Hi everyone, brand new to homebrewing and excited to get started. I wanted to introduce myself and say hello to the community. I would love any pointers for a first-timer on what to focus on early, and what common beginner mistakes are worth avoiding. Looking forward to learning from you all.
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Welcome! This is the place to be to learn. I’ve been doing this now since 2019 and I still have questions. Seems like there is always help on this forum. What kind of system are you starting out with? I started with a gallon kit from Craft a Brew and was hooked. Good luck and enjoy brewing!
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Hi Clare and welcome! I’ve been brewing nearly 30 years and 635 batches. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is take good notes! If something goes well you want to know what you did so you can do.it again.
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Welcome! I’ve been brewing since 1995, so I’ve leaned a few tips along the way.
- Cleaning and sanitation is crucial.
- Focus on fermentation temperature control.
- Brew and brew often, to develop a brewing process that works for you.
- Do what works on the homebrew scale, not necessarily what commercial brewers do.
Good luck and Cheers!
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Welcome to brewing and the forum. I’ll second the advice above. I won’t try offer any more detailed tips - you can find multiple opinions about nearly every aspect of brewing.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Homebrewersassociation.org is the best place I know for brewing tips and tricks along with Zymurgy Magazine.
Biggest advice…Relax, Don’t Worry and Have a Homebrew, and…the more you brew the better you get. Cheers.
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Welcome
I been brewing for 35 years. First 4 years extract and specialty grain. 31 years all grain.
Going All grain was the biggest game changer. There are so many ways to brew from all on one ( zero experience) to simple cooler systems with a large boil kettle (my experience)
I keg my beer, one bottle to clean,
I dispense very different than 99% of the home brewers out there but that is a different conversation
Can’t emphasize this enough
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A lot of good advice here. I would add read and educate yourself. There will be conflicting information, but you can come here to ask what the majority of us do.
Also, learn to crawl first. Focus on more simple recipes to start out and practice the basics.
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Welcome aboard. Don’t hesitate to ask questions. We all started at batch zero and are willing to help.
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This, literally before anything else it is keeping notes of what you do. it may seem daunting at first, but these days I just copy and paste my brewing note.txt file and usually edit out the malts, hops, quantities, volume of water and temps. theres no math or calculations in this file because i use brewing software for that, but this way i can always check back to see what worked if a recipe worked out well.
also when experimenting - only change one variable at a time, even if its small.
depending on how you start i think i, the internet or people here would be happy to give you a template recipe/process
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I’ll add one more thing…as a new brewer, you’re gonna want to brew all kinds of different beers to satisfy your curiosity. We all do that. But while you’re doing that, pick one recipe to brew over and over and perfect. Nothing will increase your brewing proficiency like that. And you’ll get the satisfaction of watching that beer improve every time you brew it.
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Welcome aboard Clare! There is a wealth of great information here. I have brewed 457 batches in my 29 year brewing adventure. As Denny said, pick a recipe and brew it over and over to perfect it. Write everything down so you don’t make the same mistake over and over. Also, pick a recipe that is not too complex so that you get all the nuances of brewing down. Finally, cleaning and sanitation are extremely important. There is no better way to ruin a batch of beer that an infection due to poor cleaning and sanitation techniques.
Happy brewing!
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