Denny's Article in the Current Zymergy

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know that Denny wrote a great article about creating homebrew recipies in the latest Zymergy.  Thank you Denny!!!  I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot.  I am deffinently going to start making teas out of grain and hops after this weeks trip to the LHBS.

I do have one question out there for all of you guys.  Denny was writing about a particular Porter he made and stated that the pH was low.  Does anyone know what the “notmal” pH range for beer is?

Again thank you Denny!

Broadly speaking, most finished beers will be in the 4-4.5 pH range. Something with a lot of hop alpha acids could be <4, and sour beers can be <3.

Glad you got something out of the article.

Yeah Denny, that was a great article! Something I see a lot from newer brewers is the “malt soup” recipe, where they add a bunch of ingredients with no idea of what they do, and they end up with muddled flavors. I know I did that for a year or two when I started making my own recipes. Hopefully some people will read your article and make better beer.

That’s the idea!

It made me want to listen to Jerry Garcia for some reason.

That’s the LAST thing I’d want you to do!

Same here - the descriptions of all the malts sounds so enticing - why not use ALL of them TOGETHER?

I didn’t really ‘get it’ until I started taking copious notes on the malt flavor (not just ‘malty’, etc.). I still go off of (limited) experience - Denny’s article gave me something to think on while writing recipes!

I just started brewing this past summer and have tried my hand at my own recipes with some moderate success, the beer taste good to me. But I have noticed that my first batches always need improvement. After reading the article combined with what I am tasting from my own beers I need to research more of what I put in the beer and how it melds together to create what I want.

Thanks for the awesome article.