Everyone Use Recipes Or Just Make It Up?

[Jakechan]

I know there will always be a place for a tried and true recipe, especially for the beginner like me.

But how many of you just make it up as you go along? Say, whack in some carared just because you have some, or something else on brew day on a whim. Or even make up your own recipe days before just because you can?

Surely providing you are following a good regime of cleanliness and following the basic principles of brewing proportion-wise, then I would imagine it would be pretty hard to make a bad brew?

Am I just being idealistic?

I certainly like the idea of trying different things and not knowing what the outcome may be.

Cheers,
Jake

 

[matti]

That depend how adventurous I feel and what I have available.
Little of both.

I believe in having all things planned prior a brew including recipe.
There is always the chance that I drop in a few extra hops and speciality malts along the way though...

 

[rclemmett]

Usually make it up a couple of days in advance......... Helps to have a little bit of planning.

 

[razE]

For me just starting out in AG and never being around homebrew untill recently I am following recipes and taking in all the different wonderfull tastes and smells! Sometime in the near future ill go out on a whim and have a go at recipe of my own. I dont believe ill make a bad brew but in order to make a good brew i need to work the different malts and hops first and what goes with what! :icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

I always consider what effect it will have on the overall balance...its very rare that I will make a sub, or just throw something in, without careful thought before hand.....however, I'm a lot more fluid in my practices than this may lead you to believe...I do adapt to changing circumstance during the actual brewing itself. And occasionally I will make a change at the last minute, or even part way through....but I still re-balance it either in my mind, or quickly on software.

 

[Screwtop]

The ones I made up in the early days were the worst. Start with a good recipe, after some experience with different malts and hops you wll get the urge to tweak some of those good recipes, until you end up with your own great recipe.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[Tony]

I have quite a database of recipes.......... mine and other peoples.

If i see something on the net that looks like it would work out i chuck it in promash and save it. I then have it to draw ideas from as i please.

I have never brewed 2 identical beers. I always make a change to the recipe....... may be small but i like to see what happens. Also depends on hops i may have in stock. I have made a CAP a few times and usually use halertau and cluster but made it last time with saphire and it was awsome.

I may have a mental problem (i know this line will get commented on ) but i just cant seem to brew someone elses recipe. I always have to change it somehow. Usually to my ideals of ballance for the given beer or ingredients on hand.

I love to formulate recipes from scratch, and work on them. I will have an idea or a plan for a brew in the next few months (yeah i plan ahead) and knock up a base recipe. I then open it and go over it a few times making changes to what i think will give the best results and ballance. Sometimes i open a recipe and look at it and think....... what the hell was i thinking. I read over the BJCP guides for the style and look back on the recipe.

Experience is important as it lets you get a taste for what effect ingredients and amounts will have on the beer. I can look at a recipe on paper and taste it in my mind if you know what i mean. I can picture what it will be like and you only get this from experience.

But everyones mind works differently and not everyone can do this. So for them........ tried and true recipes are worth their weight in gold.

IMHO...... the recipe is king when it comes to a brewing. You can knock up a good beer with just about anything but to make a great beer............. it needs to be ballanced to within a bees dick for the style. Thats the holy grail!

So get brewing!

cheers

 

[drsmurto]

I started off with plenty of help from Voosher at the old Grumpys brew shop and plenty of input from here.

Like Tony, i am regularly grabbing recipes off the net and dropping them in the to do folder.

They generally then get tweaked.

Found it easier to understand what the hops and malt were doing by brewing known recipes.

I still do that but i occasionally brew something that is my own creation from start to finish. They tend to be the worst ones which proves to me i still have a lot to learn.

 

[SDJ]

I have quite a database of recipes.......... mine and other peoples.

I may have a mental problem (i know this line will get commented on )
So get brewing!

cheers

ahem... may??

Couldnt elp meself Tony, just got ome, got a few under me belt and you probably deserve it anyway lol

Cheers Steve

 

[Tony]

:lol: I just love it when you post steve......... i wish they wiggled!

cheers

 

[SDJ]

:lol: I just love it when you post steve......... i wish they wiggled!

cheers

so do I champ, so do I :icon_chickcheers:

 

[Gavo]

Being very new to brewing partials and AG (only one AG so far) I usually look for a tried recipe and then tweak it a little to what I think I will like. I do use recipe guidelines in order to get the balance right. I am about to repeat a recipe with a Bittering hops change and an increase in grain/extract ratio (more grain less extract). My only problem is I have no craftbrewers nearby to do taste testing with.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[Bribie G]

I'm a bit of a chef as well and approach it somewhat as a cooking exercise: ingredients, methods of preparation, equipment required etc.

Example, I decided to do a Burton Ale, did some research on the malts and hops used, the water treatments etc and my thoughts went:

What water salts required...
Malt ... what varieties .... how much... what mash temp....
Hops ... what varietes.... how much.... what minutes to add each addition... dry hop later?
How long to boil
What yeast....

And the 'recipe' if you want to call it, comes swimming into my consciousness.


Ok 4.5 kg Maris Otter, 66 degrees.....100g only of Crystal (many Burtons do a single malt only) - 600g dex because Marstons use dex in their Pedigree....
45 g Fuggles 60 mins 20g EKg 15 mins... dry hop EKG.............

and so it goes, based on my previousl brews and what I have picked up about ales like Marston Pedigree from the web or my beer encyclopedia.

I don't follow a published recipe as such and in fact haven't activated my Beersmith copy yet. What I DO do is to make sure I log everything accurately in my big red book because brewing is a funny thing, after three weeks I've usually forgotton what went into each brew if I don't write it all down.

:icon_cheers:

 

[peas_and_corn]

A little from column A, a little from column B. I have recipes but I tend to tweak them all the time because of whim, personal taste or what's available. It's what is so good about AG brewing.

 

[matt white]

I have always basically made it up as I go.

The positive - your own unique beer to be enjoyed

The negative - some beers that have a little too much of one thing or another.

PS Carared is my favourite

 

[Kleiny]

I will identify the style i want to make and then prepare a recipe in advance to try and meet the style

Every now and then i will be brewing a recipe i have done before and think a bit more of a diff malt or more hop would good or add to the taste and add what i have at hand.

Mostly calculated or proven recipes for starter and then tweak later

:icon_cheers:
Kleiny

 

[Jakechan]

I may have a mental problem (i know this line will get commented on ) but i just cant seem to brew someone elses recipe. I always have to change it somehow.

:icon_cheers:

I think I have the same problem.

Im looking at all the recipes on AHB, pouring through them daily and trying to decide what I want to brew but its so hard. So many recipes look great, but
Im finding it hard to control the urge to fiddle with them....just a little bit....not too much...you know, just a little Carared here...a smidgen of Choc there, perhaps some different hops...

Hhmm...


Cheers,
Jake

 

[Tony]

I have my Promash recipe database set up with folders for each style of beer. Also one for experimental beers like chilli beer ect, one for planned brews that im playing with the recipes ect.

I also always do a brewing session and save it with the filename starting with the year, then the month, then the day and then the brew name. Like this

09.11.27_german pils

This way they get filed in order of date brewed in the sessions database and i can go back for years to brews i did and check out what i used in them. and they are easy to find in dated order. Promash saves them with the recipe name first and when you have over 100 sessions in the folder finding a brew can be tough.

hope this helps

cheers

 

[Jakechan]

Thats a great idea Tony. Im using Beersmith (just bought the rego from CB this week), and I think it has the same abilities.

Just need a heap of recipes in Beersmith format now...

 

[devo]

A bit of both for me. Sometimes I do a recipe I've found or other times I have an idea and work from the ground up. Sometimes it all comes down to what ever grain and hops I happen to have in stock.