Homebrewing?

IMO even Gordon Strong's book works as a good intro to all grain brewing.
Heck yeah I blog about homebrewing: Brain Sparging on Brewing

Offline curtdogg

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #39 on: January 20, 2017, 09:59:07 am »
I agree I'm still relatively new to home brewing and in the beginning i struggled with all the info and which techniques to use. I would of loved to have a brewing basics book in the beginning.

Isn't this covered by How to Brew or Joy of Homebrewing?

IMO even Gordon Strong's book works as a good intro to all grain brewing.
Yes sir it most likely is. I learned everything from you tube at first.
Learning curve was steep.
Sweet home of the Beer Lords.

Offline Kutaka

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Re: Honing Your Skills
« Reply #40 on: January 21, 2017, 04:30:52 pm »
Big beers (8% and up) are more difficult for a beginner to make well.  To make a really good big beer, several things need to happen that many beginners don't often do.  Since you have not described your complete brewing process, we can't give you much advice without making assumptions.

If you told us everything you do to make beer, I'm absolutely sure we could tell you how to make some improvements.  Since you have a science background, you should be able to brew like a wizard before batch #10.