What one thing transformed your brewing?

[darkonnis]

reading Palmers guide to brewing.

[mark4newman]

Hi

Two people, to get the water right.

Gordon Strong, and A.J. deLange

[suttonbrewer]

Liquid yeasts and fermenting in a temperature controlled converted chest freezer. Looking at the comments on this thread I'll be looking at water treatment a bit closer for the next leap forward, just using brewing salts and CRS at the moment.

[setmash]

In no particular order:

1. Pump
2. Starsan
3. Water boil the night before ....just take a look at he horrible things in it when it cools

Im only a beginner so not tried liquid yeast yet...but its on the list along with a thousand other upgrades

[EoinMag]

Temperature controlled brewing.

[Lars]

Using RO water

[zgoda]

Ignoring clones and simply producing beer styles that I like.

Yup, that was it. Along with immersion chiller, but I don't consider it any kind of "mindset change". This changed me from "brewer of other's beer" into "brewer of my beer". And I know my ingredients now.

[Bert]

Getting divorced haha

[chastuck]

Fitting an external hot tap in the garden. Completely transformed the process of washing and rinsing out.

[Nofolkandchance]

60 minute boils, blichman therminator, camlocks, pump, silicone tube = easy quick stress free brew day

[bob3000]

I've had the same experience as you, going from mostly bad to some OK and some bad. Every 3rd or 4th batch infected. And a lot of minor infections. In the last half year or so my beer has got much better and this is since I started No chill. I'm sure that during my cooling my wort was being exposed to beer spoilers. No chill has eliminated this problem. I have had to change the way I late hop and use dark malts adding both at pitching in a tea.

I will dig out the immersion chiller again at some point and have another go but for the moment my beer is great.

Also, Kegging has helped with my hoppy beers.

[Hogarth]

Fresh yeast and large starters.

[Ben711200]

I'm really quite pleased that the beer I've produced since moving to ag has been great, and I'm yet to explore most of these improvements. Glad to see there's so much room for improvement and financial ruin!

[darkonnis]

I will dig out the immersion chiller again at some point and have another go but for the moment my beer is great.

Wouldn't bother unless no chill isn't your thing! I no chill my small 4.5L batches and they aren't as clear but the clean up is considerably quicker than the big rig and the plate chiller!

[orlando]

Seeing as most people have ignored the "one thing" in the OP, I will too, but at least in order:

BeerSmith, controlled fermentation in a fridge, Brun water mash pH calculator. And although I haven't started using it yet I'm hoping my new Keezer will mean serving the beer at the right temperature will complete the improvement circle. If, in Desert Island Discs style, you asked me to isolate THE ONE!, I would have to say controlled fermentation.