Creating your own recipe

[Bloodymint]

Hi everyone

I'm looking at creating some of my own recipes, I'm still using kits and extracts. Is it difficult to create your own recipes and what would I have to do?

Cheers

 

[Black n Tan]

Buy the book Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil and Palmer and then use the recipes as a base and start making some substitutes.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Akso try to get Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. Does not have actuall recipies but gives all the information you will ever need. Its a must have book

 

[Josh]

Yep, Designing Great Beers gives the best theory I can think of when coming up with your own recipes.

Things to consider:
OG - how much extract you will get from your kit and added malt.
IBU - How bitter you want your beer to be and how bitter the kit already is.
Hop flavour and aroma - The amount of hops you are adding late will affect this.
% of grains - What percentage of crystal and specialty malts you add will affect overall drinkability.

 

[rosshorne]

IanH's Excel spreadsheet is an excellent place to start.

When I teach people how to kit brew I generally start them with John Palmers basics (replace base malt with light extract):

To help get your creative juices flowing, here is a rough approximation of the recipes for the common ale styles:
Pale Ale - base malt plus a half pound of caramel malt,
Amber Ale - pale ale plus a half pound of dark caramel malt,
Brown Ale - pale ale plus a half pound of chocolate malt
Porter - amber ale plus a half pound of chocolate malt,
Stout - porter plus a half pound of roast barley.
Yes, those recipes are pretty crude, but I want you to realize how little effort it takes to produce a different beer. When adding a new malt to a recipe, start out with a half pound or less for a five gallon batch. Brew the recipe and then adjust up or down depending on your tastes. Try commercial beers in each of the styles and use the recipes and guidelines in this book to develop a feel for the flavors the different ingredients contribute.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter20-5.html

Half a pound is 225 grams and this is for 19 litre brews. If you do 21 litres go with 250, and 23 litres 275.

 

[wbosher]

Once you got some basic theory down, get Brewmate and have a play around with it. You'll be surprised how simple it is to make a pretty good SMASH beer.

Most of my pale ales are just pale malt, a small amount of crystal, and single hop.

 

[Adr_0]

I like all of the above. Don't complicate a beer with 17 different specialty malts. Instead understand the role each malt/hop plays - literally, why am i adding this and what do I want it to achieve? - and use published guidelines for % amounts. Ray Daniels' book will help immensely with this and from what I've read Jamil's recipes are fantastic.

 

[warra48]

All the advice above is good and useful.

While you are waiting for your copy of Designing Great Beers to arrive from Amazon, have a read of Section 4 of John Palmer's online edition of How to Brew. http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/index.html

It's fairly basic and simple, but it will give you an easy start to designing your own recipes.

Ultimately, it comes down to experience, The more you brew, the more you understand what the different components of a recipe contribute, and the better you get at fine tuning them to your taste.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

My best beers only use 3-4 malts and about the same or less with hops.........

My best pale ale was

80% Barret Burston ale malt
10% med xtal
10% wheat

POR hops to 30 IBU at 60 min
EKG hops to 35 IBU at 15 mins
SAAZ hops to 37 IBU at 2-3 mins