What is easiest? wine, mead or beer?

Northern Brewer General
1

ok so this is embarrassing to admit but i have had a deep love for everything beer for a very long time, started brewing in 2007, thousands of dollars spent, countless hours studying, over 100 batches and sadly only a small handful of my beers were good, 80% dumpers, 10% barely drinkable and 10% good, i have tried everything you can think of and can say it was not from a lack of trying but im at the end, i am very addicted to the hobby so even though im a mega failure its hard to walk away from brewing and it should be easy at this point, anyway is wine making or mead making easier to produce a world class product? i dont like wine or mead really( its ok)but i need something to replace brewing, thanks yall

2

Well shucks, if you were around my hood, I’d invite you over for a brew day…
I enjoy apple cider and it’s very easy as well. I buy apple juice from the store, some dry yeast. No heating and waiting and waiting. I do keg, and serve it on the higher side of carbonation. Almost resembles champagne .
Sneezles61

2 Likes
3

that would be great to be in a brew club or have friends that brew, honestly i never tried somebody elses homebrew ever in my life

4

I’m south of Lake Superior in Mn.
Sneezles61

5

unfortunately im in NY

6

Any local breweries you could have a brew day with? Perhaps a homebrew shop that has brew on premises?
Sneezles61

7

i wish but no, a few years back there was a HBS about 10 miles away i shopped once or twice but it closed down

8

Could we discuss about your brewing methods? Maybe find an area that may help improve your results? Many folks here to talk/troubleshoot with.
Sneezles61

9

sure, i feel my process is pretty standard but something along the line is going wrong that im not noticing, on brew day i always hit my OG, volumes etc on paper my brew days are almost perfect it seems, thats why im having a difficult time diagnosing what im doing wrong

10

Let’s start with one ingredient…
Water… city or well?
Sneezles61

11

i use either bottled spring or i use distilled and add salts using a water calculator , my tap is really bad i have tried both filtering and campden tabs but did not like the results so stuck to bottled spring or distilled

12

What’s your fermenting temp control look like ?
Sneez

13

i use a inkbird controller and a chest freezer also have a swamp cooler type set up, usually ferment on the low to mid range of the yeast

14

When primary fermentation is complete, what is your next process?
Sneezles61

15

let the temp ramp to 68-70F usually a few more days to finish it out and make sure FG is stable then bottle, i have left beer in primary for a month+ before and i have packaged soon after i reached FG, i have yet have a batch of beer go from bad to good just from leaving in primary longer as alot of people recommend, i use a beergun to bottle straight from keg which i use as a fermenter with floating dip tube to be able to purge the bottles with co2 and prime with carb drops but also used plain dextrose to prime(boiled with water not straight)

16

That all looks solid. The only process I see could be the lack of O2 for the yeast to use during the bottling conditioning phase… maybe isn’t a problem?
Do you have the ability to keg and serve?
Sneezles61

17

i have 5 gallon kegs but i brew 2.5-2.75 gallon batches, speaking of that i was thinking of investing in smaller kegs so i can eliminate bottling but sinking anymore money into my failed brewing life is not a smart move, my latest porter is oxidized before the carbonation even happened, i had no beer so i drank a flat one it was oxidized and only in the bottle for less then a week so thats going down the drain soon but will let it carb fully and reevaluate before i do that

18

Jeez, 80% dumpers? Even when I bottled the end result was drinkable…… bottle bombs (once), and bottled NEIPAs that did oxidize quickly aside.

Do you have better luck with kits?
Is there a persistent infected equipment tang?

1 Like
19

Seems odd to have “cardboard” (oxidized) when bottles are purged with CO2… I have to be dumber than a pile of rocks to ask, could you pop a few caps, allow some air in, put your thumb over it and invert it quietly, set it upright… let your thumb off, allow it to breathe and repeat. Then cap again. Give a few weeks?
Sneezles61

1 Like
20

i wish i had gordon strong to drink my beer cause i dont have a good enough palate to describe, not sour or obvious infection, i go absolutely crazy with cleaning and sanitation probably overboard