Designing a recipe

[Muzduk]

Thats a good reference Stu..As i'm new to Ag and Brewsmith, i really should be pushing up to the red zone to get these ratios?? Will be a while before i can taste and try but tended to think somewhere in the middle ground would see me right?!

 

[Donske]

Thats a good reference Stu..As i'm new to Ag and Brewsmith, i really should be pushing up to the red zone to get these ratios?? Will be a while before i can taste and try but tended to think somewhere in the middle ground would see me right?!

It's personal taste mate, you will need to brew the beers and figure it out for yourself, I personally like American styles at the high end, British styles about medium range and continental European styles about mid range as a general rule but there are certain beers I differ from that again.

There is a lot of trial and error involved is what I've found.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

It is personall taste. Some like hoppy beers, some dont.

The IBU:SG gives you a point to start with if you want to keep within the style parameters.

Once you get a base line of what YOU like, then you can start tweaking to suit

 

[Muzduk]

Yeah i know there's no right or wrong, just maybe wondering if Beersmith erred on the side of caution or is pretty much to "style"

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Dont know.

Does beersmith give you an IBU:SG ..

 

[Muzduk]

Yep my first pale ale is 0.713 so not bursting but just under halfway. 35.8 total IBU's.

To clarify i'm not after anything definitive, just curious

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

.7 is pretty good

My best pales where 35IBU : 55SG

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

What you can do with that recipe is to alter the bittering/aroma/flavour ratios but keep the same overall IBU's. Keep your grain bill the same if it turns out ok.

This will give you valuable information on how different hops work in a beer.

A great way to play with hops is Single Malt And Single Hops and alter your addition ratio's.

 

[nala]

I have brewed for over 6 years, and although I have 87 all grain brews experience find myself still learning.
My default brews are generated by using Brewmate recipe designer, I do have Beersmith but never use it.
My constraint on batch size is 5 kgs of grain for a 20 litre batch size, I would not be interested in bigger OG than can be produced
by using more than this amount of grain anyway.
My recipes are based around 3 malts.... base grain....96 %
Crystal..........2 %boil,
Wheat............2 %
I use no more than 2 bittering hops to a 90 minute boil, I no longer make further additions,but, achieve my aroma and flavour
by keg hop additions, all of which are low in alpha acid because in my experience, high AA hops impart a lot of bitterness even
at a temperature of 18 degrees in the keg...I secondary condition using dextrose in the keg.
The SG/BU that I find is a very acceptable start is 70%.
I do like to try new hops and find that I can best evaluate them if I keep to my default grain bill, I have never done controlled experiments with different yeasts,but SO 4 has never let me down.
Ray Daniels....Designing Great Beers is a good example of not over complicating brewing, it is a simple process to brew beer
all beers, in my experience ae drinkable, a few I want to brew again.
Good topic, bound to stir up some different views.

 

[Muzduk]

Thanks DBS,Should be a good base to work off then.. Was virtually a smash MO, Amarillo and just a touch of galaxy near end. Cheers

 

[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.