clone finder ?

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mrchicken

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Read the sticky posts but still have a question.
Where is a legit place to find clone recipes? I asked on a FB home brew group and got a lot of smarta$$ answers "google".

I searched for a clone recipe and got 5 different recipes. Is there any way to know who is legit and who is mixing dishwater with yeast and calling it beer?
 
Sometimes breweries will release their recipes, and it is just a matter of scaling down, and playing with the specifics. In this case, you generally won't find five different recipes. You can Google a list of breweries that release their recipes to find yours. If you don't find it, it wouldn't hurt to call the brewery and ask. In the professional brewery world, recipes aren't tightly guarded secrets because there's a TON more that goes into making a great beer than just the ingredients themselves.

If you can't get the recipe from the brewery, then it is up to other brewers to try and clone it. Sometimes they may know generalities about the beer, such as the grain and hops used, but it is up to them to put together the correct proportions of grain and create a hop schedule. Other times, they must rely on their palates to discerns what went into the beer.

Regardless, the reason you have five different recipes is because nobody knows what the actual recipe is, so you have five different homebrewers all trying to clone a beer, and they could all be very close.

I've done a few clone brews, and if I'm trying to find one that has several different recipes, I look at where they come from. If they're on a forum, do they have a lot of positive feedback? Is it a blank forum thread where nobody has commented (red flag that maybe it isn't a good one). Is it on a blog? Any replies? Is it from someone in the online homebrewing community that is known for good recipes? Or is it from someone that is largely unheard of? These are all questions that you can ask to try and discern if the recipe is good or not...

But it often comes down to you brewing the recipe and tasting it for yourself. And keep in mind, a recipe is only a recipe. It is up to you to brew and ferment it in conditions that make it the beer you want to drink.
 
+1 to @max384
But see also: Can You Brew It database
I'm a fan of Tess and Mark Szamatulski's, "Clone Brews" and "Beer Captured," and their not yet published Val Dieu Tripel at Maltose Express.
I had success with Brew Your Own (Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu).
I have also been moderately successful taking clues from brewery websites.
 
Thanks for the help! I figured brewing a clone will help me get my techniques down better. Brew/taste/adjust-repeat.

Might as well brew a favorite since I know what it should taste like.
 

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