if you were able to go back to when you started brewing with the knowledge you have gained, what advice would you give yourself about beer brewing?
It’s only beer…relax and enjoy the process, don’t stress.
I’ve found that brewing experience has improved immeasurably by concentrating more on enjoyment than beer.
Dude literally exactly what i would tell myself 
\m/ \m/
Don’t take a brewing hiatus the year that Homebrewcon comes to your town. Providence was probably the best (if not only) opportunity for me to attend the conference in person, but that was right in the middle of about a 2-year stretch where I wasn’t really doing much brewing-related. I’m hoping to attend the virtual HBC this year, but that’s not quite the same.
Just do not start commercial brewery.
Nothing. I probably wouldn’t have listened. I “knew” everything.
But honestly, don’t buy so much equipment. My Coleman cooler was excellent. My brewstand was awesome but a pain in the ass and expensive. Having my first set up and my current electric all in one would have been perfect.
THIS ^^^^^ why ruin a great hobby?
i hear ya and agree but starting a brewery is less about beer brewing and more about running a business, so i was asking what you would tell yourself about beer brewing
You could look at it like “don’t get so enchanted with brewing that you open a business to do it”.
gotcha, i gotta be honest, like all of us starting a brewery has crossed our minds at least once during our homebrewing careers but you know what always called me more? starting a homebrew shop, that always appealed to me more then a brewery
I have to admit I may be one of the few homebrewers who never considered either.
cause you are smart Mr Conn most of us are dreamers but if you are lucky you are a pragmatist lol
Running my own biz for 30 years taught me a lot
I don’t own a homebrew shop but I work part-time in the local shop. After watching the highs and lows the owner goes through, I’m happy just to work there a few days a month.
Just like owning a brewery, it is a business.
I really don’t have any regrets in my brewing trajectory. A lot of the fun for me has been trying, failing, iterating, and improving. I kept “RDWHAHB” in my mind, and that was a pretty helpful guide. Even when it’s not the best beer, it’s my beer. That said, it’s often been pretty darned good (even some medals along the way), and most of my best memories are about the experiences and people I shared the beer with, not the beer itself. Sure, there are things I could have implemented earlier (e.g., fermentation temperature control), but any limitations were more about space and finances.
If really pressed to give Past Me some advice, I suppose it would be three things:
- Don’t get intimidated by the big fancy brew rigs that other people have (and honestly, the big opinions that sometimes accompany them). Try all-grain and partial mash a bit sooner. Once I learned that BIAB and batch sparge were excellent alternatives to 15 tier systems with fancy pumps and HERMS-RIMS-QRcodes-Whatevers, I realized that all-grain brewing wasn’t nearly as inaccessible as I thought.
- Start simple; you can make a really killer beer with just 1 or 2 malts and 1 or 2 hops. Every ingredient should have a purpose, and only add ingredients if you absolutely have to.
- Find a few people who you trust to give you kind yet honest feedback. Once I joined a homebrew club, I got a lot of great feedback, and also gained a lot of confidence in my brewing. (pro-tip: your non-brewing best friends can be a lot of fun to drink with, but as long as the beer is free to them they probably ain’t going to give you useful feedback!)
Don’t bother with glass carboys, don’t drink so much when you’re brewing, make sure you secure that hose before turning on the pump, and put on some damn gloves before grabbing hot things!
It’s like you’ve been watching me…
+1. We have to learn the hard way it seems.
Yep, yep, yep, and yep!
make sure your wort chiller output is in a place where is does not spray boiling hot water on your feet, i had a blister on my foot from that