[soymateofeo]

I've been brewing for ... uh ... over 20 years.  Here is my best improvements and some people will say I'm full of s***ake mushrooms. And this stuff can happen over time and not necessary. I've brewed on everything.  HERMS. RIMS. 3 tier. single tier. BIAB.  MIAB.
1. Make sure all of your barbs and clamps are the same size. 
2. If you don't have  quick disconnects, find a 4 in 1 screwdriver and take the bits out to find one that fits the hose clamps you use. Or better yet, get the thumb screw ones. But I use the home depot clamps with the my 4 in 1 driver without the bits and I am gold.
3. don't drink until you finished.
4. You can't oversanitize but you can undersanitize.
5. keep oxygen out on the cold side as best as you can.
6. control your fermentation temp.
7.  YOUR WATER QUALITY MATTERS. A LOT.  If you think you need to filter it, go RO or distilled.
this list goes on forever.
8. I've made starters, vitality starters, 2 liter starters, 1 liter starters, etc.  If you aren't making an Imperial something, dry yeast works great. and even then, pitch 2 packs of dry yeast.
9. Make your system works for you and don't try to do what commercial guys do. 

That's all I got.

[Chasin_Taco_Trucks]

On the topic of ingredients lmao
I’ve been on BeerSmith a lot today. I’m going to be doing the Northern Brewer Sierra Madre Pale Ale this weekend.
It only comes in 1 gal or 5 gal kits so I have 3 of the 1 gal. I put everything into BeerSmith and I think I have everything for the ingredients correct as far as the grains, hops and LME. But BeerSmith is showing an OG of 1.048 when the kit is saying it should be 1.052. There is a chance I messed something up along the way. BUT…I have .5# of light DME left over from another kit. When I add this in, it brings my OG to 1.054. Is using both LME and DME a bad idea? It’s showing me the following with using both. (Granted I truthfully have no idea what most of this means when it comes to final product)
OG: 1.054
Est FG: 1.013
Est ABV: 5.4%
IBUs: 9.0
SRM: 7.6
Bitter ratio: 0.167

I planned on throwing everything in that came with the kits but BeerSmith is saying to use .17oz on the first 2 hop additions instead of the .37oz of each that I have.
Not sure exactly what to do.

OG is dependent upon how much you reduce the wort during boil.  BeerSmith may be estimating OG based on a different boil off rate or time than the kit.

I've been trying to get more consistent with my brewing and a refractometer is helpful for taking measurements during the boil so that you can see if you're on target for OG.  That's one item that I wish I'd bought sooner.

I doubt that the DME would hurt the flavor, but you might hit OG without it. 

Sent from my SM-T870 using Tapatalk

Sorry, been a little busy lol. I only used what was in the kits and just adjusted the hops a little and it hit the estimated OG right on.