Here's where experience counts

[FedoraDave]

So I've been brewing for what? Seven years now? Maybe eight, I don't know. I've gone from Mr. Beer HME kits to formulating my own AG recipes. So have most of you, I believe. 'Nuff sed on that, then. But here's what I experienced during this morning's brew session.

I decided to brew my White Panama Blonde Ale. A 2.5 gallon batch. I use BrewToad for my software, and I've added my recipes and printed them out for easy reference in a binder. Well, it seems I revised this recipe, adding a bit more malt, and while I revised it in BrewToad, I didn't print out the revision and replace the original in my binder. So my mash calculation was off a bit. I realized this when I saw that my mash resembled mortar more than what a proper mash-in should look like. I put the lid back on the tun to preserve the temperature and put some water in my pot and heated it up as quickly as I could. I didn't bother with measurements, I just eyeballed it and heated it, since time was a factor. So I got a nice mash out of it.

But I forgot to factor in that my calculations would also affect the sparge volume. Well, too late for remediation; after collection the sparge, I took a volume measurement and added another half gallon to the pre-boil.

As it turns out, I got exactly the post-boil volume I wanted, and hit the projected OG right on the nose.

Here's the lesson: Experience doesn't mean you're going to do it right every time. But it does mean that you can calmly and quickly recover from a mistake and have it turn out okay.

[John Sand]

True.
It also means you can wing it. I do that with cooking far more than with brewing. In a different pursuit, a girlfriend trying to learn to steer my boat (both long gone) once asked: "How come you just put your hand on the tiller and it goes where you want?" I replied: "A thousand hours at the helm."

[FedoraDave]

I like your tiller analogy, John. I'm someone who is fascinated and impressed with the ease and sureness of someone who is doing a familiar task. Experienced hands in action delight me. It's one of the reasons I love watching magicians. Someone who is good at sleight of hand blows my mind. This is true of anything, though; musicians, doctors, mechanics.... It doesn't matter. Just the way their hands seem to have a knowledge of their own, and how their tools become an extension of their hands. It's fascinating and beautiful to me.

And I wing it with cooking, too. We have a joke in my house that when I make a meal, you better enjoy that experience, because you'll never have the same meal again. I may use the same ingredients next time, but since I never measure anything, it comes out slightly different every time.