Brew With a Purpose

In this series of articles we have been talking about different ways to improve your skills outside of the brewery.

One of the best ways to improve as a brewer – and start making beers that rival those from your favorite commercial breweries – is to start setting some goals for your brew sessions.

It doesn’t have to be grand – or like work.  Start small and build up from there.  Michael Phelps didn’t learn to swim one week and win 14 gold medals the next.  First he had to get in the pool and master the basics just like everyone else.

Even commercial brewers have goals for things like consistency from batch to batch and efficiency to keep ingredient costs down.

To start, set simple goals.  Find a few small improvements and work on them one at a time. For example -

• Hitting your starting gravity – maybe you need to measure your water or your extract more accurately.  Figure out why your gravity is off – and what you can do to correct it next time – until you can consistently hit your numbers.
• Sanitation.  Go overboard – sanitize everything – whether it gets boiled or not.  Use a quality no-rinse sanitizer.  Replace all of your plastic items.
• Fermentation temperature.  One of the best improvements you can make.  Do some research – investigate the popular options and find one that works for you.  It could be a dedicated freezer with temperature controls – or maybe just a simple water bath.

Once you’ve mastered one aspect move on to the next.  Don’t try to change too many things at once.

As your brewing improves, set larger overall goals that build on your smaller ones.

In 2009 I want to win at least 1 medal at NHC.  That’s going to be tough.  So how am I going to do it?  With smaller goals like these:

• Decide early which categories I will enter.  Ideally, 1-2 in each category.  I won’t have an entry for some categories – like sour beer or strong ale.
• Schedule brew days well in advance to be sure everything is ready for the first round entry deadline.
• Pitch the proper amount of yeast – to ensure a good fermentation – and schedule lower gravity beers first – to build up a big yeast pitch for higher gravity recipes.
• Work on the boil kettle drain.  I switched to siphoning off of the top – an improvement – but still leaving too much wort behind.
• Finish the recirculating wort chiller.  I can pump ice water through the chiller now.  Add a whirlpool for the wort to chill faster.  This will give a better cold break and retain more hop character.

Small changes in each brew add up to big improvements over the time.  Set a few goals now to brew your best beer yet in 2009.

What areas of your brewing would you like to improve?  Any plans or firsts you’re thinking about next year?  Share them in the comments section.

Read the Full Series

This article is part of a series on some ways to become a better brewer. Fun, interesting, outside-the-box ways to improve your brewing . Read the other articles in this series here.

Tagged as: brewing, goals, homebrewing, improvements, tips