Top 5 mistakes new Homebrewers make

5. PITCHING THE YEAST- Cooling the wort as rapidly as possible (<80* F for ales or <60 for lagers) is crucial. once the temperature drops below 120*, the wort is susceptible to contamination. The longer you take to cool the wort the more risk your taking on contaminating. Although still a risk, once the yeast is pitched it help prevent contamination by, depleting the oxygen, consuming sugar, lowing the pH, and creating alcohol. Also pitching yeast at high temperatures can kill your yeast and create off flavoring.

4.USING DRY YEAST VS. LIQUID YEAST-Dry yeast is inexpensive, conveniont, and because the yeast is dried it has a shelf life of over a year. Also it's more tolerable to warm weather and shipping conditions than liquide yeast. Dried yeast does not require any yeast starter, and is ready for direct pitch, due to the nutrietion reserves. Although they both yeasts have there benefits, dry yeast simplifies and  cuts cost in homebrewing.

3.CLEANING AND SANITIZING- The easiest way to ruin your beer is not sanitizing or using the wrong products to sanitize. Im sure if you read any homebrew book or blogs you realize the importance of sanitizing, and the importance of using the correct product. Using soutions like Starsan is the easy way to clean and disinfect your equipment. Also using products like oxyclean to pre clean bottle, buckets, carboys. Do not use bleach and other home products, because they will ruin your batch. My experiance shows that no rinse sanitizers are not only easy but very affective.

2. USING AIRLOCK TO TELL FERMINTAION- Looking at the air lock for bubbles is a comman mistake bigginers use to see if there beer is ferminting. Bubbles in the air lock is just a small sign that your beer is ferminting, and just because it stop bubbling does not mean it stop ferminting. There can be serval reasons why there are no bubbles in your airlock. The only way to be 100% sure is to take a hydrometer reading. As long your gravity reading keeps dropping your beer is ferminting.

1. IMPROPER TEMPERATURE- Keeping the wort at the proper temperature will insure it will fermint properly. Each yeast has its ferminting temperature, wich should be on the label. To high or low temperatures will ruin your beer and prohibit proper fermintation, creating off flavoring. Your yeas will either ferment too quick or never start.There equipement that helps regulate and control the temperature. However a very inexpensive way is to keep your wort in an ice bath or wrapped in a warm blanket. Keep in mind it should be stored in a dark area to prevent any damage from the sun. I keep my carboyed in  my closet.