Brew Dudes Mike and John are hosting this month’s Fermentation Friday, a last-Friday-of-the-month blogging event specially made for homebrew bloggers. This month’s topic: What one tip would you give a beginner homebrewer before they brew their first batch and why?

Homebrewing is easy. No, really! If you can boil water and put things in boiling water and read a clock and pour things without slopping on the floor and measure dry ingredients and sanitize equipment and read a hydrometer and— Okay, so maybe I spoke too soon. These things are all easy to do, but remembering to do them all at the right time and in the right order can be incredibly difficult. I myself am notorious among my peers for my inability to keep my memory organized. I think I am, at least. I forget. Har har.

In my experience, trusting your memory is a great way to set yourself up for disaster. It’s why I’m such an avid GTDer. Just this past week, for example, Mel and I nearly forgot to prime our Coffee Nut Brown Ale for bottling. It wasn’t until we were nearly done siphoning the beer into the bottling bucket that Mel noticed. If she hadn’t been on her game, we’d be eagerly waiting for our beer to carbonate, except it never would. It’s like when your dog runs away, and you wait on your porch all week, thinking he’ll come home. He won’t. He’s in the circus now, and much happier for it. Wow, I really derailed there.

Paper, however, never forgets. When you write something down, it stays there until the cat eats it, and that might not happen for weeks! On the other hand, try to remember your girlfriend’s birthday without a notice going off in iCal to remind you — doesn’t work, does it? I’m sorry!

It is for these reasons that you, the novitiate homebrewer, will need a long, comprehensive checklist ruthlessly guiding you through the sharp rocks of failure to the golden palace of great beer. Here are the checklists that Mel and I use, adapted from a checklist given to us by Steph (PDF — sorry, just easier this way):

Brewing Checklist
Bottling Checklist

When Ray let me know about Fermentation Friday and this month’s theme, I instantly thought about anal retentive organization. Having your equipment out, sanitized, ready; having your ingredients lined up and categorized … okay, so maybe I’m a little obsessive compulsive, but if anything, it’s easier to start out that way, then chill out and become a little lax. But I guarantee you, the first time we have a beer go south — possibly due to contamination — we will certainly get back onto our overly organized high horses and shape up. But until then, in the immortal words of Charlie Papazian, “Remember, the best beer in the world is the one you brewed.”

Ha! Thought I was going to use his most famous phrase about chilling the hell out and having a homebrew, eh?

Fermentation Friday, Homebrewing