Good morning gentlemen(and hopefully some ladies too). I generally have no problem creating a new beer recipe, they just sort of happen naturally I guess; but for whatever reason the next one isn't coming to me very easily. I was just wondering what order you usually decide on the various elements of your homebrew? In what order do you choose a style, a time-frame for completion, color, alc. content, grains used, hops used, amounts, yeast, etc. thanks and cheers.
Style Malt bill Hop schedule Nap Revise entire recipie Go to brewhut and find them sold out of (insert name) hops Revise recipie again to reflect substituted hops Drink a commercial brew, become inspired to brew this style instead Sleep it off Brew previous recipie after deciding I don't want to drive back up to the brewhut As for start to finish times, for some reason I can't get a firm grasp on my fermentation times and bottle conditioning times, so that never comes into consideration. Its finished when its finished.
Much of my ‘new’ recipe formulation is typically inspired by a commercial beer that I have tasted. Permit me to relate a story. I have brewed a Dusseldorf Alt beer a couple of times based upon a recipe in the book Homebrewing by Al Korzonas. Victory Brewery made a 10th year anniversary beer called Ten Year Alt. It was a higher gravity Alt (8.5% ABV) with more oomph to it. I said to myself, I want to brew a beer similar to that! I read an article about Alt beers in BYO magazine (Old-World Alt by Matt Cole). Matt Cole is a brewer at a brewery in Ohio. It was an excellent article and I found this verbiage inspiring: “Sticke Alt is a more intense version of altbier. These “secret beers” are brewed stronger, are slightly darker, and are dry-hopped in the conditioning tank for four to six weeks. The result is a bittersweet, ultra-crisp ale with a fresh, flowery aroma. These traditional brews are available once or twice a year, usually in September and January. I was fortunate enough to taste Sticke Alt straight out of the aging tank at the Uerige brewery. It was possibly the best beer I have ever tasted.” That’s it! I must brew a Sticke Alt! So, I had a baseline recipe with my ‘regular’ Alt beer but what do I need to add the oomph needed? I know that I needed more base malt but what else? So, I added some specialty malts and more hopping (flavor/aroma) to the mix and voila I had my Sticke Alt (an Alt beer with more oomph). I must confess that it took several iterations to get to where I want to be. A summary of my changes from ‘regular’ to my oomph Alt: · I changed from a 50/50 mix of Pilsner & Munich base malt to a 70/30 mix of Pilsner/Munich · I went from solely hopped with Spalt for bittering to a combination of Spalt & Northern Brewer for bittering; a lot of bittering hops (30 AAU). · I added flavor/aroma hops to the mix: Hallertauer Mittelfruh for flavor (15 minutes of boil) and aroma (end of boil & dry hopping) · The Specialty malts I added: Caramunich III and a bit of dehusked Carafa II · I used to use Wyeast 1338 (European Ale) but I switched to Wyeast 1007 (German Ale); 1007 results in a drier finish which I prefer in this beer · I bumped up the gravity: OG = 1.050 to OG = 1.065 Recipe ‘formulation’ can be fun but challenging at the same time. Cheers!
depends on what hops yeast and grain i have available. in that order, usually. simple as that. i enjoy moving the target everytime i make a brew, so my ale might use alot of noble hops if for whatever reason in have a good supply of tettnang on hand. or a lager style but with cascade. (i have zero desire to clone anything, i have a job and can buy whatever beer i like). i dont usually devise a recipe and then buy the ingredients. it is always a same day event. Cheers.
I choose a style I want, then consider what I have on hand and if I want to go the LHBS and work with what I have... Next up for me a "Goodbye 2011 Hops" DIPA featuring my accidental mixing of Honey & Munich malts!
ditto I buy ingredients in bulk, so, with a few exceptions, I can brew whatever I want whenever the mood hits. Frankly, I've never understood the logic of buying only what you need for a specific recipe. If I want to make pancakes, for example, I'm not going to run out to the grocery store for 2 eggs, a stick of butter, 2 cups of flour, 3/4 cup of milk, 1/2 tsp of baking powder, and 1/4 tsp of Vanilla Extract (caution: that's not a real recipe). I've got the ingredients on hand. I may have to run out for blueberries if I have a real hankerin' for blueberry pancakes, much like I would have to go out for black malt if I feel like brewing a Stout. Thus, in order: Style Color, ABV, Malt bill, adjuncts (all intimately related) hop schedule yeast Time frame? Never gave it a thought. It's going to be a month or two for most of my beers, so there's no point in obsessing over it. As long as I keep the pipeline full, I'm good..
My main motivation is what's on tap. I like to have 2 dark beers, three pale and one brett or sour on tap, so if my porter kicks I'll brew another porter, stout, alt etc. Pale beers may be an IPA, ESB, saison, blonde, etc-what matters to me is to have enough variety so anybody I know will find something they like. I have enough ingredients on hand all the time, and I have more time off work than ever before so I can brew whatever, whenever I want.
I tend to think of it as, what kind of beer will I want to drink in two to three months, what do I have going that will be ready in one to two months, and what will I want to drink in three to four months? Hopefully, that tells me what I have in a fermenter, what I will brew next, and what will be the one after that. Doesn't always work that the way, though.
Usually my thought process is: "it's time to rack this beer to a secondary or keg, so what should I brew onto its yeast?" So my "recipe development" typically starts with either the yeast I have available or which vacuum container of hops in the freezer needs to get emptied so I can open the next pound of something new. Sometimes I'll just decide to brew a style I've never tried to make before. That can be fun.
my recipe ritual usually goes something like this: have a vague idea of what i'd like to drink during each of the next six months decide "we're brewing a ___ for consumption in two and a half months" after consulting the jamil show, i'll throw a recipe together on hopville, then revise it to death over the next week put it off until it's almost too late to brew for when i want to consume it, then if my LHBS's limited grain selection permits, i'll get the ingredients there. if not, i'll order them from northern brewer. as far as picking beers i'd like to brew, it's a mix between what styles highlight elements of my brewing that i want to work on (hopping techniques, fermentation control, clarity) and which beers i've had at work that i drink and wish i immediately had five gallons of. actually, my next two batches are going to be re-boots of beers i did with my roommates last winter and both are beers i've never really had a commercial example of (mint chocolate porter and imperial white with peppercorn), but after that i'll be back to my usual methods with a cali common...
At the moment I have enough hops, but I'm picking up grains at the great LHBS near me. So I kind of think of beers in terms of hops I want to use and the style I want it to be first, then who I plan to share it with, then go from there. Might be a little odd compared to everybody else's methods of recipe decision making, but it works for me. I also consider what styles and recipes are appropriate to my equipment and skill level, BTW. With five AG batches under my belt, I'm not ready to try high gravity barleywines, rocket fuel stouts, or 120 minute IPA clones.
P*ssy. FWIW, one of my most pitiful batches was batch 3 all grain when I tried to brew a RIS and hit something like 40% efficiency ending up with a 8% ABV roast bomb, affectionately dubbed "The Shit Stout".
that's a pretty shitty story I haven't had any major utter colossal failures (yet), but for some reason I just can't seem to peg the English IPA style very well. Mine have been either too astringent tasting, or muddy tasting. Maybe I just need to try a clone or a kit recipe that someone else other than me developed.
I generally will tinker with the pales and IPAs. My favorite style, so I mess around to keep them on tap. But I also go similar to what someone else said, I like variety, so I'll have some pales, some IPA's, a porter and a stout on.. When one is close to kickin, or something I know I'll doze through, I'll fire up another similar batch, tweaking it each time. I rarely, if ever, brew the same recipe. I always tweak it out from my notes to change it up. Generally, always being better than the previous batch, so I haven't really hit the "house pale" grist yet. but close!
1. Taste characteristics; roasty, clean, hoppy, toffee, malty, yeast forward? 2. Strength of the beer; light or heavy body, high in alcohol or lower? 3. Does it fit a style? If so, great! ... if not, great! 4. Break it down starting with malt and match what characteristics I have in mind to individual malts, obviously starting with a base malt and proceeding to crystals, chocolates, adjuncts, etc. Proportion the malt additions to the strength of the character I'm aiming for. 5. Hop presence? What characteristics am I looking for to match with the malt profile? Is it English inspired recipe? Clean bittering hops? Dry hopping? What BU:GU ratio would work best for the overall picture? 6. Yeast; is it going to be a clean fermentation or do I want yeast "sweat" to enhance the beer? Evaluate different yeast profiles and the flavor they impart at different fermentation temps. How attenuative is the yeast? Does it hit the FG I envision the beer being? How flocculant is the yeast? Is it going to clear to fit my vision of the beer? 7. Fermentation schedule including secondary and dry hopping. 8. Keg or bottle.. desired carbonation.
Interesting question. I try to have enough variety of hops and base grains on hand to brew beer in the styles that I like (pale ales, IPAs, Am. browns, and light lagers). As needed, I purchase yeast so that it is fresh. As I develop a specific recipe I think about previous beers and then tweak them to try to get close to where I want to go. Of course sometimes I'll just pick up some ingredient that I want to use (Cry Havoc yeast that latest example), and them I figure out how to put it to use.
