How many times have you dropped your hydrometer in its testing jar or into a fermenter and the hydrometer tapped the bottom? Each time could tap the paper scale just a little bit out of place. Do that several times, and before long your homebrew hydrometer could be pretty far out of whack.
When using scientific gadgets in homebrewing, it’s easy to assume that they’ll do all the hard work for you. Au contraire – thermometers, pH meters, and hydrometers are not foolproof. All instruments should be calibrated periodically. This means you should calibrate you homebrew hydrometer, as well.
I calibrated my hydrometer for the first time in about five years the other day, and boy am I glad I did – it was off by 5 gravity points! Now, because ABV is measured by the difference between two readings, and not a single reading, this discovery doesn’t really affect the ABV data I have on my previous batches. But it does make a significant difference on what I thought was my extract efficiency. (If you’re an all-grain brewer, this is an important number.) Basically, I’ve been thinking my extract efficiency was better than it actually was. Time to take a closer look at my mash procedures.
Anyways, the method for calibrating a homebrew hydrometer is very easy. It’s probably not a test that needs to be done more than once or twice a year, but if you haven’t ever done it, I’d recommend you go ahead and calibrate before your next batch.

How to Calibrate Your Homebrew Hydrometer

1. Fill your hydrometer testing jar with 60˚F (or 68˚F depending on your hydrometer calibration temperature) distilled water
2. Suspend your hydrometer in the testing jar
3. Take note of the reading. If it’s over or under 1.000, the difference will be your correction factor. (Ex: if your hydrometer reads 1.002, you’ll subtract .002 from future hydrometer readings.)
4. Prepare a solution of 28g table sugar and 176g distilled water and adjust the solution to the calibration temperature of your hydrometer.
5. Use your hydrometer to measure the gravity of the solution. It should be 1.048. Make note of the difference.

If your second reading is off by the same amount as the first reading, then correction is easy. For example, if your first reading is 1.002 (instead of 1.000) and your second reading is 1.050 (instead of 1.048), then all you have to do is subtract .002 from future readings to get the true specific gravity. In the very rare case of the two readings are off by different amounts, you can simply plot the two numbers on a graph, draw a line through the two points, and use the graph as a visual tool for correcting future readings.
Have you calibrated your homebrew hydrometer lately?
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

We’ve covered plenty of tips and advice for participating in homebrew competitions. But what about homebrew competition mistakes? Is there anything you absolutely shouldn’t do if you hope to hang a few blue ribbons on your wall? You bet!
If you want to do well in homebrew competitions, do not:

1. Enter your beer in the wrong category – You might brew the best IPA around, but if you submit it as a stout, you won’t do very well. If you enter a BJCP or similar homebrew competition, be sure to read the rules thoroughly and enter your beer into the appropriate category. This is especially important in some of the more experimental styles, like fruit beers.

2. Serve a beer that tastes like mayonnaise – Sure, entering your beer in a homebrew competition can be a good way to get constructive feedback on your brew. That said, if something tastes absolutely awful, do the judges a favor and don’t submit it. If you’re serving at a homebrew festival, serving bad beer will only turn people off to homebrew. So be sure to taste your beer before entering it into a homebrew competition. If you’re not sure, share it with a beer geek friend or two to get their opinion about what you should do.

3. Enter a beer with distinguishing marks on the bottle – BJCP-style competitions are blind, meaning that the judges don’t know who submitted the beer. Any beer bottles that have something that might tip off the judges to who submitted the beer may be disqualified, so don’t get caught up in this homebrew competition mistake. To be sure, submit your beer in a plain, 12-oz. brown glass beer bottle with a plain old boring bottle cap.

4. Submit commercial beer – Trying to pass off commercial beer as your own is just wrong. It’s disrespectful to all the other brewers who worked hard to make the best beer they possibly could, not to mention the brewer who actually made the beer. Besides, how good will you really feel if the beer you submitted actually wins something? Chances are, you won’t feel like much of a winner.

5. Slam other people’s beers – If you can say something nice, don’t say anything at all. No one is immune to making bad beer, and anyone can make good beer with enough practice. If you come across a beer that has some obvious faults, do your best to offer the brewer constructive feedback. Find something good to say about the beer, and then make a suggestion about how they might make an improvement.

6. Give up – Chances are good that you won’t win an award for every beer you submit. That’s okay! Homebrew competitions are a great way to learn how to improve your homemade beer. If you’re really determined to win a homebrew competition, you’ll constantly improve your brewing skills and eventually bring home that gold medal.

What other advice do you have for people entering homebrew competitions? What homebrewing competition mistakes have you made or seen made by others?

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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

It’s been just over three weeks since I bottled my black lager (a.k.a. schwarzbier). Though I’m generally happy with the beer recipe I used, my tasting notes have caused me to take a closer look at my all-grain brewing procedures and my methods of water chemistry adjustment (it’s a work in progress!).
First, let’s look at the tasting notes from evaluating this black lager beer:

• Aroma: bready, with note of chocolate, dark fruit, and lager yeast
• Appearance: dark brown with a tan head, brilliant clarity
• Flavor: malt-forward and dry with a carbonic bite and some hop bitterness
• Mouthfeel: medium-light bodied with prickly carbonation
• Overall: solid recipe, no fermentation faults, but mineral content seems strong

So what do I mean by that “carbonic bite” and “mineral content seems strong”? It’s a little hard to explain, but I’ll do my best.
Carbonated soft drinks contain obscene amounts of sugar – one 12-oz. can has the equivalent of 40 packets of sugar. Part of the reason that sodas don’t taste as sweet as they are is the carbonation. The dissolved carbon dioxide reacts to create carbonic acid, which balances out some of the sweetness. What I taste is similar to the dry, slightly acidic sensation you get when drinking soda.
The reason I’m pretty sure that what I taste comes from carbonate comes from my brewing notes. Looking back over my brew day, I recall that I added 14 grams of chalk to my water in an attempt to mimic the hard water of Munich. In retrospect, 14 grams seems like a lot. What I failed to realize is that brewers in Munich often decarbonated the water before brewing with it.

What is Decarbonation?
Decarbonation simply reduces the amount of carbonate in water. To decarbonate brewing water, brewers in Munich (and other areas with hard water) would boil their brewing water, which caused the chalk to come out of solution and settle to the bottom of the brew kettle. Then the decarbonated water could be removed for brewing. (You can read more about decarbonation here.)
It seems that brewers in Munich often decarbonated their water when brewing lighter colored beers, like Maibock or Munich Helles, but it’s unclear whether or not they traditionally decarbonated their water when brewing schwarzbier (if you have this information, I’d love to see it!).
So based on what I’ve discovered and the tasting notes from evaluating this black lager beer, what would I do next time around to make this it better?
First, I’d cut that chalk addition in half, maybe targeting a more balanced water profile than what I used. I think in general, homebrewers should take care not to go overboard with water additions. Also, I wouldn’t mind a little more sweet, bready character in the beer. Either using more Munich malt or increasing the mash temperature could help with this.
Have you ever brewed a black lager? What advice do you have about water amendments?
The Rest of This Story:
Preparing for a Black Lager Brew Day
Black Lager Brewday: Double Infusion Mash
Bottling My Black Lager Beer
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

After three months of patience, it’s finally time to bottle my black lager beer It’s been quietly waiting at about 40°F for the lagering phase and I can’t wait to taste it.
Three months seems like a long time to wait for beer, and it is. That’s why very few craft breweries make lagers. They just can’t commit to tying up that much fermentation capacity when they could turn out three (or more) batches of IPA in the same time period. Of course, it’s the same thing for homebrewers. I’d be happy to let the beer age even longer, but I want to brew more beer!
For me, bottling day for my homebrew always starts with an assessment of the situation: What do I need to bottle this batch of beer? Bottles, obviously, but also bottle caps, a bottling bucket, priming sugar solution, an auto siphon, tubing, and a bottle filler. One of the first things I do when bottling my beer is check the bottling bucket spigot. This is a notorious place for gunk to build up and potentially contaminate your bottled beer. It doesn’t need to be checked every time you bottle, but definitely every two or three times is a good idea.
Another thing I do pretty early on when bottling my beer is move the fermenter into position. This will give any sediment that gets stirred up a chance to settle down before racking the beer into the bottling bucket.
Once that’s taken care of, I usually fill up the bottling bucket with cleaning solution and clean all the necessary parts. If you’ve done a good job rinsing equipment and bottles after use, cleaning should be pretty easy – just a quick soak will suffice. But be sure to keep an eye out for deposits inside the beer bottles that may need a little extra scrubbing. With a brewing cleanser like One Step, you don’t even need to rinse.
Sanitizing is basically the same process as cleaning, but instead of using a cleanser, you use a solution of sanitizer. Most homebrewers like working with Star San or Iodophor.
While my beer making equipment is soaking in sanitizer, I usually start getting the priming sugar ready. I am a huge advocate of getting as specific as possible with priming sugar. I recommend using a digital scale and a priming sugar calculator to figure out exactly how much sugar to use to prime the beer.
By the time the priming sugar solution is mixed, it’s time to take a final gravity reading from the beer – and my favorite part – tasting it! The beer is pretty flat at this stage, but it gives a pretty good indication of what the beer will be like when it’s ready to drink.
This black lager is tasting good! Bready malt flavor and aroma, with just a hint of chocolate and a touch of hop bitterness. Can’t wait to to get this beer primed, bottled, conditioned, and ready to drink!
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.