# What’s your bad brewing habit?



## Timbo (14/7/19)

Nobody is perfect. What’s your bad brewing habit?

I haven’t used a hydrometer for three months. Keep forgetting to replace it/put off replacing my old broken one. Lucky I keg, but it’s gonna bite me soon!


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## Reg Holt (15/7/19)

Timbo said:


> Nobody is perfect. What’s your bad brewing habit?
> 
> I haven’t used a hydrometer for three months. Keep forgetting to replace it/put off replacing my old broken one. Lucky I keg, but it’s gonna bite me soon!


I broke a hydrometer once, since buying 2 spare years ago I haven't broken another one since.


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## devoutharpist (15/7/19)

I'd say mine is no regard for water. Never made any water additions, never used boiled or filtered water for yeast hydration, think i used correct sparge temp once, now i just go for whatever comes out of the tap.


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## dkril (15/7/19)

Poor organisation/forgetfulness on brewday. Everything will be going well, then suddenly it's, "**** **** **** **** where's the CF chiller/I haven't cleaned the fermenter/etc," resulting in 5-10 minutes of frantic activity.


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## Gibbo411 (15/7/19)

+1 for this.


dkril said:


> Poor organisation/forgetfulness on brewday. Everything will be going well, then suddenly it's, "**** **** **** **** where's the CF chiller/I haven't cleaned the fermenter/etc," resulting in 5-10 minutes of frantic activity.


My biggest problem is thinking my kids won't run a muck on brew days.
Naughty kids = Angry Wife
Angry Wife = Painful brew day


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## Schikitar (15/7/19)

Sometimes, not always, I don't clean stuff immediately after brewing, making things somewhat harder to clean after the fact (and I also crowd the laundry/kitchen with gear, that drives my wife crazy)!

I think my other bad habit is not cleaning the beer lines on my kegerator often enough, I know some people do that between every beer, I don't, maybe only once every six beers or so.. ironically I over-clean a lot of other things, weird.


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## Truman42 (15/7/19)

Deciding at work that it would be a good idea to brew tonight when I get home from work at 5:30pm.

By 11:00pm as Im watching the wort flow through the chiller into the fermenter, falling asleep in my chair, freezing cold in the garage, I realise that it wasnt such a good idea.


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## Truman42 (15/7/19)

Timbo said:


> Nobody is perfect. What’s your bad brewing habit?
> 
> I haven’t used a hydrometer for three months. Keep forgetting to replace it/put off replacing my old broken one. Lucky I keg, but it’s gonna bite me soon!


I havent used a hydrometer for 8 years since buying a refractometer.


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## DU99 (15/7/19)

having a beer or 2...on brew day..


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## dkril (15/7/19)

DU99 said:


> having a beer or 2...on brew day..


That's not a bad habit - that's mandatory!


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## Timbo (15/7/19)

Truman42 said:


> I havent used a hydrometer for 8 years since buying a refractometer.


Well played. Might not replace mine and simply upgrade.


dkril said:


> That's not a bad habit - that's mandatory!


Absolutely!


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## petesbrew (10/9/19)

No temperature control. Probably the worst of the lot, but I roll with it.
Saison's in summer, that's my motto.


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## DJR (10/9/19)

petesbrew said:


> No temperature control. Probably the worst of the lot, but I roll with it.
> Saison's in summer, that's my motto.



Same here, although it's a bit cooler up here so I don't mind, plus the room I ferment in stays pretty cool compared with the rest of the house.
Looking forward to saisons and kviek yeast beers this summer!


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## philrob (11/9/19)

I tried to avoid bad habits, having learned the hard way that cleaning as you go is the only way. That's after a nasty experience about 7 or 8 years ago when I forgot to empty and clean my mash tun for 3 days........

All my gravity measurements are done with a refractometer, except my FG just before bottling. That's'done with a hydrometer inherited from a now deceased neighbour. Must be at least 40 years old, so will never break now, surely? Still reads correctly 1.000 in my filtered water. Not paying for any more after losing about 4 or 5 of them over the years, including a very expensive lab grade one not long ago.


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## Edward Rowe (11/9/19)

My nasty brew habit is brewing with my pants on.


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## scomet (11/9/19)

I’m anal about cleaning brewing gear but; Is knowing the Og and Fg going to change the taste (the reason I brew) of your beer? I think not! so my abv has become +/- %.. Out of curiosity I will check new brews. Now I say “it’s a strong bitter, you’l know after 3 pints :-}”

Owning a good thermometer(s), now thats a different story!!

Cheers


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## wide eyed and legless (11/9/19)

Similar to scomet, I know I should take notes when making my bitters/Ipa's especially when I change the hops, have a bitter now which is an improvement on the previous one, same malt schedule but changed the hops. Now I wish I had made notes.


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## ben_sa (11/9/19)

Drinking before mash out...


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## Kingy (12/9/19)

Haha I try to not have a beer until the boil starts. Or if I get up early to mash in at 4:30 I try not to have one before 930 [emoji38]


ben_sa said:


> Drinking before mash out...


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## Schikitar (13/9/19)

One of my other bad habits is always tweaking recipes, I seem to have a sickness, can't follow a pre-existing recipe as-is. I always have to modify it to give it my own spin but usually this results in something not as good - I never learn! Haha! I do the same thing in the kitchen, always improvising, although the results are usually a bit better..


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## awfulknauful (13/9/19)

At the moment my bad brewing habit is not doing enough brewing, business is taking off, I am hardly ever home.


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## DU99 (13/9/19)

not brewing enough;getting slack


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## stuartf (13/9/19)

Schikitar said:


> One of my other bad habits is always tweaking recipes, I seem to have a sickness, can't follow a pre-existing recipe as-is. I always have to modify it to give it my own spin but usually this results in something not as good - I never learn! Haha! I do the same thing in the kitchen, always improvising, although the results are usually a bit better..


Yep that's me too, even if its my own recipe i find i still tweak things and move hop additions or amounts around on the day [emoji482]


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## Paddy Melon (14/9/19)

stuartf said:


> Yep that's me too, even if its my own recipe i find i still tweak things and move hop additions or amounts around on the day [emoji482]


Is that a bad habit? I thought it was what I'm supposed to do. I'm now on my 24th brew and not one has replicated a previous recipe. So far I like them all. I guess my bad habit is deciding which one I like the best


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## Schikitar (14/9/19)

Paddy Melon said:


> Is that a bad habit?


Well it depends, I call it a bad habit because nearly every time after I just wish I followed the recipe as it was.. However, you can definitely make some accidental discoveries through experimentation, just pick and choose your battles wisely. I think to be consistently good you first need to be consistent.


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## jonggy (15/9/19)

coming to ahb to buy kit.


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## Paddy Melon (15/9/19)

Schikitar said:


> Well it depends, I call it a bad habit because nearly every time after I just wish I followed the recipe as it was.. However, you can definitely make some accidental discoveries through experimentation, just pick and choose your battles wisely. I think to be consistently good you first need to be consistent.


Touche. I have fortunately kept meticulous notes so can replicate my favorites. As I said I have liked them all but there have been a couple I really like.


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## stuartf (15/9/19)

Paddy Melon said:


> Touche. I have fortunately kept meticulous notes so can replicate my favorites. As I said I have liked them all but there have been a couple I really like.


Yeah my bad habit is probably more the making of sudden changes and not keeping good notes so if its good I'm not sure I can replicate it again. Then again I probably wouldn't follow my notes next time anyway [emoji1787]


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