"TIP OF THE DAY" a thread to educate by our mistakes

[Leann ull]

One of my early big ones, never pour boiling water into a glass carboy the base will shatter clean off

[Leann ull]

Always close the valves or tap of the vessel you are filling, i'm still doing it
I now try where possible to reverse fill!

[Leann ull]

When counter pressure bottle filling slowly remove stem as otherwise you end out with a lovely spray of beer all over you

[Leann ull]

when formulating recipes for grain and hop additions mark off with a pen, completely missed a 10 min hop addition a couple of brews back, now they are all laid out with mins written on plastic bag

[delzep]

Sad Ken in the 3.30 at Chepstow

[jawalemon]

Be careful with your hop bag doesn't get caught around an element during the boil. I had to ditch a batch after this happened.

[Will_D]

When bottle conditioning always fill a 500 ml (or same size as the bottles) lucozade bottle as well. Leave an inch of head space, squezze the air out and screw on the cap.

That way you can see if the sugar has disolved (if not using a bottling bucket and batch priming), and then visually track fermentation and by squeezing the bottle see how much carbing is going on!

[Hop Bomb]

Good tip for all the fly spargers:  Instead of sparging your full volume of water through the mash, shoot for 10 - 15% lower efficiency than your true brew house efficiency when designing your beer. Just sparge to 70% of your full pre boil volume & take a gravity reading. It'll be higher than what you'd normally get. Thats good. Now top up your wort with hot water from your HLT to hit your numbers & volume. Saves time on sparging & you only extract the best from the grain. All it costs you is a bit more grain which is cheap.

Also, measure the temp of your sparge water where it comes into contact with the grain bed. It can often be too cold. Ive a 5 degree drop in temp from my HLT through my pump & hoses. So my HLT water is at 83c these days for sparging.

[pob]

As per hop additions; when weighing out your grain before crushing, mark them off as you weigh them, as they all look very similar, when you're pouring them into a bucket before crushing, "Did I add the Wheat Malt to that?"

[Leann ull]

When locating the temp probe in your keezer, put it 1/3 the way down, at the top and your kegs and beer will freeze.

[pob]

When locating the temp probe in your keezer, put it 1/3 the way down, at the top and your kegs and beer will freeze.

& creating a now TradeMarked process for brewing great lagers

[Bubbles]

Always close the valves or tap of the vessel you are filling, i'm still doing it

+1,

From personal experience, I can combine this one with "Don't drink while brewing..".

[Bubbles]

Take the temperature of your wort before pitching your yeast. Don't assume anything!

[Bubbles]

Invest a few bob in a good thermometer - mash temperature, pitching temperature and fermentation temperature are the main difference between good beer and shit beer.

[DEMPSEY]

Remember to remove the blockers that are inside those Aldi hose connectors before using them with your chugger pump. Stops you cursing the pump