Brew years resolutions 2022

[samale]

Not sure if I had any last year, if I did it would be buy less beer. I think I sort of achieved this, in 2020 I tried to support breweries by buying. May have gone a little overboard this Xmas but never mind that. I will aim to do better this year.

For 2022, I will look not to drink beer I don't enjoy, I tend to hold onto beers that I think I won't like and then try to drink them all. I made a start on this over Xmas, if a beer wasn't to my taste I threw it. My can fridge is looking more spacious already.

I think I would like to get into the science of making beer a bit more. Previously I never had the headspace for it and brewed freestyle. I have slowly made some water additions to certain styles but I don't really understand it all and rely on brewing software. Hopefully this will take my beer to the next level.

Leon do you sent your beers away to be judged. How would you rate your beers personally. Have you won any of the monthly competition's.

 

[Clint]

I'm really going to try and limit my drinking...
As for other things...
Get a new bbq and explore more bbq cooking...I'll get a gas and a charcoal.
Allotment.
Fishing.
Metal detecting.
Try and get motivated to do some painting at home...the Dulux kind.
Sort my garage out.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I am thinking of brewing less but upping the quality and drinking less, no point having all the gear and not getting the best out of it, i hope you all achieve what you set out to do in 2022, so here is to tonight and tomorrow then the brewing gets a bit more serious

 

[phildo79]

Not sure if I had any for last year but I definitely wanted to up my game with some new equipment. Which I did with a fermentasaurus...until I broke it. I then got a 23L keg to use as an fv and that is a lot sturdier. I then got a 35L digiboil and switched to AG.

I suppose this year I will aim to brew more, better quality beer and try and stay away from the offy. However I popped into my favourite offy earlier and dropped £70 ffs

 

[Nicks90]

I want to cut down on my alcohol consumption this year, but not my brewing. So I'll be scheduling in my brews more religiously and cutting out buying beer, so I always have a suitable supply of HB available.
I'm also going to have a go with liquid yeasts, but I just need to research it a bit more on buying, storing and building starters and storing back yeast for future brews.

 

[Leon103]

Leon do you sent your beers away to be judged. How would you rate your beers personally. Have you won any of the monthly competition's.

Don't really enter the monthly comps. one, I never have the right style ready, I will look to improve in this. But more important it's a bit subjective as beers are judged against each other rather than style guides.

I have entered a few of the LAB comps and we get our 4 way brew off comps judged by a BJCP judge. I also send beers off to other brewers and give away to mates and they know ibwoukd constructive feedback.

I was know in my head what I want my beers to taste like and make any changes accordingly.

 

[samale]

Don't really enter the monthly comps. one, I never have the right style ready, I will look to improve in this. But more important it's a bit subjective as beers are judged against each other rather than style guides.

I have entered a few of the LAB comps and we get our 4 way brew off comps judged by a BJCP judge. I also send beers off to other brewers and give away to mates and they know ibwoukd constructive feedback.

I was know in my head what I want my beers to taste like and make any changes accordingly.

That's good stuff, personally I need to upgrade my equipment. I am yet to brew a Neipa that I am happy with. I need to invest to allow a closed transfer. I need to also finally get my head around water adjustments.
My darker beers always seem to be of better quality, not sure if this is down to my water or dark beers being more forgiving.
I am tempted to enter into my first official competition that Hazelwood posted earlier.
Happy new year to you and your family

 

[Leon103]

That's good stuff, personally I need to upgrade my equipment. I am yet to brew a Neipa that I am happy with. I need to invest to allow a closed transfer. I need to also finally get my head around water adjustments.
My darker beers always seem to be of better quality, not sure if this is down to my water or dark beers being more forgiving.
I am tempted to enter into my first official competition that Hazelwood posted earlier.
Happy new year to you and your family

And you my friend.

I had similar issues when I tried to make a neipa. Ever since i have called them hazy pales and I am more happier. Sometimes trying to shoe horn a beer into a style guide blinds your judgement.

 

[Broken Toe]

Should have added my own at the start really.

For me it's about getting better at finding those off flavours, putting a name to them, and then stopping them. I therefore pledge to sacrifice*, up to, at least 4L of each batch to be given to the gods of contamination to try and create some classic off flavours. *Still trying to avoid Brett outside of the Brett zone.

Will keep those interested, interested if useful. If not I'll keep quiet

 

[marshbrewer]

Starting tomorrow, I'm taking some time off drinking as I need to loose a bit of weight.

I want to brew more this year, and really try to improve the quality of my beer.

I need to sort out the garage / brewery, including sorting out a mice problem I seem to have; they haven't discovered / been able to get into, my malt but I want them gone

Upgrade my mash tun with my acquired thermo pot and bottom drain kit.

Re-jig my kegerator. The gas manifold is in the wrong place.

That's about it

 

[moto748]

I have no wish whatsoever for new or 'better' equipment; the longer I can continue to make beer they way I do now, the happier I will be. 2021 has been a good year for me, brewing-wise (the only sense in which it has been, of course). I think I have learnt a lot (mostly right here! ), and I now have two bitter recipes and a stout recipe that I like and will brew regularly to build up a stock, although I will continue to try new things from time to time.

 

[The Cat]

1. Clear out my garage to make more room - not my fault really had someone using some of it while relaying our patio for months.
2. Attempt to make a Tripel.
3. Start to use my refractometer.
4. Make a Saison
5. Buy an Ooni oven to enjoy fresh pizza with a homebrew on the (nearly finished) patio.
6. Go back to work at some point after 9 months off to be able to afford said oven and brew ingredients.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Last year went from kits to partial mash and on to all grain which was the goal, managed to get a couple of placings in the monthly comps which was encouraging.

Also said I'd try to get less shop bought beer. I drink a lot more of my own now and tend to just get in stuff I don't brew such as Lager.
So this year I want to make a really decent Pilsener.

Waiting on a new (secondhand) 70L kettle, nearly double capacity of my current one so hoping to brew some bigger batches - will probably need a few more kegs too !

 

[gibbo_sd]

Happy New Year All

Not sure they were official resolutions for last year .
But managed to get kegging , 2 became 4 !!!
Tried a couple of brews under pressure , very happy with those …

2022
Need to record much neater , my note book system with paper scraps and scribbles is shocking !!! Brewfather is great but I do like a paper copy too.

Clear some space in garage to fit a worktop and sink then maybe switch from 3V to electric all in one.

Try and plan a bit better to get involved in the HBF comps.

And a bit of bottle swapping.

Finally brew more , as the last 1/4 of 2021 I really struggled for time …

All the best

 

[Brewnaldo]

Gonna add one to 2022 which is going to be to get at least one of my beers judged/evaluated by someone who knows what they are talking about, be it a proper national competition like the LAB one or one of the monthly ones on here. I have had beers tasted by others on here in bottle swaps, but I want the full on, heres where you have failed based on the standards for the style type criticism.

So aye, enter a competition of some description.

 

[jof]

No resolutions but I did manage:
Get a klarstein fullhorn & switch from partial mash to ag.
Got a new simple fv so I can retire my 30 year old boots brewing bucket to dry storage duties.

Still need to work in getting the right level of carbonation.
Might try sourcing water from a local spring.

 

[matt76]

Don't think I made any specific resolutions for 2021, but there were two or threee things that I think helped me improve:

- I made a decision to do away with scattergun whimsical brewing and instead plan my brews far in advance in blocks of 5, and getting all the ingredients way ahead of time. I focused on 3 core beers that I brewed several times in the year, gradually refining and perfecting them, which left space for 2 more seasonal beers.

- I gradually refined my process to the point I can hit my targets pretty much every time (at worst +/- 1 gravity point). This also makes brew days much smoother as I'm not massively changing what I'm doing each time, and often brewing exactly the same beer I've made before, or slight variations thereof.

- Having previously sworn I had no interest in kegs I made the switch half way through the year. This combined with closed transfers has improved my hoppy beers beyond recognition and was totally worth the investment.

- Family commitments plus a desire to watch my alcohol intake led to me reducing the strength of my beers - they're typically all in the 3.5 - 4.0% ABV range and it's a fun challenge trying to pack flavour and satisfaction into modest strength brews.

Two aims I can think of for 2022:

- Having focused on recipes in 2021 I'd like to fine tune my choice of house yeast strains to cover the styles I make (still work in progress!)

- Bitter! I've never really nailed this (has anyone!) so I'm thinking this will be a fourth house beer to focus on this year and get it to a point where at least I feel I've done it justice (work already underway!)

 

[Leon103]

Gonna add one to 2022 which is going to be to get at least one of my beers judged/evaluated by someone who knows what they are talking about, be it a proper national competition like the LAB one or one of the monthly ones on here. I have had beers tasted by others on here in bottle swaps, but I want the full on, heres where you have failed based on the standards for the style type criticism.

So aye, enter a competition of some description.

You want to enter a proper arranged competition then and not a forum comp.

 

[Brewnaldo]

You want to enter a proper arranged competition then and not a forum comp.

Ideally both. I respect the folks on here and would like to get as much knowledgable, impartial feedback that isnt mostly designed to make me feel good about giving someone free beer as I can. I dont have many mates, if any who are beer experts so I its tough for me to get feedback that would actually be so detailed/useful as to help me adjust recipes or process.

I did find out today one of my recent stouts found its way to a guy who does reviews for CAMRA and he really liked it so im pleased with that.