Designing a recipe

[GoldenCrow]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, so first of all I would like to say hi everyone!

I'm also new to home brewing (~6 months). The last beer I made was my own recipe for a Belgian Dubbel that I put together after researching the style and other recipes. Besides being a little under carbonated, I believe it turned out ok and friends and family seemed to enjoy it.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips for putting together their own recipe? I understand that there are a lot of variables involved in making a good recipe, but I would like to be well informed to increase the odds of getting the best beer I can get with each recipe.

Anyway, I look forward to any advice you all may have and can't wait to learn more about brewing!

 

[Onkel_Udo]

I was wondering if anyone had any tips for putting together their own recipe? I understand that there are a lot of variables involved in making a good recipe, but I would like to be well informed to increase the odds of getting the best beer I can get with each recipe.

Welcome!

Until you know what ingredients do what and how well they fit together, start with a well-respected clone of beer you like...usually found on this site...they change something. Use one of the many free recipe calculators to see how it should affect beer and decide if that was what you were going for.

 

[kev211]

I try to emulate past brews that I have done from clones, kits, etc. I usually look at the aspects I liked from each one and build on it. If I liked a malt, sweeter IPA Ill look at recipes in the past that came out that way and compare them. For instance, if I was going for the sweeter IPA and a lot of past recipes I did were heavy on the crystal 60L then I would implement that more into my recipe. For the hop bill, knowing hop flavor profiles that you like will help, but I use a hop flavor wheel a lot Hop Flavor Wheel Here.

Also, when building a new recipe I like to do 1 gallon batches and try different iterations. 1 gallon jugs are 6 bucks and allow you to hone in your recipe without going through a lot of potentially weird/nasty/just plain wrong 5 gallon tester batches.

Oh ya, and brewersfriend.com is your friend for building a recipe.

Edit: Welcome to the site! Theres about a billion-and-a-half terrific references on here and people are very willing to help so go nuts!

 

[MonsterBrew]

I've found one of the best ways is going through and researching other recipes. While it might be tedious at first, soon everything will make sense. It is a good way to see what kind of grains/hops pair well with certain styles. Also, Brewtoad or Beersmith is a great way to get all of your levels right when designing a specific recipe. You can select the style and it will help guide you in the right direction for the ABV, bitterness, etc. There are also a couple pretty good books out there about designing a beer recipe that break everything down easily.

-Jeff

 

[Oginme]

There are so many approaches to recipe design.

I start with deciding what I want to brew. When I first started recipe design it was based upon matching a BJCP style (BJCP.org). They have a summary of styles including recommended commercial brews that typify the style of beer. From there, I research recipes that match that style and note similarities of ingredients, process, etc. Once I have a base in mind, I use software (Beersmith for me, but there are many others that are good out there) to start plugging in starting with grains, then yeast and then hops.

Books that helped me with design: 'Designing Great Beer' by Ray Daniels, 'Radical Brewing' by Randy Mosher, 'Brewing Classic Styles' by Palmer and Zainasheff are a start.

Several trips to my LHBS helped greatly also by sampling and chewing on the grains to get an idea of associated flavors.

 

[maffew222]

Books that helped me with design: 'Designing Great Beer' by Ray Daniels, 'Radical Brewing' by Randy Mosher, 'Brewing Classic Styles' by Palmer and Zainasheff are a start.

THIS. These books helped me greatly. Especially the classic styles one because you can just substitute ingredients from their suggested ones.

But also, if you're like me and was kind of impatient and just want to start brewing, you can do a lot with a few easy limitations. (not rules for brewing, just tips to keep it simple for tweaking recipes/getting profile flavors)

Clean american ale yeasts or some British ale yeasts are good everyday yeasts to throw almost any hop/malt combo into. They are also fairly forgiving with temperature. I did 1 gallon batches and just split of packets of dry yeast so I could experiment more.

Choose a couple specialty malts to work with (chocolate, crystal 60/120, etc). I also held to the rule of "keep specialty malts to 10% or less of the total grist".

My first several beers were simple recipes that taught me about the process of mashing and flavor development. Though they were not tremendously exciting, they were drinkable and that was worth it enough.

 

[JimRausch]

Research, research, research- ie. try new brands of commercial beers, expand beyond your usual horizons. Then when you find something you like enough to try and match, check out the library listed above(I really like Daniels' Designing Great Beers, and both Charlie P's books and John Palmer's How to Brew have some good recipes). And don't forget to check out the recipe section of the forum. You can either copy a recipe, or use it to see what common ingredients are used. Then use an online recipe calculator. I use Brewtoad, but there are several good ones out there. Check them out and see what you like. Then, most importantly after you brew, take copious notes, including(especially) your impressions on color, aroma and flavor. What might you do different next time? Good luck. Recipe design isn't difficult, it just takes some time and thought, and knowing what you like. Experimentation is fun!

 

[GoldenCrow]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I can't wait to start experimenting with some recipes!

 

[brewing_clown]

"Brew Like A Monk" opened my eyes to Belgian Trappist styles. I stayed up all night reading it. I would recommend it.

 

[kmcrae]

I really enjoyed Randy Mosher's book Radical Brewing. As has already been said.... RESEARCH!!! A style guideline is here, but I would say don't be a slave to it: http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php It's great as a point of reference though.

Once I have some ideas... I start plugging in "what if" recipes into Brew Target to see how well they play out. The program's free and pretty well fleshed out: http://www.brewtarget.org/ There's also Brewer's Friend as well: http://www.brewersfriend.com/

I've only been brewing for about 9-10 months now... I have a long way to go, but I'm really happy with the last 3 batches I've created! All of the beers I've made have been fair to great, but not always what I was really after in the recipe design. These last three were very close to what I was aiming for. Your process can make a huge difference in weeding out some of these variables. Takes notes on your brew session and shoot for consistency! KISS is a good principle to live by in regards to designing a recipe. "Brewing on the Ones" is a great example: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sSKHzmhrzY[/ame]

Good luck & welcome to the forums!