Designing a recipe

[Ducatiboy stu]

Ray Daniels book is a must have.

It contains no recipies

But its a book that gives you the knowledge needed. Anyone getting into brewing should buy it. Purely for the technical info in it

 

[Bribie G]

I got into AG specifically to brew British Real Ales, and found Graham Wheeler's UK Real Ales book to be brilliant.

From there I branched out into other styles such as APAs and Lagers, once I'd learned the ropes, and discovered that one of the best "recipe books" is simply the BJCP style guidelines.
With that and BrewMate and some forum searches I can make a close attempt at just about every style.

I've got Brewing Classic Styles etc on my bookshelf but rarely look into them. As Stu says, once you get a handle on IBUs, gravities, malts etc and have got through your apprenticeship the world is your oyster ...

stout

B)

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

English ales can be hard.

The hardest I have tried is Mild Ale. Basically a mid strenght...about 3.5%..

But you still need to keep you IBU:SG in check


Alc % gives a mouth feel, and when you get to the lower end you dont get that "big beer" feel
, along with residual sugars

This is when mash temps can come into it.

The temprature between dry & seeet beers is only about 6*c...

A mild can benefit from a higher mash temp. Higher mash temps gives a less fermentable wort, giving less Alc% but more mouth feel due to more sugars left in the beer.

I have brewed my Stout (Pillar of Stout ) with low & high mash temps and the difference was noticable

My Scottish ( Pillar of Red ) needs a higher mash temp, gives it that extra sweetness. But in saying that, yeast is also important for your style

 

[rockeye84]

great info mate. thanks again...

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

There is more to come.

This thread is not about how you should make beer

Its about giving you the knowledge to make better beer.

And hopefully, you will gain knowledge about how YOU can make better beer.

We all make different beers to our own tastes.

Its about sharing knowledge with those that are starting, and those long term brewers.

I dont think there is a brewer on here over the years that has not learnt something.

AHB is, and has been a great forum for brewing knowledge, and its the knowledge on here that is available for all brewers, at all levels, is what its all about

 

[nala]

I got into AG specifically to brew British Real Ales, and found Graham Wheeler's UK Real Ales book to be brilliant.

From there I branched out into other styles such as APAs and Lagers, once I'd learned the ropes, and discovered that one of the best "recipe books" is simply the BJCP style guidelines.
With that and BrewMate and some forum searches I can make a close attempt at just about every style.

I've got Brewing Classic Styles etc on my bookshelf but rarely look into them. As Stu says, once you get a handle on IBUs, gravities, malts etc and have got through your apprenticeship the world is your oyster ...

stout

B)

+1 To that.
I too have Graham Wheelers book on Brewing British Beers, he keeps everything quite simple, hence my using a maximum of only 2 bittering addition at 90 minutes boil. The flavour and aroma hops are low in AA, which is another god practice.

 

[MHB]

There are some great ideas posted above but for me the first and most important step is to have a goal!

Define the beer you want to make, write down a specification for the beer, then gather all the information on the style, brew your first draft and make adjustments toward a clear objective.

A good specification has to contain (not in any particular order)
Colour - helps you choose specialty malts
Alcohol Content - linked to OG & FG and that gives you apparent attenuation which helps with choosing yeast and mash regime
Bitterness - Hop choices
Mouth feel - mash temperature and specialty malts
Aroma - Hop choices and yeast

A good trick when starting out is to download a beer judging form, read the style guide for something near what you want to brew and then do a virtual scoring of your imagined/planed beer, then do a ruthless self judging when you have the beer in your hand (or mouth..), like I said above having a plan is where it all starts.
Mark

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Yes. You need to know what you want to brew. And stick to it

A Stout can be very easy. A Scottish can be rather hard.

Some beers can hide faults, other beers can make you kick your fermenter over.

If you want to brew a particular beer properly, then be prepared to have a few failures before you get it.

 

[pk.sax]

Re Mark's comment - that is the one reason why I keep going back to using brew pal on the phone, you can plug in ingredients and then it scores the various aspects of the expected product against the styles and degree of fit. Makes it easy to see where and which I am pushing the boundaries for a style and if I really want that.

 

[danestead]

Hops are important in how and when you use them.
Say you want 30IBU overall.
How many IBU do you want for bittering ?
How many IBU do you want for aroma ?
How many IBU do you want for flavour ?
A simple pale would be for me @30 IBU with SG1050
22 IBU bitternes
5 IBU aroma
3 IBU flavour
Now looking at that, the aroma & flavour seem rather small. But it will make a nicely balanced beer.
You need to remember that the less boil time, the more hops you need to make the same IBU. And if you use say POR for bittering @15AA and SAAz for the rest @5AA you are going to need A LOT more Saaz to get those last 8 IBU than you POR. Infact you may use more Saaz than POR.
The different hop oils give different qualities.
Beta Acids - lupulone,colupulone & adlupulone
Alpha Acids - humulone,cohumulone,adhumulone
Its the ratios of these oils that give a Hop its characteristic.
Most brewers look at AA%...but that is not the sum total of what the bitternes of a hop can provide

Gday ducati,

I am only 18 months into all grain brewing (although ive been around it for about 5 yrs) and something has seemed to click and I now have enough knowledge to sit infront of promash and make up a recipe from scratch. A year ago I would have no idea because I didnt have the experience and knowledge of which grain plays which part in a grain bill.

Now that ive started brewing my own recipes I ask you the question, why do you relate IBUs to late kettle additions? I generally go by a g/L scale and then just add the remaining bitterness as a 60min addition. Does maybe a high alpha hop have a stronger flavour or aroma than a low alpha hop? I didnt think so however ive never looked into it either.

 

[verysupple]

I particularly like this bit

Another thing I have noticed is that brewers want to use heaps of different malts in the grain biill.

You don't need to. Select the right amount of grains in good ratios and you will get great beer.Try designing a beer with 3 malts. Most good beers only need 3. Sometimes 4.

Although I'd even go more conservative. A great beer can be made with one malt. Don't get me wrong, not all styles are best with one malt. But only add spec. grains if you think it'll add something. Malt complexity is great, but it's so easy to go overboard and add either too much of one spec. grain and over power everything or simply use too many and muddle the characteristics.

And for my 2c: As some others have hinted at, it's hard to make a truly awful beer if your processes are OK. Start off with a simple recipe and see what it tastes like. Then add (or subtract) ingredients to achieve your desired result. if you make a beer for the first time with a million ingredients, who knows what's right or wrong?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Gday ducati,

Now that ive started brewing my own recipes I ask you the question, why do you relate IBUs to late kettle additions? I generally go by a g/L scale and then just add the remaining bitterness as a 60min addition. Does maybe a high alpha hop have a stronger flavour or aroma than a low alpha hop? I didnt think so however ive never looked into it either.

Good question. A lot of older recipies called for g/L , but when using different AA% hops it can throw out the balance. Obviously a 15 AA% hop will be fifferent to a 5 AA%. If you use the IBU's at per addition you have a greater chance of keeping overall IBU's and you can get a better idea of how different hops perform ( taste,smell ) at the same IBU level. There is more to it as hops have differing levels and ratios of different oils. Generally a low AA hop is better suited to late additions.

 

[davedoran]

Good question. A lot of older recipies called for g/L , but when using different AA% hops it can throw out the balance. Obviously a 15 AA% hop will be fifferent to a 5 AA%. If you use the IBU's at per addition you have a greater chance of keeping overall IBU's and you can get a better idea of how different hops perform ( taste,smell ) at the same IBU level. There is more to it as hops have differing levels and ratios of different oils. Generally a low AA hop is better suited to late additions.

Lots of good tips here which im learning from as per above.
What I have started doing is looking at highly recommended simple recipes and getting the figures (OG, FG, IBU, SRM) from it and then working out a new recipe on paper myself. Cant say this is the best way to do it but it works for me.

Question regarding dry hopping. Was thinking of a IPA recipe im putting together. Simcoe (13% AA) and Amarillo (8%) ive been told work really well together. Could they be good as a dry hop? Or best to leave as bittering/ flavour.

 

[danestead]

Good question. A lot of older recipies called for g/L , but when using different AA% hops it can throw out the balance. Obviously a 15 AA% hop will be fifferent to a 5 AA%. If you use the IBU's at per addition you have a greater chance of keeping overall IBU's and you can get a better idea of how different hops perform ( taste,smell ) at the same IBU level. There is more to it as hops have differing levels and ratios of different oils. Generally a low AA hop is better suited to late additions.

Ok great, its good to hear the theory behind it. If you took it a step further and worked out your additions based on a certain level of the other oils (ie. beta acids, humulene, cohumulene, caryophyllene, myrcene etc) perhaps that would be a good way to do it rather than AA alone? Do any of those oils ive listed appeal to a specific use at all? ie is one of them great at flavour however another is great at aroma?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Its more about ratio's. There are a lot of oils within a hop and its the type and ratios of these that give characteristics that determine if its more suited to straight bittering or more flav/ aroma.

Generally aroma hops have
* Low AA%
* low myrcene content - less than 50%
* low cohumulone AA
* Alpha to Beta ratios around 1:1
* Noble varieties have higher humulene:caryphyllene, generally above 3:1

Some of the hops have the following humulene:caryphyllene

Saaz..........4:1
EKG..........3.2:1
Fuggle......2.9:1
Chinook...2.25:1
Nugget.....2:1
POR..........0.73:1

With the following humulene:myrcen

Saaz..........1.89:1
EKG...........1.96:1
Fuggle.......0.51:1
Chinook....0.6:1
Nugget......0.3:1
POR......... 0.15:1


Hop chemistry is complex due to so many compounds initially present, and then those produced as a result of boiling and oxidisation.

To really go into it would create a very long post.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Can we get this thread made a "Sticky"?

This is hands down the best and most informative thread that has been on AHB for a long time.

Thanks to Dboy-Stu for not just starting it but for adding to it and answering questions and keeping it going.

Thanks also to anyone and evryone else that has added their knowledg to this.

:super:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I'll have to add my words of congrats to DBS - well done on this thread. It's an excellent read.

I'll add in my thoughts on recipe generation, especially my APA/AIPA.

I've pretty well done recipes from the start of my AG career with a look at other recipes for inspiration. I've only brewed one recipe, which is Tony's Monteiths' OA clone. Excellent recipe.

Having said that, as a rule I'm fairly conservative as a brewer, style wise, and my more out there brews (good and bad) have been either flukes (such as my Golden Strong Pale Lager, Smaragd hops blind, an overboil I forgot to dilute and US at about 14 degrees - which placed in QABC) and other more interesting brews (my Rauchroggenweiss which has a 19.5 point muddle mess).

My experience? Stick to a style. AABC style guidelines are the best guide there is. Brew with these in mind, and you won't have a bad recipe (though there will always be some improvements).

If you want to do something experimental - have a clear picture of what you want to do, and why. My Rauchroggenweiss is a point in question. With the QABC, you have to write what you were achieving in a category 18 beer. It was a waffle. Good indication that I wasn't doing any good.

Contrast that to a black IPA - someone wanted to brew an IPA, but a bit of roast for colour and to dry it out a bit. Winner. American Brown? One wants to make an English style brown but one only has American hops. So one adjusts for that.

But - You are unlikely to invent a new, you beaut style of beer. So brewing a hybrid beer or a 'new style' just to create one will leave you quite likely with a batch of very average beer. Some want to push that - as a type of experimental art and are happy with a high risk of epic fail. Most want to brew a nice beer and will take a less 'out there' method.

As for recipe formulation (apart from the above advice on experiments) - I have never gone wrong with 3 or less malts. One base, 2 specs (or a small amount of base used as spec) to add the dimensions necessary. One base one spec does well. I do find smash beers a bit one dimensional, but don't go to the other extreme of putting 20 varieties of malts in a beer - it just ends up a muddled mess. 2 or 3 is great. My ratios are generally 90/10 split on base to spec (for 3 varieties) and 95/5 split on 2 varieties.

Hops. Again, I keep it simple with additions. If the AABC style guidelines say "focus on early bittering addition, rather than aggressive late hopping", then it's a 60 minute addition with maybe a small 30 minute. If it's an APA, then a 30 minute bittering addition (15IBU) and a 10 minute addition (15-25IBU). AIPA, the 30 minutes becomes 60 minutes. I have pretty much got the ratios and numbers down to a formula.

Jury is out on me whether you can have too many hops. Not enough - well that depends on style. If it's an English Standard bitter, one hop is fine, keep it in style. With an APA, I've done up to 7. Sometimes 7 is better than 4, sometimes 2 is better than 4. It all depends.

Whether it works or not is a complex art - it can work or it can be a waste of perfectly good hops. Apollo, Belma, Cascade, Citra, Amarillo, CTZ and Mosaic are in my current brew. It works and isn't muddled. It could have been though. But sometimes I'm better off with 2 or 3 (say Nelson Sauvin, Cascade and maybe a touch of Galaxy). With my APA/AIPA - I find I need at least one 'dank', 'spicy', 'pine' or such American variety to contrast the frutiness of the usual C hops, Amarillo and the newer fruit varieties.

Again, this is gleaned from use, but sticking to my pre-determined style formulas gives me some boundaries to play in, whilst ensuring I never make a bad beer.

Sorry for the crapping on, it's the best I can do turning a qualitative thing into some sort of quantitative definition.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Couple more things to add

Brewers talk about "Red" beer.

Getting "Red" in your beer is easy,but, it is also very hard to get right.

A common mistake is brewers seeing "Carared" and automatically thinking that by using it, you will end up with "Red" beer.

You can get "Red" from various combinations. Red does not allways mean "Red"... It has a somewhat broad range accross the amber-copper spectrum.

Red can be achieved by using Xtal malts or by using Roast Barley or very dark choc malts.

If using Xtal malts then you need to take into account the sweetnes that Xtals will bring to a beer. The darker the xtal malt, the more sweetnes you bring in...generally..the darker the xtal, the less you need.

The other way is dark choc & roast barley. Again the darker the grain the less you need...but for different reasons.

Choc & Roast Barley add bitterness. A small amount, say 50gm in 22lt will give a colour with mild flavour....bump you RB upto 100gm and your getting into stout territory

Bit of an old rule is...the darker the malt, the less you need.

 

[MHB]

I take a bottom up approach, having decided what to brew (having a plan) work out the simplest recipe that can do the job.
Say you wanted to make a Bohemian Pilsner, the simplest recipe you can find is for Budvar 1 Malt, 1 Hop, 1 Hop addition.
Brew that, decide what you want to change, decide how to get the changes you want. it might not be a case of adding more ingredients, it might be a process change or a malt choice.
My personal favourite BoPils for summer drinking is a single malt (Weyermann Floor Malted BoPils) two additions of Saaz 1 at 90 and one at 10 minutes.
Looking for a little more depth than just the base malt, rather than just adding some CaraPillis or CarraHell I settled on a process change.
The mash is a step mash starting at tap water temperature and a mini boil on the side of 500g of BoPils in a couple of litres of water, treat it like a decoction, heat it slowly and let it simmer for about 3/4 on an hour, develops a light golden honey colour and that lovely decocted flavour, with a rich malty nose.

I really believe most of the worlds great beers are simple (often deceptively so) and find its a lot easier to add something than it is to get it back out.

Get the basic shape right, your malt profile, the bitterness and aroma, then fine tune.
If there is too much in the beer, its hard to tell what you like and what you want to get rid of. The other problem with too many ingredients is a little tip I remembered from preschool - if you mix all the colours you get **** brown every time - frankly over complicated recipes do develop a sameness
Mark

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Something that is also important to take into account is your mash efficiency.

The less efficient your mash is, the less sugars produces which will ten throw out your IBU:SG ratio. A 10% change in eff% can make a difference in your final beer.

It is something you need to take into account when using someone elses recipe. If you use a brewers recipe who has a mash eff of 80% but you can only get 70% then you need to adjust your grain bill, hop additions or both.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Excellent point DBS.

Using IBU and OG as the basis to adjust for efficiency so that you hit the targets of the original recipe is a good method.

Brewmate makes that easy, punch in the ingredients, your efficiency (not the recipe makers). Lock ingredients and adjust down the volume until the numbers (OG and IBU) line up. Unlock the ingredients and push the batch size back to what you want, and it adjusts the grain accordingly.

 

[Yob]

Mosher on Beersmith on Designing Beers

LINKY

 

[Bribie G]

MHBs comments about malts are spot on. Many of the great beers that we rave on about are often only single or single plus one spec malt brews. Examples are Timothy Taylor Landlord, the Fullers family, XXXX B) They almost always get their malts kilned to their exact specs so they only need one. For example TTL that's apparently all Maris Otter but kilned to exact colour for them. So as home brewers we have to adjust our common trade base malts that we buy with the addition of chocolate malt, crystal whatever. Thus we can only hope to closely approximate a commercial beer but not replicate the recipe.

Also, whilst on malts, for "red" I've found the reddest to be Caraaroma

 

[Edak]

Something that is also important to take into account is your mash efficiency.

The less efficient your mash is, the less sugars produces which will ten throw out your IBU:SG ratio. A 10% change in eff% can make a difference in your final beer.

It is something you need to take into account when using someone elses recipe. If you use a brewers recipe who has a mash eff of 80% but you can only get 70% then you need to adjust your grain bill, hop additions or both.

And while you are looking at efficiencies, make sure you are referring to the same efficiency. There is a mash efficiency which tends to be higher and then a total (or overall or brewhouse) efficiency which takes into account the losses post mash (boil, losses due to dead space and the **** in the bottom of the kettle after boil). This is confusing to some so ensure you understand the differences.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Good point Edak.

Was going to get to that

But basically mash efficiancy is what you get from your mashed grains in a given amount of water.

Now sparging, regardless of it is fly or batch should give you an amount of liqour in your kettle before you start the boil.

You need to know what your SG is into the kettle. The SG from your mash tun into the kettle will allways be lower. The reason is because as you boil you are loosing water but keeping sugars. So as you boil you SG gets higher.

You need to know what your evaporation losses are at the end of the boil, along with shrinkage rate to give you a post kettle amount.

You basically need to base your IBU:SG rates on the SG you put into your fermenter.

This is why you need to know how your rig works and why it is important to know exactly where your loses in your system

You will only get this from brewing lots of beers and taking note of EVERY STEP.

Punching a recipe into beersmith/promash/beermate will not give you what you want untill you have done a few brews and worked out how YOUR rig works

 

[Edak]

Here's an interesting question, do you measure your mash efficiency and pre boil volume after mashout or just as it comes to a boil? Take into account the volume changes of 25 or so degrees.

 

[danestead]

Here's an interesting question, do you measure your mash efficiency and pre boil volume after mashout or just as it comes to a boil? Take into account the volume changes of 25 or so degrees.

You calculate your preboil sg once you have your total boiling liquid in. Ie, after you have done a sparge etc. Temperature doesn't matter because you should b correcting you sg measurement for temp anyway.

I measure my mash efficiency after the boil because i find the preboil gravities not all that accurate. I always seem to lose a couple of points of gravity between my calculated preboil sg and my sg after boiling.

 

[freek]

With regards to mashing I am having difficulty finding specific information on when a malt (or unmalted wheat etc) requires the lower temperature rests ( 40 deg β-Glucanase and 50 deg Protease) and when you can get away with the single infusion.

There is plenty of general information that explains what the rests are for and why you don't need it when using "most" malts, but how do I identify what is a "most" malt? I have found product datasheets to be either hard to find or non descriptive in relation to this.

Attached is an example just for arguments sake. Other than trawling forums and comparing peoples opinions or copying other recipes, how do I tell if a malt like this benefits from the lower temperature rest?

View attachment Weyermann® Bohemian Pilsner Malt_Specification_2013.pdf

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

So....Who can make a recipe without software.....


Next thing for this topic is Yeast.


If it wasnt for yeast, we would not have beer

 

[Yob]

I rarely use software these day.