5 Mistakes Homebrewers Make

Here are 5 regular mistakes homebrewers make.  We regularly see and hear little mistakes homebrewers make and these are our top 5.  Yes there are lots of others, but these are the 5 that cause the most problems when making wine, beer, cider, lager and mead.

Are you making these mistakes?

1 Using a "Clean" Dishcloth to Sanitise Your Equipment.

If you use a dishcloth to clean your equipment, then stop.  That dishcloth most likely has lots of bacteria on it and no matter how much steriliser you use, the time in contact with the steriliser is not enough to kill all the bacteria. 

In the kitchen dishcloths are used to wash pots and pans to remove left over food and remove oil from pots and pans.  Dishcloths are then usually left on the side to dry until the next time you need to use them.  In this time they build up a huge colony of bacteria, so the next time you use it, you are smearing lots of potentially harmful bacteria over your dishes. 

In the kitchen, this isn't usually a problem as most people then leave their dishes, cups and cutlery to dry, which ends up killing the bacteria.  But if you use the bacteria laden cloth to smear these bacteria over your brewing equipment, you are introducing bacteria that will likely cause an issue.

As it takes time from pitching a yeast to the yeast creating alcohol (usually 12-24 hours) in this time the yeast have the sugars and the nutrients in your brew to themselves and they will go mad.  

A bacteria infection can cause a slimy snot like strands to build up, or can cause sour flavours, popcorn flavours, rotten egg flavours, or worse, they break down the sugars so the yeast cant eat them, so you have a weak brew.

Our suggestion is that you use a brand new - disposable - cloth each time you disinfect your brewing equipment.  This means your cloth has no bacteria and is a great start for your fermentation.

2 Fermenting With Fruit in a Demi-John.

We see lots of videos online where people add fruit into a demijohn and wonder why it has all squirted out the top.

When you ferment with fruit, the CO2 created by the yeast gets trapped in the fruit which rises to the top.  The fruit is then forced up through the airlock.  If this airlock gets blocked, then pressure builds up in the Demi John until something gives.  

If you are lucky, the bung fires out and you only have a small mess to clean up.

If you are unlucky, the pressure build up so much that it causes the demijohn to shatter.  Really bad news because you now have a huge mess to clean up, you have to buy a new demijohn, and you have lost all that delicious wine.

If you are fermenting with fruit (of vegetables) start the initial fermentation in a fermenting bucket.  This gives the space the wine needs and the fruit can rise to the top without causing any issues.  

Once the vigorous part of the fermentation has slowed down, usually in 5-7 days, the fruit has done it's job and imparted all its flavour and colour, so it's then time to transfer the wine to the demi-john and allow the wine to finish its fermentation without the fruit.

Don't put fruit in a Demi-John. 

3 Lifting the Fermenter Lid to See What's Happening.

Lifting the lid of the fermenter can allow air into the fermenter.  This air is full of oxygen.  Fermentation is best when there is no free oxygen.

Oxygen in the air reacts with yeast and bacteria at the surface of the wine, beer, cider, mead (whatever you are fermenting) and a pellicle is formed. This combination of yeast and bacteria, if caught early causes no problems, but if left to grow, it will start creating tart sour flavours in your alcohol.  Great if you are creating a sour beer, but not great if you are making a chardonnay or a traditional bitter.

If you really must take a look as to what is happening in the fermenter, then just lift the lid up ever so slightly, take a look and then replace the lid.

If it is at the end of the fermentation, then only lift the lid if you are going to be working with the brew, such as taking a sample for a hydrometer reading or syphoning it off the sediment for the next steps in the brewing process.

4 Not Using a Hydrometer.

A hydrometer tells you how much sugar is dissolved in the liquid you are fermenting,  It is this reading that will tell you if the fermentation has finished.

We regularly get people telling us the fermentation has not worked because they have not seen any bubbles through the airlock, but when we get them to take a hydrometer reading, it has miraculously fermented.

It's very hard for yeast not to work.  It only takes 1 yeast cell to quickly become billions.

A hydrometer also tells you that it is safe to bottle.  Bottling alcohol with sugar that has not been eaten by the yeast is a dangerous game as too much sugar will turn bottles into bombs. primed to go off at the slightest touch.

So, use a hydrometer when brewing.  Remember when brewing beer or lager, there will always be some sugar left, because there are sugars that the yeast can not eat. This is what makes beer slightly sweet. Bottling with these non fermentable sugars is safe.

Taking a hydrometer reading before you add your yeast, noting down the reading, and then taking another reading at the end of the fermentation, doing a quick calculation, gives you the ABV of your alcohol.

5 Using Corks in Screw Top Bottles.

Yes you can reuse screw top bottles as long as you have the cap it came with.  Over time that metal cap will deform as its only made for 1 use from thin metal.  You can probably get 2 or 3 more uses from that cap.  But what then?

Well you might think about putting a cork in the screw top bottle.  It will fit, but it's not a good idea and here's why.

The opening is wider than a neck designed for a cork.  This means the cork can slip out and cover your house in a bottle of wine.

The neck of a screw top bottle is not strengthened, so just inserting a cork can cause the neck to shatter. If you get the cork in with no issues, when you lie the bottles down, the cork expands.  This is another time the neck can shatter as the pressure from the expanded cork can not be held by the screw top bottle neck.

If you want to re-use a screw top bottle and don't have the cap, then take a look at the NovaTwist Screw Caps for screw cap wine bottles. These are the PERFECT fit and can be reused many many times.

Use corks in bottles designed for corks, use novatwist for screw top bottles.