I thought it would be interesting to start a list of all the things home brewers worry about unnecessarily, since we come across them often on this forum, in fact much too often.
Home brewing should be a a simple predictable activity, and provided you keep things clean, check equipment over before you use it, use fresh ingredients, and try to avoid contact with your product as much as you sensibly can before you eventually drink it, it's fun to do and things rarely go wrong in my opinion, and you should definitely not be losing sleep over it.
So, at the top of the list, and possibly fuelled by urban legend
- infection/contamination; follow the basic cleanliness/sanitisation rules and you have to be extremely unlucky for a brew to go bad, unless you are hit by a plague of fruit flies
- oxidation; often talked about, but apart from rare occasions how many have actually experienced it; try not to splash when you move your beer about but it's not the end of the world if it does get the odd bubble of air in it
Then and in 'no particular order' we have
- clear bottles; a new word 'skunking' arose in my vocabulary this week, and I only thought skunks made a smell, or you smoked it
- my air lock isn't bubbling; the lids on FVs leak, and CO2 bypasses the lock, so don't rely on your airlock
- I have scratched the inside of my FV; provided you keep your FV clean and thoroughly sanitise it before use, as you should, no problem imo
- fermenting temperatures too high/too low; basically follow the instructions on the yeast packet or kit instructions for optimum temperature unless by experience you know better
- my PB is leaking; check all the cap seals before you start, and then lightly smear vaseline on the rubber ring and don't overtighten cap
There will be others.....
But my favourite of recent weeks, which to be fair was only a one-off question, was "Can I use old creosote tubs for brewing?"...priceless
Home brewing should be a a simple predictable activity, and provided you keep things clean, check equipment over before you use it, use fresh ingredients, and try to avoid contact with your product as much as you sensibly can before you eventually drink it, it's fun to do and things rarely go wrong in my opinion, and you should definitely not be losing sleep over it.
So, at the top of the list, and possibly fuelled by urban legend
- infection/contamination; follow the basic cleanliness/sanitisation rules and you have to be extremely unlucky for a brew to go bad, unless you are hit by a plague of fruit flies
- oxidation; often talked about, but apart from rare occasions how many have actually experienced it; try not to splash when you move your beer about but it's not the end of the world if it does get the odd bubble of air in it
Then and in 'no particular order' we have
- clear bottles; a new word 'skunking' arose in my vocabulary this week, and I only thought skunks made a smell, or you smoked it
- my air lock isn't bubbling; the lids on FVs leak, and CO2 bypasses the lock, so don't rely on your airlock
- I have scratched the inside of my FV; provided you keep your FV clean and thoroughly sanitise it before use, as you should, no problem imo
- fermenting temperatures too high/too low; basically follow the instructions on the yeast packet or kit instructions for optimum temperature unless by experience you know better
- my PB is leaking; check all the cap seals before you start, and then lightly smear vaseline on the rubber ring and don't overtighten cap
There will be others.....
But my favourite of recent weeks, which to be fair was only a one-off question, was "Can I use old creosote tubs for brewing?"...priceless