10 HOMEBREWING MISTAKES YOU LEARNED from YouTube brew channels | Brewin' the Most

[Music] want to be caffeinated for this one on this episode of doing the most we're going to talk about the top ten mistakes you learned how to make from YouTube Brewers this is a video that I've been planning to make for a while I consumed quite a bit of YouTube home brewing content and for the most part there are some really incredible YouTube Brewers out there doing some cool and innovative stuff in thinking about home brewing in a lot of new ways which is super cool and inspires us to think outside the box when we're brewing however that said watching some of these channels you may clue into some things that don't make sense or are just not best practice now as I've seen these things over the years I've kind of made notes here and there and then they've kind of fell into a top 10 format so here we go number one bread yeast often YouTube tutorials on how to make wine or Mead at home incorporate bread yeast typically those little packets of like Fleischmann's bread yeast now granite bread yeast will ferment bread yeast will convert fermentable sugars into out goals but that's not what it's intended to do bread yeast is intended to create co2 bubbles that will help your bread rise that's its job its job isn't to make tasty alcohol and so using a yeast that is kind of general purpose made for baking in something as nuanced as brewing is just a faux pas now it will work and if it's what you've got go ahead and use it but you're gonna have problems with flocculation issues with inconsistent alcohol tolerance for that yeast some may be able to brew up to 15 16 percent other packets you may get six seven percent alcohol and you may have problems with all flavors yeast for brewing have been cultivated for specific flavor profiles particular different kinds of extraction like tannin or color extraction bread yeast doesn't do those things bread yeast makes bread rise that's what it's for so if you have access to Amazon or a local homebrew shop or any of the home brewing equipment sites out there get good brewing yeast number two under thinking your yeast bread yeast in home brewing is under thinking your yeast but beyond that sticking to one specific kind of yeast like ici one one one eight which is incredibly reliable ferments up to typically very high alcohol tolerance is not putting a lot of thought into the flavor profile that your yeast can create to compliment or add depth to the thing that you're brewing for example there are red wine yeasts that are cultivated specifically for color extraction from fruit and to get depth of tannin and you're just not gonna get that with something like an easy one one one eight and I understand why YouTube channels will typically use these kinds of views because they are very consistent I have done this on our channel because I want to make sure that the thing ferments how it's supposed to ferment to be camera friendly however you've got more flexibility if you're not trying to produce content for the internet you can experiment with other kinds of yeasts and search engines are your friend run a search query on what you're brewing and for yeast recommendations and see what other people have experimented with I know winemaking kits come with EC one one one eight I know easy one one one eight is a real powerhouse for new Brewers because it gives you a consistent clean ferment every time however there are other options out there don't stick to what you see on YouTube number three flavor extracts this is a pitfall that I fell into probably in my third or fourth year of brewing and I can understand why some folks do and I can definitely understand why other youtube brewing channels show brewing with flavor extracts so you may be wondering what I'm talking about the science of flavor is really complex and it has to do with a lot of compounds and ketones that create the sensation on the palate of what you're tasting like I had a friend who was a PhD student a few years ago and one of their assignments was to create the ketone that tastes like banana so they had to figure out the right mix of these food safe additives that created this molecule that tasted like banana and when they finally nailed it he said this tastes like banana runts remember banana runts they were the worst runs so flavor extracts are kind of the same thing and you'll see some of them that say that they're a natural flavor extract and sometimes that means they come from the fruit or herb or spice that that's listed on the bottle but sometimes they're just artificial flavorings they're artificial flavorings purporting to be an extract for a thing now my issue with using flavor extracts is it doesn't challenge the home brewer to go outside their comfort zone in using natural ingredients so say you're making a merlot and you would like it to be a Blackberry Merlot you could use a blackberry flavor extract and you would have a merlot that tastes like blackberry or you could get blackberries or blackberry juice and use that as the base to ferment your Merlot is it more expensive yes is it gonna help you build your skills as a home brewer absolutely you're gonna learn so much more about process than just dumping an extract into your brew I will caveat that by saying flavor extracts will help you kind of understand what that flavor profile looks like as an example I'm doing a birch beer Bo Shea right now and rather than start by boiling all these herbs and putting together this concoction I just used a birch beer extract because I wanted to see how the birch beer flavor stands up against the caramelized honey but in the final product and the thing that I would serve to friends and family I'm not gonna use an extract because the rewarding feeling for me and the more interesting product is gonna come from doing it the most really using all the real ingredients to create those flavors just be cautious about using extracts in your brewing number four extreme experiments it's very clear to me why YouTube channels do extreme experiments we've done a couple here on the channel including Lucky Charms metal foam stout and we did an oyster stout Mead it's weird kind of wacky stuff and it's total clickbait and it engages the viewer because everyone wants to know if that is gonna turn out bad but I would caution homebrewers not to get too wrapped up and doing wacky experiments with things like wines or means I'm a little more flexible when it comes to beer because adjunct brewing is crazy popular right now but extreme experiments can take the homebrew away from what it is they are brewing so like on reddit's are slash meat sub there are always wacky experiments going on with various adjuncts and I can totally understand wanting a beverage that tastes like that I think it's totally fun to experiment with beverages that have interesting flavors like candy cane or mint chocolate chip but you're making a mead right and the point of a mead is to ferment honey and so if the adjuncts if the flavor profile that you're using is overpowering any of the nuance of your honey there's kind of no point in making it as a mead other than to say this is a mead honey is a very delicate flavor and if you're stacking a bunch of Twix bars on top of that are you really doing any service to the honey would it have made more sense to instead use like dextrose or table sugar or something like that something with a more neutral fermented profile because honey's expensive quiet obliterate the delicacy of the honey underneath a really heavy flavor profile now am i saying that you should never do wacky experiments I think the world would be boring if nobody went outside the box but getting caught in that trap of constantly doing wacky stuff trying to next level every single brew I think can be into service to yourself when sometimes simplicity can be the best option but good fate can be fun number five spice and everything nice in a similar vein there are a lot of home brewing channels that love to pitch a ton of herbs and spices into their products particularly around the holiday mold variance of homebrew seem to be very popular you'll see it all over YouTube starting around Halloween but there are some things to know about spice particularly there are some palates mine included that perceive fermented spices in vastly different ways than non fermented spices for example cloves and cinnamon can kind of taste soapy to me after they're fermented and so I prefer to put spices like that in secondary so they don't undergo such an arduous fermentation process but beyond that a lot of this YouTube home brewing content that focuses on heavy spiced additions tends to be how-to content catered toward new Brewers and especially with something like a Mead where you're dealing with an expensive ingredient and a lot of complexity and how that brewing process can be carried out like if you're using a nutrient schedule it is really best practice for the beginner brewer to learn how to do the basics how to make a good traditional Mead before going on and dumping a bunch of spice and orange peels and crap like that into your Mead if you've really drilled down and accomplished nailing the basics of a nuanced and delicious Mead then you understand what your blank canvas looks like to start applying other levels of complexity so while it's trendy to use cardamom or nutmeg or spices whatever in home brewing right now it's also important to understand the basics of making something drinkable that you would be proud to share number six and this is the one everyone's probably been waiting for raisins as nutrient we've all seen this one and I will preface this by saying that I think raisins to add body are perfectly acceptable in our blueberry mead video I added about a pound of raisins to give some body to that Mead that's perfectly acceptable but the available nitrogen in a raisin is so minut you would have to add such a quantity of raisins to your home brew that a one gallon jug would basically be full of raisins and that's just so you have the available nutrient for the yeast to do their thing no mind the fact that you've basically just made raisin wine at that point there are a lot of videos out there that will show you putting 25 raisins into your wine to give it some nutrient there's no nutrient in that you're adding body or you're adding Ray's in the flavor that's it if you want to add nutrient for your homebrew diammonium phosphate is a great choice up to about 9% alcohol it's basically like giving your yeast a bunch of candy however if you're making a higher potential alcohol content like a meat or a wine you're gonna need more available nutrient for the yeast beyond that threshold that's why a lot of Mead makers follow the Tosca schedule of nutrient additions it's a staggered addition of nutrients and it continues to feed the East at a comfortable and paste level all the way through fermentation so there's no yeast stress you can get stress yeast from dumping in a bunch of diammonium phosphate cuz they just go wild they're bouncing off the walls they're fermenting hard they're off gassing a lot of delicate flavors you're gonna miss out on some complexity and probably get some off flavors if you're just feeding your east candy so that's why there's this big trend toward actually feeding your yeast properly so there are products like firm 800 from ade kay there's the yeast rehydration nutrient go firm there's plenty of options out there and I would encourage you to look up information on nutrient schedules so that you are properly tending to the needs of your yeast raisins are not nutrients for home brewing no matter how many videos are out there trying to do side by sides and say well I did it with nutrient I did it with raisins and the raisins was still better I didn't notice anything in the long run and when you have larger quantities so you can do more a be testing over time you will notice a difference I promise you you will notice a difference use proper nutrient don't believe the Internet don't put raisins in your homebrew unless you want to build up the body and give it a little bit of legs number seven mixing measurements and I will admit now that I am very guilty of this one but I'm gonna discuss it anyway mixing measurements refers to the practice using metric and imperial or using weight and volume instead of just using a consistent measurement the reason I say this is because you see it a lot in home brewing how-to videos they'll say use 10 grams of yeast nutrient and 1 TSP of go firm grams teaspoons mixed measurements if you're developing a recipe particularly with ingredients that can be inconsistent like herbs or in my birch beer there's licorice root 1 cup of licorice root today may not be equivalent to one cup of licorice root tomorrow look at these things it's basically just a shredded up root you're never gonna get the same measurement trying to measure by a volume as if you just measured by weight that's why they put the weight on the package 4 ounces for ounces of licorice root it makes so much more sense to create a recipe around weight than any other metric it's gonna be consistent for you and it's gonna be consistent for anyone trying to follow the recipe later mixing measurements is bad and I'm trying to quit number 8 not enough fruit it really kind of surprises me when I see a home brewing how-to on YouTube that's like how to make a strawberry wine and then they use like half a pound of fruit in a one gallon batch at that quantity in no ways your end result going to taste like strawberries as a minimum in like a fruit wine you need three or four pounds of that fruit in order to impart some of that fruits flavor and I get why this is done less fruit makes for a cleaner process if your channel focus is on 1 gallon batches it's hard to work with 3 to 4 pounds of fruit and 1 gallon batch effectively unless you have like a 2 gallon bucket that you can ferment in and a lot of folks are using 1 gallon jugs to ferment it but not using enough fruit is not gonna give you that fruit flavor on the back end and then when you try it you're forced to pretend like oh wow this tastes like strawberries when in reality the strawberry is probably not there and man if you give that away to a friend and say look at the strawberry wine I made and it tastes like tart white wine with no strawberry flavor they're not gonna think you're a very good home brewer so yeah fruits expensive fruits bulky it leads to clarification problems and racking problems but it's also all part of the learning process on how to become a good home brewer so skimping on your fruit is is only harming you in the long run as a brewer and I know you see it on YouTube all the time a little handful of blueberries going into a batch of beer to make it a blueberry lager but that's just not real life that's that's not gonna impart enough flavor if you're really trying to make a fruit based product go all in on the fruit and this seems like a good time to plug our peach video that came out last week where we use 30 pounds of peaches to make a peach Mead and I know I said this in a previous video but going to a wholesale like chef supply store to buy your fruit in bulk in the freezer section is a great way of getting an excess of fruit and kind of minimizing your expense number 9 where's that water from as you probably seen in our doing the most videos we tend to use bottled spring water with added minerals for flavor we do this because it's a guaranteed source of sterile water and it's also water that tastes good now you can go even more next level by treating your water there's all kinds of information on on the internet for that and water treatment is typically used when making beer but it's definitely a thing people do for wine and meat too there are often times where I'm watching a home brewing video and I see water going directly from a tap into a carboy you have to wonder what the chlorine fluoride mineral content is in that water and how those things are going to affect the yeast and the fermentation process itself I can't remember the last time I used tap water for a home brew in fact there's a there's a professor at a local university here that is basically a brewing savant this guy is a genius when it comes to making mead and beer and for the longest time he was having trouble with his beers getting infected and trying to figure out what the source was how how is this happening he's following all the best practices he's he's doing everything right he's doing the boil everything seems perfect so apparently he had a some kind of modified tap the bathtub in one of his bathrooms and that's where he was getting his brewing water and he deduced through the process of elimination that it was some kind of mold or mildew infection that was in that line that was somehow still getting into the brew whether it was water that had gotten onto his equipment or splashed on him and somehow got somehow this water source was tainted and so when he switched water sources suddenly this infection problem went away if it can happen to somebody who is such an expert who's been brewing for 40 years and won all kinds of awards it can happen to you and it can especially happen to you if you learn to do that from a YouTube tutorial so my recommendation is to use bottled spring water that you get directly from the store and that way you know it's sterile but you can also treat your water boy water or whatever just make sure that you're using sterile good tasting water to start out with and number 10 the rush to consume I think this is probably the thing that I see on YouTube home brewing videos the most frequently that gives me my own personal chuckle because it kind of goes like this two weeks ago we pitched our yeast into this cider the cider had a boil with Centennial hops as well as being dry hopped with Fuggles we also added nutmeg and cinnamon and cardamom and cloves upon our first racking we added toasted oak and a splash of whiskey it was basically clear on our second racking so we bottled it up for today's tasting this two week old cider with dozens of adjuncts is the nectar of the Gods I've never made anything this good I'll never make anything this good ever again and you should make this right now hit that subscribe button for more content just like this and those are the good actors you may also see it like this it's so good there are ways to make something delicious and drinkable in a short period of time but there are a handful of home brewing channels out there that are drinking stuff in such rapid succession there's no way that stuff tastes good and it will it probably will taste good eventually but man at 2 or 3 weeks it probably doesn't and it probably just needs time to age and mellow but there's this rush to put out content and it's a struggle for our channel we're brewing big stuff in five gallon batches and sometimes it just takes a while the peach meat video we just put out I had four gigabytes of video dating back to early summer but we would rather wait to put tasting notes out when it's ready to be tasted not when we're ready for it to be tasted how this translates to you as the YouTube viewer is you follow along with the recipe you do all the practices just like you saw in the video and you drink it after a month and you're wondering why it tastes like garbage and blaming yourself when in reality you may just need to put it in a dark space for another couple of months and wait and it might taste great by then patience is fine and home brewing and as practices have improved we've been able to speed the process along but sometimes it's okay to just wait don't rush to consume all right friendos that is our top 10 mistakes you've learned from YouTube is there something else that you've seen on another channel or our channel that you could take issue with throw that down in the comments we'd love to see what you have to say you can follow us on Instagram and Pinterest at doing the most ok our website is doing the most org and if you haven't already hit that subscribe button so you can see more content like this Thanks to everyone for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Doin' the Most Brewing

Views: 82,812

Keywords: brewing, homebrew, home brew, mistakes, top ten, wine, cider, beer, mead, winemaking, how to fix, raisins as nutrient, beginner brewer

Id: _KxQJA6WJK8

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020