Ever since adopting Gordon Strong’s Brewing Better Beer, I have been told the way I brew is inferior. So, I needed data to validate my processes and techniques. The only way I could think of was to have my beers anonymously evaluated. To get that evaluation, instead of sending every beer to a lab, I began shipping beers off to competitions.
I entered three competitions in 2023 and medaled in two of the three. I received some pretty interesting feedback from those earlier beers. Some mentioned oxidation.
I follow several of the low O2 principles outlined by the Low O2 push that happened a few years ago. So, those oxidation comments were a dagger.
I reviewed all my processes and determined the weakest link was my bottling technique. So, I went down the road of how to bottle for competitions. I got a TapCooler thinking better counter pressure techniques would solve the issue. I resumed competitions in 2024 but was still getting oxidation comments.
As you can imagine, I can point to an exact beer when I began to employ better bottling techniques: 45 sec CO2 purging, bottle refermentation, and bench capping. In 2025 my scores have increased dramatically and I began placing higher and more often.
I understand skepticism. I assure anyone interested, if these techniques didn’t work I would quickly abandon them and move on. I have a very low PITA tolerance. However, I have the data. They seem to work.
BTW, if home brewing beer/mead/cider is one hobby, I submit that competition home brewing is a second distinct hobby.