Homebrewing Mistakes And Problems Beginners Experience

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has made a mistake or run into a problem when they were making beer. In fact, I know I'm not because I've talked to lots of other homebrewers and discovered that a lot of the issues that I was having, were the same issues that they ran into.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has made a mistake or run into a problem when they were making beer. In fact, I know I'm not because I've talked to lots of other homebrewers and discovered that a lot of the issues that I was having, were the same issues that they ran into.

When it comes to homebrewing mistakes, it's not hard to make them and luckily most of the time they won't ruin your finished product. However, make too many of these mistakes and you could pouring your beer down the drain instead of drinking it.

Refusing To Clean And Sanitize

Cleaning and sanitizing is the most fun part of homebrewing, I understand that. I hate it too. But it has to be done to protect your beer from bacteria, germs and wild yeasts that could ruin your beer. Make sure to clean your equipment before and after brewing. Make sure to sanitize anything that comes in contact with the wort after it's boiled.

Trusting The Airlock

The bubbling in the airlock is just one of the many sings that the yeast are making beer in your fermenter. However, it's not the only sign! Just because the bubbling stops, doesn't mean that it's time to bottle your beer. Make sure you measure the gravity of your beer and that it's in the target range for the final gravity before you bottle your beer.

Not Being Patient

Beer takes a while. It's not fun, however it's important to give the yeast enough time to do their work. If you bottle your beer too soon, it could result in undrinkable brews or even worse, it could end up with exploding beer bottles!

Making A Complicated Beer When You're Just Starting Out

I made this mistake when I was first brewing beer, what can I say I wanted one of the extreme beers that I liked drinking so much! Luckily, the beer came out alright, however it would've been easier if I had started with a simple recipe before diving head first into the complicated beers.

Failing To Follow The Recipe Instructions

When you're making beer, things can happen fast and it's easy to skip a step or two. That's why I suggest reading through the instructions before you even start heating up the water. That way if you do have any questions, you can get answers before it's too late. I also suggest, checking off each step as you do them, so that you know that you did it and that you're doing them in the right order.

Brewing With Old Ingredients

Make sure the ingredients for your next beer are fresh. When you get your recipe kit or ingredients, don't wait months before your brewing your beer. The sooner you use the ingredients, the fresher they will be and better the results will taste. If you buy from a local place, don't be afraid to ask the folks at your homebrew shop how old the ingredients are!

Scorching Your Malt Extract

Before you add the malt extract, take your brewing kettle off the burner. Then add your malt extract and stir it in evenly before putting it back on the hot burner. This will keep the malt extract from sticking to the bottom of your kettle and scorching, leaving your beer with not so attractive burnt flavors.

Letting The Wort Boil Over

Pay attention when the wort is boiling! Don't leave the house, or even the kitchen. Wort has a tendency of boiling over if you let it get to hot and the result is a huge, sticky mess that's almost impossible to clean one hundred percent.

Letting Oxygen Get Into Your Beer

Right before you pitch the yeast into your wort, you want to make sure that you aerate it so that it has plenty of oxygen. However, after you pitch the yeast, you don't want anymore air to get into your beer. You need to be careful when you're transferring your wort to a secondary fermenter or are bottling it. That means that you shouldn't shake or stir it and move it around as little as possible.

Letting Your Beer Get Too Hot Or Too Cold

Each yeast has it's own temperature range, it's usually on the packing material or in the recipe instructions. You're going to want to keep your beer within those temperature ranges as it's fermenting. If you don't, it could lead to off flavors that will make your beer taste bad.

Failing To Keep Records

If your beer ends up tasting really good (or really bad), you're going to want to know why. That's why you should be taking notes. It's as simple as writing down notes about what went wrong, what you added to the beer, etc

Even if you were able to avoid making any of the common beginner mistakes, it's still possible to run into some problems. Some of the problems can be prevented, other's are just the result of plain bad luck. Either way, here's some of the solutions to the most common homebrewing problems.

Help! My Beer Did Carbonate.

I know all too well about beer that doesn't have carbonation. Unfortunately, it wasn't too long ago that I had this happen to me. If you end up with a beer that didn't carb, there's a few things to do. First, you need to remember that it can take two to three weeks for the average beer to carbonate. If after a few weeks you don't see any sign of carbonation, you may want to try adding carbonation pills. If that doesn't work, you made need to add fresh yeast.

Oh no! There's Mold In My Bottles

This problem is really simple to avoid, just make sure your bottles are clean ahead of time (and make sure they're still clean on bottling day). Unfortunately, once you have mold in your beer, there isn't much that you can do about it.

Why Isn't My Airlock Bubbling

If you don't see any bubbles in the airlock, it can be pretty nerve racking. However, it's not the end of the world. Often the cause of no bubbles is that your lid isn't on tight on your fermenting bucket. It could mean that the yeast are still working, just that the air is escaping not through the airlock. The best way to see if your yeast are working is to take multiple readings with a hydrometer.

My Yeast Are Bad

If there's no visible signs of fermentation and when you checked the gravity reading there was no change, it could mean that your yeast are bad. Before you get too worried, I would give it some more time to see if the yeast come alive. If they don't, you'll need to buy another pack of yeast and pitch it into your wort.

My Bottle Exploded

Exploding bottles are not fun, they can be messy and they can be very dangerous. If you have one bottle explode, you need to be ready for more to break. Carefully move the unbroken bottles to some place safe where they won't make a mess or hurt someone. You can also put them some place cold so that the yeast go dormant. The most common causes of exploding bottles is using too much priming sugar or bottling your beer before the yeast finished working. Make sure you follow the recipe for the proper amount of priming sugar and make sure your wort is finish fermented by doing multiple gravity readings.

My Beer Tastes Bad

If your beer tastes or smells bad, like it's sour or has some sort of funk, you may need to pour your beer down the drain. It means that your beer may have been infected and that you need to be very careful with drinking this one. The best way to prevent a beer from going bad is to make sure that you're cleaning and sanitizing one hundred percent of the time.