Brew Diaries

Brew Diaries/Journals//Notes I keep one, I expect you keep one but they are a great means to keep track of how the brew has gone and any unexpected outcomes during the course of the brew.

I have kept one since I first started brewing up kits, even the simplest form of brewing your can come up with noteworthy points, especially points on how well its conditioning over time and flavour development.

I also keep a track of the music I am listening to at the time, its a nice little remembrance thing like in a normal diary, a piece of history. Do you remember the study/saying that people play music to plants to encourage growth, its like in beer you wont get the same outcome playing two different styles of music. 

As a standard each entry in my Brew Diary I'll have:

• Recipe (instructions from recipe packs/kits or a list written by me and affixed to the page) 
• The name of the kit or beer I'm brewing (this could be a made up name if the recipe is my own) I usually have given a kit a nickname for the brew as it looks better on the labels I make on ones I give away and its also abit of fun
• The date of brew and bottle day OG, FG and ABV
• Any noteworthy points or observations from the start of the brew day all the way through to the drinking the beer after conditioning. Things like how well the brew day went, how long it took before fermentation started, if the temperature drops during primary fermentation, flavour development during conditioning
• Things I would do differently next time if I brewed this again - like reducing or increasing volume, making sure I strain hops better etc.

There are many forms out there, I just use a spiral binned A5 notebook, some probably buy a premade book, others use blogs.  All aimed at doing the same thing.

What do you keep in yours? How long have you kept one?  

Until next time......Happy Brewing