Homebrew Recipe Database?

I think it would be pretty cool. I don't really like HBT very much, but I go there when I google for a type of recipe and there's a relevant-looking thread. I'd definitely use a good recipe database here on BA.

A simple homebrewing subforum would do the job, maybe with the ability to categorize "All-grain", "Extract", or "Partial" (like the Buy/Sell/Trade categories in the Beer Tickets forum) and then just a search bar to filter styles or ingredients or whatever.

 

I think recipe plus complete procedure could be more useful.

 

Learning how to formulate your own recipes (which is not difficult) is more useful than a list of recipes from a bunch of random people on the internet.

 

Ingredients+procedure = recipe.

You can take the same exact ingredients, give those to 20 brewers and get 20 beers produced.

 

I agree with HB42. I've seen far too many databases listing recipes that made you scratch your head until you bled. Things like "For 5 gallons: 17 lbs Klages, 12 lbs crystal 120, 2 lbs chocolate malt. OG 1.045, FG 1.041. 12 IBUs. Came out a nice golden color, really hoppy. Loved it, my favorite recipe yet! Won a silver medal at my neighbor's back yard homebrew contest, where I was the only participant!" A quick perusal of Daniels' "Designing Great Beers" years ago taught me more than any recipe database ever did.

 

That is what "Brewing Classic Styles" is for, no?

I do not trust a bunch of random crap off of the internet.

Or go to the AHA site and look up the NHC Gold recipes. Many years of winners there.

 

If you take a recipe written by some random person on the Internet how do you know it's a good recipe?

 

A few award winners are on here. http://beerdujour.com/AwardWinningRecipes.htm


More than I just brewed a "For 5 gallons: 17 lbs Klages, 12 lbs crystal 120, 2 lbs chocolate malt. OG 1.045, FG 1.041. 12 IBUs. Came out a nice golden color, really hoppy. Loved it, my favorite recipe yet! Won a silver medal at my neighbor's back yard homebrew contest, where I was the only participant!" (thanks to Jokelahoma). Too many sites are full of stuff like that.

I get your point on HBT, some of the recipes have been developed on there to a point I might do one or 2 in the future. Some now are right out of Can You Brew It, so it is JZ again.

 

Denny Conn isn't exactly just some random person on the Internet, that aside though, if we were to start a recipe database here it wouldn't result in a list of recipes that have been brewed many times by many people, it would result in a list of random recipes from a bunch of random people. I don't see how that can be more valuable than taking the time to learn how to write your own recipes, which again is not difficult, it just takes some basic knowledge.

 

Yes, that is what I want to say.There are thousands of beer ´recipes´ down there in the net that only list ingrdients,they are not useful.

 

The problem with most recipes is there is no critical feedback. The vast majority of recipes I see are from people either about to brew that recipe, or that brewed the recipe but never chimed back in to tell us how it went.

I think recipes can be useful under the following circumstances:
1) The person has won lots of awards, and thus has street cred
2) The person has a track record of knowing what they're talking about (e.g. Homebrew42, rocdoc, Denny Conn, hopfenunmalz, to name a few) and you actually believe what they say
3) Directly from breweries
4) From homebrewers that might not know what they are talking about but provide honest feedback on the outcomes of different recipes. I think this is where a lot of us fit in.

However, recipes are not useful if:
1) You find them randomly on the internet with no critical feedback.

I see articles from BYO with oodles of recipes and always wonder how they came out. There is no accountability for a shitty recipe because there is no feedback. No self-critique. This is the problem with a recipe database.

 

Personally I wouldn't find a database of other people's recipes very useful. Not unless I recognized the author and something unusual in the recipe caught my attention. I think a large portion of internet recipes are basically garbage. So the dilemma would be that if someone can easily recognize the garbage recipes, they probably wouldn't need to be looking for someone else's recipe in the first place.

 

I agree with your sentiment, but would just add that I'd be much more inclined to trust a recipe published in BYO (as long it's not a brewer of the month (or whatever it's called) recipe) than a random internet recipe.

 

I am not really a fan of database recipes on the internet and hardly look at them anymore. Books and talking to other experienced brewers works for me.

That being said though, another idea and it's just an idea is that recipes could be submitted to a 'trusted' panel of frequent contributors to this forum for approval before they were posted (people such as VikeMan, HB42, hopfenunmaltz and a few others for example). I don't know who would be on this panel and how it would be decided which recipes merit posting. But this would be a way to weed out crappy recipes. Oh, one more thing I wouldn't want to be on this panel nor am I implying I should.

Regardless though I'd be surprised if the brothers approved any sort of database anyways.

 

I think a database is something that could potentially be very useful. It definitely has it pit falls though. I have in the past used some recipe databases such as HBT. Mostly for curiosity mind you. Generally I will look for a recipe that has been brewed by allot of people who have then go on to offer feedback based on how it turned out. Even at that though I have only ever brewed one beer from HBT. It was a dark mild that has been and continues to be lauded by people who have brewed it. It was one of my most disappointing beers.

Even though I have been brewing for about four years or so I don't feel entirely comfortable in formulating all my own recipe's. Radical Brewing has been of great help to me and I have made some very good beers from it, which in turn gave me a few base recipes which I would tweak a little here or there. I'm aiming to be at a point where I am comfortable formulating recipes but first and foremost I need to gain a better understanding of beer styles and the malts I am using. I'm in no rush, I'm having fun and for the most part brewing good beer.

But yeah, back to the point. I would welcome such a database, but good group participation is necessary to give people the sort of assurance they are looking for when tackling a recipe. As discussed above, maybe that's not even enough...