Common Mistakes Beginners Make with Home Brewed Beer

First you should know that these home brewed beer problems are very easy to avoid and/or eliminate. If you have bought a Beer Brewing Guide or a book on how to make beer, then most of these will have been covered there.

However, some of these are kind of glossed or skimmed over. This is because it is second nature for experienced beer brewers to avoid these problems. They know how important these are and how to avoid them. 

1. Using the incorrect temperature to ferment your beer. It's a little like the Goldilocks story, you don't want it "too hot" or "too cold". You want it "just right". The "just right" temperature is determined by the yeast strain you have selected for your beer. The temperature ranges generally fall somewhere between the 60's to the low 70's. It is critical that you maintain the recommended yeast temperature range. A common problem is that people attempt to make home brewed beer in their garage or basement and without heat and/or air conditioning, the temperature swings can be too wide and cause you problems when you make your beer.

Click HERE for the Ultimate Beer Brewing Guide!

2. Understanding that cleaning is not sanitizing. Just because you believe that you have cleaned your beer making equipment does not mean it's okay to brew beer in it. After you boil the beer, you MUST be sure that everything that touches it, or that it touches afterward, has been sanitized. Sanitized! Be sure to properly use a sanitizing kit between each batch of home brewed beer. Improper sanitization can not only make the beer taste terrible but can actually make you sick. Remember that the temperature that you are using to ferment your beer is also a good temperature to grow all sorts of other things (like bacteria) that you do not want in your home brewed beer or in your mouth.

3. Not knowing that your yeast is 'dead'. You cannot look at the yeast you are using and know that it's okay to use. First you should store all of your yeast properly (that means without any wild temperature swings). Secondly, you need to write the date that you bought the yeast on the package in permanent marker. Then before you start the fermentation process, look at the date on your yeast package. If you are using liquid type of yeast and it's over 2 months old, then don't use it. It MIGHT be okay but if it isn't you will have done a lot of work for nothing. Dry yeast is not as critical as liquid. You can use dry yeast for up to a year and it will be okay (as long as you have had it stored properly) for making home brewed beer.

4. Getting a little too anxious and deciding to bottle your beer a 'little early'. Along with learning how to bottle beer you should try to learn to be patient too. We know you want your beer to be done but when your impatience gets the best of you and you decide it's okay to bottle the brew early, you are wrong! If you bottle your beer early, then the gases will continue to be released within the bottle. The result will be the caps blowing off of the bottles and making a big mess for you to clean up. So you end up with a lot of extra work and no home brewed beer to drink.

5. Believing that if you follow the instructions on the package of beer ingredients when you make your beer, that your beer will turn out okay. Understand that the people/companies selling ingredient packages don't really care about your home brewed beer. They care about selling ingredients and they know that there are lots of different ways/variations people use in the brewing process. With that in mind, a lot of them will print their instructions in a very generic manner. The best thing you can do is have a beer brewing guide or a good brewing book that will give you detailed instructions on the recipe you are brewing. In general you will boil your beer for an hour. At the beginning of the boil you will be adding your bittering hops. The finishing hops should be added as directed on the package, or your brewing guide or book.

6. Making mistakes during the brew day because there's so much to remember. To avoid this mistake you should either print out the Checklist from the Brewing Guide or type one up if you are using a book to brew from. A checklist will keep you on track and keep you from forgetting a step along the way. Airline pilots use a checklist because they know it's important to check every little detail. You should take that same attitude when making home brewed beer.

7. Lacking confidence when you make homemade beer. If you follow a thorough checklist for the three critical days of the brewing process and make sure you have not made the mistakes mentioned above the YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR BEER! Sure there were a lot of steps you had to complete, but if you took your time and were careful along the way then there is absolutely nothing to worry about. When you brew beer at home, it should be fun and remember that making beer is really a pretty darn forgiving process too. So if this is your first batch and you feel your confidence lagging.....go ahead and enjoy one of your favorite "store bought" beers and just know that your home brew beer will be a lot better than that.

That's it. Nothing complicated.

Now get started and brew some great tasting beer. You deserve it. Right?