Top 5 common homebrewing mistakes and how to fix them

Every brewer has stuffed up a batch. The good news is that most of the ways a homebrew goes wrong are the same handful of mistakes, they are all avoidable, and none of them need expensive gear to fix. Here are the five that come up most at the counter.

1. Not sanitising properly

The problem. Skipping or rushing sanitation lets bacteria and wild yeast into the ferment, and you get off flavours or a batch you tip out. It is the number one cause of ruined beer and it is entirely preventable.

The fix. Use a no rinse sanitiser on every single thing that touches the beer. The fermenter, the lid, the airlock, the spoon, the hydrometer, the bottling wand, the bottles. If it goes near the beer, it gets sanitised.

2. Letting the fermentation temperature swing

The problem. Yeast is fussy about temperature and it tells you when it is unhappy by making flavours you did not ask for. A ferment that sits at 18 degrees overnight and 28 in the afternoon will taste like it.

The fix. Find the most stable spot in the house rather than the warmest, and use a heat belt in winter if you need one. Stability matters more than hitting a perfect number.

3. Bottling too early

The problem. The instructions say a week, the airlock has gone quiet, so you bottle. Then you get under developed flavour, or bottles that gush when you open them because fermentation carried on in the bottle.

The fix. Ignore the calendar and read the hydrometer. Two identical readings a couple of days apart means fermentation has finished. An airlock going quiet means nothing on its own.

4. Measuring by eye

The problem. Brewing is chemistry whether you like it or not. Too much or too little of an ingredient changes the flavour, the body and the alcohol, and you will not know which of the three things you changed caused it.

The fix. Use kitchen scales and write down what you did. The writing down is the part people skip, and it is the part that lets you repeat a good batch instead of chasing it.

5. Sloppy bottling

The problem. Splashing the beer on the way into the bottle introduces oxygen, which makes it taste like wet cardboard within a month. Uneven priming sugar gives you one flat bottle and one that fires the cap across the shed.

The fix. Use a bottling wand so the beer fills from the bottom without splashing, batch prime in the bulk rather than dosing each bottle, and stir it gently through before you fill.

The thread running through all five

Four of these five are about patience rather than skill. Sanitising properly, holding a steady temperature, waiting for the gravity to settle and filling bottles gently are all things you already know how to do. They just take longer than the rushed version, and the rushed version is what costs you the batch.

Shop related products

• Beer Essentials No Rinse Sanitiser 25g. For mistake one, and it costs almost nothing.
• Beer Essentials Brew Sanitize 250ml. The concentrate, if you are brewing often.
• US-05 Safale Ale Yeast 11.5g. A forgiving ale yeast that copes with a less than perfect ferment.
• Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 1kg. Consistent fermentables, so mistake four is harder to make.

Did you know we also keep hydrometers, thermometers, fermenters and bottle cappers in store. A lot of the brewing range is not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.

Brewhilder will help you work out what went wrong with a batch if you can describe what it tasted like, and if you would rather just tell someone, come in and tell us.

Keep reading

• How to brew a good IPA at home
• Why every homebrewer needs a decent fermenter
• How to brew a Coopers ruby porter at home

Cheers,
Candeece

I have bottled early, and I have also cleaned a shed ceiling because of it.