I will freely admit to being a bit absent minded sometimes (ok, alot of the time). Usually it’s because I get in too much of a hurry. Then I do something dumb.
Witness my recent attempt at a big, hopped-up, west coast amber ale. What should have been a 7% ABV, 65 IBU monster turned into a 3.5% ABV, 60 IBU session beer. What went wrong? When I was measuring out base grain I needed 12 pounds, but my scale only goes to 11 (one more than 10!). I started weighing out the grain in 4 pound increments, got in a hurry, and ended up with 8 pounds total, instead of 12. Of course I didn’t notice problem until I was starting the boil. Oops.
Could I have fixed the problem? Probably. But that’s not the point. If I add it up I probably have a couple of hours just in researching the recipe and shopping for ingredients. Then another 5 or 6 hours on brew day followed by several weeks of fermentation and conditioning. Not to mention the dollars invested in the ingredients. That’s alot of time and effort to not turn out the very best beer I can brew.
So, the lesson of the day is slow down! I need to work on reminding myself regularly that brewing is not a race. The reward is in finishing best, not first!
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Hi there! My name is Jimmy VerVaecke and I’m a brewer. I discovered brewing in 2004 and have been hooked ever since.
My beer has won numerous awards, including one at the National level. 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
What exactly is a “session” beer? Have brewed twice now, one was a session beer, the other wasn’t. What’s the difference?
Nice blog!
Hey Tyler,
Thanks for stopping by. Session beer is generally anything you can drink a reasonable quantity of without getting sloppy-falldown-drunk. The term “session” is usually more an indication of relative (low) ABV. Imagine a nice evening at the pub having several pints of your favorite – and not being hungover the next day.
Hope that helps,
Jimmy
Hi George,
You can add rice or corn to the mash to get some extra fermentable sugars – be sure they are either malted or gelatinized otherwise the grain enzymes won’t be able to convert them to sugars for the yeast. Otherwise you’ll just end up with a bunch of starches in the finished beer. It sounds like you’ve experienced this.
I made some notes about using these kinds of adjuncts in an article here:
Generally unless you’re trying to achieve some specific flavor (or lack thereof) from the corn or rice, you can still make a perfectly good light beer with all malted grains. Just use a low mash temperature (147-149ºF/64-65ºC) and let it rest for a long time – at least an hour to 90 minutes.
Hope that helps!
Jimmy
Great website Jimmy, I am learning a lot!!