What Is Considered the Easiest And Hardest To Brew?
- Thread starter Scream
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Easiest? Prison brews. Apple juice, sugar, yeast and a balloon. Enjoy! (that's my opinion though)
Hardest? Triple decoction lagers, with several fatty unsanitisable postboil additions? (that's why I only did a smash lager when "outside" was a good temperature, and the balcony was free)
BUT brewing when the missus is busy in the same kitchen?
...
I'll try the triple decoction
Hardest? Triple decoction lagers, with several fatty unsanitisable postboil additions? (that's why I only did a smash lager when "outside" was a good temperature, and the balcony was free)
BUT brewing when the missus is busy in the same kitchen?
...
I'll try the triple decoction
MickDundee
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Hefeweizen was probably the easiest one I’ve done (single infusion mash version obviously). Most of the flavour comes from the yeast so it doesn’t really matter if you cock up anything else.
from an extract brewer point of view:
wheat beer - easiest
sour beer* - easy
ale & ipa - easy
dark beers - quad, ris - medium
lager - harder
* - if you have a bottle conditioned sour to hand to innoculate the wort and the juice from greek yogurt AND don't mind keeping the kit used to brew sour beer separate from your other beer kit.
wheat beer - easiest
sour beer* - easy
ale & ipa - easy
dark beers - quad, ris - medium
lager - harder
* - if you have a bottle conditioned sour to hand to innoculate the wort and the juice from greek yogurt AND don't mind keeping the kit used to brew sour beer separate from your other beer kit.
Cwrw666
Landlord.
Not sure this is a thing with AG. You just do what it says in the recipe. Job done.
Keep looking at sake recipe's and every time I think "jeez that looks really hard work"
I think sake has to rank very highly on the pain-in-the-**** difficulty rankings
I think sake has to rank very highly on the pain-in-the-**** difficulty rankings
Hi Cwrw, surely lager conditioning is a pain if you don't have temp control (I know lager is not the weapon of choice on this forum
)
AdeDunn
Member
The easiest thing I have found to brew has to be Patersbier. Pilsner malt, Saaz hops for bittering, Hallertauer mittelfruh 10 minutes before end of boil. Use a yeast like Mangrove Jack's M41 Belgian Ale and it's pretty much bomb proof.
I haven't even tried to brew lager, as I don't have the facilities to lager.... But for sheer time for it to taste good, a decent mead can be a pig. You're looking at a year of it sat conditioning at least unless you add spices or fruit to cover flaws, less than that and it's paint stripper. Then there's all of the degassing needed, enzyme if you use fruit.... Worth it though when you give somebody who's never had mead of any description a taste of yours and a taste of a commercial mead, and they really like yours but find the commercial one just ok....
I haven't even tried to brew lager, as I don't have the facilities to lager.... But for sheer time for it to taste good, a decent mead can be a pig. You're looking at a year of it sat conditioning at least unless you add spices or fruit to cover flaws, less than that and it's paint stripper. Then there's all of the degassing needed, enzyme if you use fruit.... Worth it though when you give somebody who's never had mead of any description a taste of yours and a taste of a commercial mead, and they really like yours but find the commercial one just ok....
Wherry kit...easy to do,hard to get right...so they say.
Are you looking for somewhere to start?
Drunkula
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Easiest: Beaverdale red wine kit (still tastes pretty good first day bottled)
Hardest: Lager kits (still less quaffable than the water that comes out of a blister but with less body - even if it was brewed by Brewy McBrewerson from Brewtech in his Brewlab while celebrating all his students getting their Mashters degrees)
Hardest: Lager kits (still less quaffable than the water that comes out of a blister but with less body - even if it was brewed by Brewy McBrewerson from Brewtech in his Brewlab while celebrating all his students getting their Mashters degrees)
Scream
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Apologises for the delay. No, not really. I plan to make my very first cider soon. Then probably wine next as in within a month. Picking wild blackberries and usually they're taken pretty quickly and therefore I'm starting sooner than I probably would have. Then mead.
Where I used to live in Aberdeenshire, they reckoned that a tourist once asked a local the way to Huntly and after much thought the local replied "To be honest, if I was going to Huntly I would never start from here." and then walked away shaking his head.
I wouldn't start with a cider! :hat:
No problem. That sounds like a nice schedule, especially being able to pick your fruit.
As far as beer, since it's all I know, all grain requires more know-how than extract brewing. With an extract, if there isn't anything to steep, that makes it frightfully easy to make and also if it's in the lower ABV band. Everyone else seems to have nicely covered the rest.
Well, good luck!
Cwrw666
Landlord.
Hi Cwrw, surely lager conditioning is a pain if you don't have temp control (I know lager is not the weapon of choice on this forum
Well yes, but I was assuming you would have all the equipment needed for the job. I don't have a brewfridge myself but have been wondering about doing one of the more interesting lagers in the winter when there's sure to be a bit of the house at the right temperature for each stage.
Sadfield
Landlord.
Easiest: Modern "craft" IPAs. Just a case of throwing hops at beer to cover up brewing faults.
Hardest: Standard Bitter. The pinnacle of the brewers art, a style that has been honed by generations of Masterbrewers to achieve a beer of sparkling clarity with the perfect balance of malt, hops and fish intestines.
Or so I have been reliably informed on many a fora.
Alternately, it's generally the same process of recipe formulation, water treatment, sweet wort production, yeast management, fermentation control and packaging, regardless of type of beer. The skill is managing and adapting each stage appropriately to reach the desired outcome.
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Hardest: Standard Bitter. The pinnacle of the brewers art, a style that has been honed by generations of Masterbrewers to achieve a beer of sparkling clarity with the perfect balance of malt, hops and fish intestines.
Or so I have been reliably informed on many a fora.
Alternately, it's generally the same process of recipe formulation, water treatment, sweet wort production, yeast management, fermentation control and packaging, regardless of type of beer. The skill is managing and adapting each stage appropriately to reach the desired outcome.
Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
Last edited:
AdeDunn
Member
If I knew we were allowed to cheat and mention kit beers, then I would have gone with:-
Easiest to brew: Good tasting all grain beer.
Hardest to brew: Kit beer I want to actually drink and not flush down the toilet.
So here is some advice, if you find after a couple of kits that you hate it, stop wasting money in the hope it'll get better. Spend that money on equipment, and get into BIAB all grain brewing instead, save a fortune, drink good beer.
Not saying this is true for everybody though, hence I said if after a couple of kits.... 
I went through a LOT, and regretted spending so much!!!! The money I spent on kits I could have afforded something like a Brew Devil probably (had it of existed back then... lol The ACE did, but well...)....
Easiest to brew: Good tasting all grain beer.
Hardest to brew: Kit beer I want to actually drink and not flush down the toilet.
So here is some advice, if you find after a couple of kits that you hate it, stop wasting money in the hope it'll get better. Spend that money on equipment, and get into BIAB all grain brewing instead, save a fortune, drink good beer.
Not saying this is true for everybody though, hence I said if after a couple of kits.... I went through a LOT, and regretted spending so much!!!! The money I spent on kits I could have afforded something like a Brew Devil probably (had it of existed back then... lol The ACE did, but well...)....
MyQul
Chairman of the Bored
As sadfield alludes to, I dont find making bitters particularly difficult. Perhaps my water is well suited to bitter as I dont do much to it (apart from strip out the alkalinity, I dont even add a campden tablet because it's not chlorinated enough to need one). A basic bitter recipe is super simple, just base malt and crystal (you dont eve have to add the crystal if you dont want to). But imo a proper English ale yeast is needed, but that does all the work for you
If I knew we were allowed to cheat and mention kit beers, then I would have gone with:-
Easiest to brew: Good tasting all grain beer.
Hardest to brew: Kit beer I want to actually drink and not flush down the toilet.
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