I’ve been trying to decide between using a recipe or just kinda winging it for my first ever homebrew beer. I’m aware winging it with the specific ingredients is kinda silly but I like to experiment and feel creative. It’s important to note that I would thoroughly research what ingredients are good for what and try to choose logically as a way to learn better. I’d like someone with experience to let me know if that idea is awful or somewhat achievable. Granted I’m not expecting my first one to be amazing anyway.
I think you’ll find that each particular brewer on this site may approach brewing with slightly different goals. Some people might prefer to hone in on a very particular recipe until they get it right, and some might prefer to do like you suggested, to experiment. The right answer seems to be, “Be the brewer you want to be.”
I have often done what you suggested. I e looked at various recipes of stouts, noted commonalities and then created my own. What I learned about myself early on was a tendency go too far on the experiment when more subtlety could have provided a better outcome. As an example, I learned more chocolate malt in my stouts didn’t really get the “more chocolate” flavor I was hoping for. I still arrive at my own recipes, but have learned to be incremental if thinking about changing ingredients around after looking at several recipes.
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Learn to walk before you run. Brew a few existing recipes first to get a handle on things. In the long run you’ll be glad you did.
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Which is a good reason to brew a few tried and tested recipes first. I’ve written and talked a LOT about recipe design over the last 30 years. I firmly believe in the long run you’ll have better results and less frustration starting with reliable recipes.
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Starting with established recipes will give you experience with how ingredients meld together and in what amounts. This is invaluable when you start creating your own recipes.
Winging it is fun and creative, but being new to the hobby, your probability of brewing a good first beer increases tremendously with a recipe.
If you wing it, at least first look over established recipes to get a sense of the percentages they are using for specialty malts, amounts of hops, etc. With a lot of ingredients, it doesn’t take much to tilt the scale from a good beer to a bad one.
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I would start with a pretty simple recipe — a SMaSH, even. You can make very fine pale ale or blonde or saison from 100% pilsner malt or pale malt.
For five gallons:
9lb pilsner or pale malt
1 oz strisselspalt @ 60 min
1 oz strisselspalt @ 5 min
Your favorite saison yeast
I bet your beer will turn out better than you anticipate. What beer style do you like? Try to find a recipe of that style. If it is stout or porter then you may not find that big of a difference from an extract with specialty grain.
My first all grain was a pale ale and it was wonderful. I cannot tell you the flavor profile only that it must have been or I would not have been doing this for 30+ years.
Make sure you use good ingredients! Use good quality malt, use good water and use a yeast you like.
I think you will be amazed how good the beer is.
Good brewing