The Messy Forum...

[Nicholas Jones]

Does anyone else find the forum is getting quite difficult to navigate around and find the information you are looking for?? I guess the one that bugs me the most are the 'recipe advice' and 'what are you brewing threads'. One thread, many many different recipes and styles of beer.

Surely having beer styles (eg Pale ale, Amber, Golden, Stout etc etc) as categories and then posts within these would make the sharing of knowledge a little easier... and the forum a lot tidier and a more useful resource..

Im not sure if its just me, but does this forum operate differently to most or has it just evolved that way?

Well, thats my tiny rant. Anyone care to comment?? 

(Or maybe I could just start beer-style threads......)

[David Williams]

As a newbie it seems  a shame the recipe exchange never took off. I thought denimglen's Award Winner 2009 NHC post was a great (and easy) place to find some interesting recipes that turned out well using locally sourced ingredients. If they looked too complicated they stay in my 'to brew later' wishlist.

[JR]

I think because it's not in the main homebrewers forum it would be missed by many (myself included)

There is a place for local recipes though as most of the hops we can easily get are not in recipes that are found in brewing classic styles.  Most of the malts need to be subbed for locally available ones too.

[denimglen]

Yeah, the software issue has been brought up before, and nothing really happened. I think Luke said he liked how everything here was integrated together on a sort of social network thing. www.homebrewtalk.com do something similar but they have more traditional software, and their profile pages have that sort of myspace/facebook look.

While I do agree recipe/newbie threads are a bit shit to navigate but I think it's better than other forums which on the main page have like 40 'Will this recipe be good?' threads. You could group them into styles but then everyone who 'doesn't brew to style' will whinge and make their own thread. Or you'll get unpopular styles American Lite Lager that will get one post and fall to the back.

The recipe exchange is good but I think most either forget about it or don't know it's there. I reckon that should be a place for tried and true recipes, not really advice as such.

I wouldn't brew anything from the WAYB thread like Jo says, agree with 100%. The recipes can be inspiring Rev but I think it's a bit risky for a new brewer to grab a recipe and run with it, once you've brewed a really good amount of batches you should be able to tell what won't work and what will.

There is a place for local recipes though as most of the hops we can easily get are not in recipes that are found in brewing classic styles. Most of the malts need to be subbed for locally available ones too.

This is A LOT better than it was even just a couple years ago though. I just had a look through the list of malts used in the book - there's only about 3 - 4 malts on there that we can't get, and they can be substituted for pretty well, hops we're doing pretty well now too, just a few of the lesser used UK and US varieties.

[JR]

I think the software is fine it's a question of how we use it, whether we create more threads on more focused topics or whether the single 600 page thread is the way to go.  Its the users rather than the software that shape the forum so if we want change we just need to start some threads.

The american lite larger example is a good one.  It would be easier to find that thread if it was on its own rather than if it was buried on page 236 of a long thread (but then using search it's not too hard anyway)

 

also, I don't think we should undersell the recipes that get posted here.  If you want to use New Zealand hops and what to know what they are good for and what can be mixed successfully with what then I would say this is one of the best places on the internet to look.  Who else knows more about NZ hops than the people who post here?  I'm not saying the recipes are all good, but it's a good (the best?) place to look for ideas using NZ ingredients.

 

[denimglen]

Part of the problem is the software.  It's different to any other mainstream forum.  It's confusing.  

 

The reply/quote thing is a good idea but bad execution - I've seen about three posts in the last few days show up in the wrong place because once someone replies to someone, who replies to someone else and three other people reply to them, then four people reply to second guy and it gets confusing as all fuck trying to read through it because it's then sorted by chronological order, where it should be sorted by thread then by chrono.

 

It is better now though than when we first moved here, it had shit loads of bugs back then and sketched out all the time, not so much anymore.

 

It annoys me that I'm only viewing the posts on one quarter of my available screen-estate.

 

I think this software is aimed at sites that don't have as large discussions as us, as some of the other ning groups I've seen.

 

Like you said, type 'american lite lager' into the search, my post is the first one.  Not that hard to find.  Anyway, try and keep an American pale ale thread under wraps.  Search, or not, own thread, or not, you will have a hard time finding what you're after, that's the nature of forums and popular topics.  Yes, it may keep things slightly more organised but at the end of the day people will still do the 'what do you think of this recipe' for every other post.  In that sense American lite lager would be a good candidate as not many people brew it so there would be less info and in turn more organisation. 

 

I don't think anyone is underselling the recipes here, no doubt there are some gems here and I agree with you on the NZ ingredient front.  I think we've been referring to recipes in general.  If you've been around the forums for a while and you know whose got their head screwed on, a good palate, and they've come back and updated their recipe with good results then maybe it's worth brewing.  Personally I'd still be slightly skeptical about brewing them without tasting the beer, not that I think they're wrong just that my palate and tastes are different to their's.  I know from my own experience and other's that BCS (and a few others out there) is a great source of solid recipes.  Maybe not 100% everytime but ballpark enough to keep you happy and you know where to go for the rebrew.

 

Overall, I don't think the WAYB thread needs to be organised, it's just chat and doesn't really need any organisation, the same way I wouldn't want to see a 'What are your plans for this weekend' topic divided into thirty million gazillion possibilities or a 80 threads for each style for 'what are you drinking'.  The recipe advice thread is just that, advice on a recipe, which you're going to get a shitload of no matter how it's organised, I mean the RAT is only 185 pages over two years, so that averages like one post every 4 days or something.  For the posting of good, tried and true recipes, that's what the recipe exchange is for I reckon.  As far as the newbie thread goes, if someone had a question that would go in there and they couldn't find an answer to it through google or similar, just post it up.  That topic is the sort of place that you expect see the same sort of questions over and over again, it's not like its unexpected going into that topic.  Also we don't seem to have that 'go search NOOB!!!11!!' attitude that a lot of the other forums have, which I think is good.

[Nicholas Jones]

Excellent, its good that the people having input are the ones I am generally always reading recipes advise/brewing tips from on here.

I hear what you are saying Jo about referring to brewing classic styles, but the fact is quite a few of us noobs (18 mash brews deep, I am as green as yesterdays brew...) fish around here for hours picking up tips and tricks, and quite a few of the more astute brewers post quite regularly, Im not saying I trust the recipes with blind faith, but I have seen occasional updates, or people post recipes after they have matured and they are drinking well, which bodes well. Theres also some classics, like stu's PKB buried somewhere in 'what are you brewing?', posted sometime in 09, which I used as vague inspiration for my own coffee porter, tweaked to suit my own ingredients etc, has been a winner of a beer for me...I guess most are going to do some reasonable research into what they want to brew before smashing out a recipe, and if you are a noob, you just have to break an egg and get into it...you will eventually learn what makes a good beer and if you are smart enough to look at the people who are posting, and the advice they give for any particular style, you're 90% of the way there... the hard thing, as I think I and many have alluded to is fishing through one or two 400 page threads to find some golden advice/recommendation/whatever specific to the style/brew.

 

We are very lucky, it is a local resource with a wealth of advice, predominantly specific to our own availability of ingredients/equipment and very much lacking pretence, as is evident by the many pro brewers who still come and throw up a recipe on a regular basis, the point I guess is trying to arrange the information in a way which is more usable and more valuable...who knows, one day someone might write a book based on the classic recipes brewed and created on this very forum!! Why not??

Maybe there is a way to update a recipe into a thread where the recipes get registered under a style, ie 8, 10 weeks later you come back and say this was a winner (completely subjective of course) and explain why, it gets bumped into a proper recipe/style thread...I dunno, might be a bit shit but you get my drift. I dont think the collaborative conversation, opinion and help will stop, it will just be more accessible.

The local ingredients thing that JR mentions above is quite pertinent

I have also found google searching has better results on here than the sites search engine, and also totally agree we dont want a shitload of 'what do you think of this recipe?' threads

 

Sweet, good conversationing....

 

[Druid]

As a 'noob', I've felt welcomed - in fact, the attitude to newcomers finding their feet with brewing was one of the things I liked about this site after other forums I've participated in in the past - so thanks for that everyone!

I have to say though that finding (or re-finding) specific posts related to a style of beer has been quite hard - that 600 page WAYB thread is very informative but a real PITA if you don't bookmark the interesting bits or the likely looking recipes.

Maybe someone knowledgeable and keen enough could wade through periodically and take the better recipes out to a separate (non-forum?) reference section of the site.  Might make sense if it is to act a repository of Kiwi brewing knowledge.

Some of the library links are dead too.

Regarding the software itself, I've investigated blog/forum software a bit for another interest area and Ning does take a lot of the dog-work out of maintaining a social site like this though.

[denimglen]

Some of the library links are dead too.

 

Cheers, I haven't looked through it in a while and I noticed there's a couple things I need to add, will look at and update tomorrow.