How do you create a recipe?

Beer Recipes
1

Yeah, it sounds like a really simple thing, but in fact, it isn’t. So then you might say, but CounterPressure, you like really simple beers, the recipes you like should be easy as pie! Yeah, well that’s not always the case either.

I’ve used BeerSmith for many years, so yes, I’ve looked through the archives. Never had any successes there.  I’d say the best luck I’ve had has been beer kits, which always seem to get you in the ball park, if not dead on the desired brew. But you can also get stung on some of them. Then again, there’s not a lot of kits out there for old traditional beers.

For example, about a year ago I tried a kit for a Scottish Ale which looked like a good fit for me. Well it turned out that it was borderline dumping material and I won’t even say it was completely the recipes fault. But my preconceptions of what I thought the recipe should be is probably the main thing that drove me to buy it to begin with. So in other words, if I knew how to create a recipe, I probably wouldn’t have chosen it. No fault to the beer.

So fast forward a year, and last night I went to a local brew pub for a beer and some food. I checked the beer menu online before I went and I had narrowed down a few that I wanted to try. One was a Scottish ale. I must give a shout out to Erie Brewing Company as that’s who made it. Erie Pennsylvania. On the first sip I was completely floored, wow is this stuff good. I can say I have never had that reaction at a brew pub in my life. I’ve had good beers to be sure, but I have never had one that instantly I knew, this was something otherworldly. A marquis of the style. I ate my meal and had a stout on Nitro and then went home.

Today I got online to see what this stuff was, and lo and behold, this beer was a Gold Medal winner at the GABF in Denver CO. Ahh! Yeah that kind of explains some of it… lol. I wrote a short parable on their contact form to let them know that their efforts were not unappreciated, and that this clearly was a home run. Not that they didn’t already know that.

It just so happens that that’s one of the styles I’ve wanted to make for many years and never found a proper recipe. I would never ask them for theirs, not that it would matter because even if they gave it to me, the grain bill and a little more info is about 10% of what makes that beer what it is. They didn’t come up with that on their first try, and I don’t expect I will come up with a decent example without a number of tries at it either.

Today I was on the BJCP site looking at Style Guidelines for two beers, a Scottish ale and a malty lager. A Märzen, Munich, Vienna, something… I don’t even know what. I would prefer not to be above 6%. I’ve done a decocted Kölsch which I really like, so I wouldn’t be afraid of a decoction lager. Yeah yeah, I know, we supposedly don’t have malt for that, but I’m pretty convinced decoction produces flavors you don’t get any other way. Yes, it’s a pita…

I realize that 2/3 of the recipe is coming up with the process. So what do you guys do to arrive at a finished product? I mean of course you need at least an start on a grain bill, but there’s more to it than that.

2

I start by “tasting” the beer I my mind, then figure out to get there.

3

I’ve been a Beersmith user for many years and their recipe database is no better (or worse) than most other sources you can find for beer recipes… unreliable at best. What you must keep in mind when looking for recipes is who made it? What is their experience level and expertise?

Long ago I began using only three online sources for recipes… homebrewtalk com has a recipe database section that is mostly reliable. Each offering will be followed by discussion and refinements making them fairly well vetted… I subscribe to both the American Homebrew Association and BYO whose websites are full of medal winning and pro-brewer recipes… And finally for historic recipes (which are 75% of what I brew) I go to Ron Pattinson’s blog, http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/.

Ron researches old brewery logbooks and recipe books and scales them to homebrew size batches. He publishes recipes every Wednesday and Saturday. I mention this one only because Scottish brewing is one of Ron’s primary interests. He’s toured the US giving talks on nothing but Scottish brewing and written two books on the subject along with countless articles on his blog… including recipes for the whole range of Scottish Ales. Use the search tool at the top of his site and look for the words “Let’s Brew +Scottish” and you will get pages of recipes. Or scroll way down his page and look on the left hand side for a keyword menu (titled “Labels”) to find hundreds of entries that include the words Scottish, Scotland, Scotch, and Shilling.

Developing a recipe is a complex process. There is a good book called Mastering Homebrew by Randy Mosher which contains a wealth of information about ingredients and how to pair them to create a recipe.

4

I guess that’s sort of what I do.  I generally start with something that sounds close and go from there, but it can be a long process.

That has been my reason for not putting my own recipes up on their cloud database is that I know I’m not a world class brewer, hence there’s no reason for me to suggest a recipe and muddy the waters for anyone else.  Even if I think I have a really good brew, it’s probably not worthy of handing out to new brewers who might be looking at those DBs. I’m sure there’s good stuff in there, I’m not knocking the Beersmith DB.  But lacking discussion being attached, there’s simply not enough time in my life to vet the recipes by trial and error… And if all I’m going to do is look at what they suggest and guess what they might have done wrong, I may as well guess at the entire thing right from the get-go.

[quote]Long ago I began using only three online sources for recipes… homebrewtalk com has a recipe database section that is mostly reliable. Each offering will be followed by discussion and refinements making them fairly well vetted… I subscribe to both the American Homebrew Association and BYO whose websites are full of medal winning and pro-brewer recipes… And finally for historic recipes (which are 75% of what I brew) I go to Ron Pattinson’s blog, http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/.

Ron researches old brewery logbooks and recipe books and scales them to homebrew size batches. He publishes recipes every Wednesday and Saturday. I mention this one only because Scottish brewing is one of Ron’s primary interests. He’s toured the US giving talks on nothing but Scottish brewing and written two books on the subject along with countless articles on his blog… including recipes for the whole range of Scottish Ales. Use the search tool at the top of his site and look for the words “Let’s Brew +Scottish” and you will get pages of recipes. Or scroll way down his page and look on the left hand side for a keyword menu (titled “Labels”) to find hundreds of entries that include the words Scottish, Scotland, Scotch, and Shilling.

Developing a recipe is a complex process. There is a good book called Mastering Homebrew by Randy Mosher which contains a wealth of information about ingredients and how to pair them to create a recipe.

[/quote]
Thanks for the tip on Ron and his site. I’ll do some serious reading there.  I’ll also look into “Mastering Homebrew”, though I do so much reading online I don’t often buy books any more.

Last year a friend asked me to brew an Irish Red, so I looked online and found a recipe that was said to win 1st in a state brewing competition and gave it a shot.  The result was very good, but the grain bill ended up making an Irish Brown, not an Irish Red.  And I mean seriously brown.  Ok, I adjusted the grain bill and made another batch.  Again the beer was good and this one at least had a hint of red, but still more like a Scottish Ale than an Irish Red.  On to batch #3, did it again. Each time the beer keeps getting better, but holy smokes, what is this cara aroma doing in there besides causing it to become dark?  So this past weekend I tried batch #4 without it entirely, and the resulting wort looks amazing.  It smells and tastes far better too. I had already changed out much of the base malt for red active, reduced the caramel malt and use 10L for what remained. I’ve been dialing back the hops to where they are a background item instead of in the forefront, and I think I have that to where I’m happy. This is the 3rd time I reduced the hops also, but at the same time I was also reducing the caramel malt. So getting the hops perfect was trying to hit a moving target.

That’s just one example, and that’s a success story in my book.  I’ve had plenty of failures…  I’m sure it’s no where near perfect yet and I have not even tasted batch #4 yet. It’ll also be a few months before I can decide if I want to test that recipe with what I read yesterday about boiling the strike and sparge water first. I have a couple beers that exhibit a property that was mentioned in an article about oxygen uptake on the hot side, and that might be contributing to an issue I think I have with some beers as they age.  That’s another can of worms for its own discussion.  Oddly enough, the site discussed the topic and quoted from a discussion here, so there’s obviously more info here to be read.  My eyes are getting tired :smiley:

5

While searching for other brewing info today I came across a recipe db on the Briess site, and it looks pretty interesting.
https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/recipes/

6

Take a look here. I’ve tried a few of their recipes. Good results.

7

I think other’s recipes are a great tool but they can get you only so far.  Best way to creat recipes is to brew, take good notes, brew again, what changes worked, what didn’t, brew again, am I any closer??, brew again…

As Denny said, start with that bullseye in your mind.  That’s the key.  Then use your experience and your personal tastes to get you there.

And when all else fails, don’t be afraid to ask for help (search “In search of an English Porter…”).  :slight_smile:

8

@Megary,
That’s kind of what I’ve done ever since I began brewing. I don’t know how many batches I have made over the years but it’s hundreds. I should count sometime. I still don’t have anywhere near enough experience or knowledge to be able to come close to what I envision on the first try. I have a few styles that I make recurringly and some of those I’ve got nailed down. But over the years I’ve tended to avoid forums due to the inevitable flame wars that begin. I probably should have spent more time here, even if for no other reason than Martin Brungard posts here, as I paid for Brunwater eons ago, with it being the biggest transformation in my beer, ever. I have never asked a question regarding it and boy do I have a bunch!

Then as far as processes, at least with respect to home brewing, there’s seldom ever one best way. And it’s so dependent upon your equipment that I might be able to ask a question and get 10 correct answers, none of which work for me. LOL. I’m exaggerating for effect a little there but you get my point. It’s not always easy to just ask and get an answer. But of course you will never get one if you don’t ask.

(Edit to add)
When I’m looking for a recipe, I’m looking for something that looks like it might have been made 100 or 200 years ago, with a relatively simple grain bill and hop schedule, and enough procedural instructions from somewhere, so that I have an idea what the basic processes are for that style. It seems there’s always some nuanced procedure that is non-negotiable when making certain styles. And if you don’t know it, your sunk before you begin.

9

Why not?  At worst, they say no.  At best, they take the complement and share their recipe (i.e., ingredients and process).  As was pointed out in one of the Brewer’s Book Club talks, recipes do scale linearly from pro to home and back if you keep the times the same.

[quote]I realize that 2/3 of the recipe is coming up with the process. So what do you guys do to arrive at a finished product? I mean of course you need at least an start on a grain bill, but there’s more to it than that.
[/quote]

I only just hit batch #81,  so my take has a bit less experience behind it than the greybeards’, but I’ll echo Denny and the others in saying: Begin with the end in mind.  What is the sociocultural and organoleptic target for the beer?  When, where, with what, and with whom do I plan to drink the beer?  And based on that, what do I want it to taste like, how much body should it have, how much alcohol?  And in turn, based on those, what ingredients and processes are likely to produce that outcome?

EDIT:  The above accounts for about 2/3 of my batches.  The other 1/3 consists of “Huh… I wonder what’ll happen if…” recipes that usually fail miserably but I have fun learning through them.

10

I figure if they wanted to hand out the recipe they would have it posted on their website. But they don’t and I would prefer to respect that… I figure that’s their very polite way of saying we have an unbelievable amount of work in coming up with this and we’d prefer to not divulge any of it.

[quote]I only just hit batch #81,  so my take has a bit less experience behind it than the greybeards’, but I’ll echo Denny and the others in saying: Begin with the end in mind.  What is the sociocultural and organoleptic target for the beer?  When, where, with what, and with whom do I plan to drink the beer?  And based on that, what do I want it to taste like, how much body should it have, how much alcohol?  And in turn, based on those, what ingredients and processes are likely to produce that outcome?

EDIT:  The above accounts for about 2/3 of my batches.  The other 1/3 consists of “Huh… I wonder what’ll happen if…” recipes that usually fail miserably but I have fun learning through them.

[/quote]

For all I know, what I’m looking for might not even exist. Or I’m not sure I would know what it was if I made it. Many years ago I bought enough equipment so I could cold ferment and make lagers. And for a decade or so since, I have pretty much continued to brew ales. Lol. I’m currently trying the slow cold crash where you drop the temp three degrees C every 12 hours. Tomorrow morning is the last step. With these batches, I’m just trying to get my lager to make me say wow. I’ve made it now 10 times, batches 9 and 10 are cold crashing. Every single batch has been a drinkable beer and tasty. None of them have been what I would call remarkable. I tried increasing the gravity once and that was an abject failure. In my mind I think I want a maltier full-bodied mouthfeel, but then I wonder to myself if that shouldn’t really mean just changing styles altogether. My beer is considerably lighter on the pallet than Sam Adams Boston lager. I consider that one to be a benchmark. I use quite a bit less caramel malt so my color is lighter. I would say my last batch more closely resembled Elliot Ness from Great Lakes but it was not nearly as refined. If I could get more malt flavor to come through the way they do, I would probably let everything else alone.

I’ve all but sworn off adding in flavoring ingredients to beer, but today I saw a recipe on Briess that I think I’m going to have to try. A quarter ounce of orange zest in the beer, now that might have possibilities. And it’s a pale ale.
https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/recipes/beer/display/witness_pale_ale

11

In addition to checking out specific recipes, I go through articles in BYO, Beersmith, etc. Those articles discuss the considerations in formulating the recipes. I find them really helpful.

12

Have you tried different maltsters?  Like using Sugarcreek craft malts, or German or Belgian malts?  Stuff like that?  People go on and on about different hop varietals, but there are different barley varietals, too.

13

I have tried some, yes, and I have probably seen the most difference with Weyermann. I bought a 55 lb sack of their Vienna and I often purchase their Munich malt by the 10 lb bag. For base malts I generally buy Briess, and I just bought a 50 lb sack of their Vienna Malt which I’ve also used before. I wasn’t Blown Away by the Vienna from Weyermann so I figure it’s not worth an extra 60% more money. I won’t badmouth another maltster by naming them here but I got another 50 lb sack from another manufacturer who clearly did something wrong in the malting process because the efficiency was about 40%. It had no diastatic power and wouldn’t convert. Several batches in a row I was adding dme because my gravity was 1.02X.  Needless to say I’m not buying any more from them. I’m not afraid to branch out and try new stuff but I don’t like to change things just for the sake of change. So when I find ingredients that I think work, I don’t just swap them out so I can throw more variables in. Dingeman’s pale malt is another great one but again you pay the import fees.

I’d really like to try that recipe I posted above. But as I look at their grain bill, the one thing which probably defines the malt flavor of the beer is not available at any place I buy. Caracrystal Wheat Malt? Never heard of it before, and clearly neither has Morebeer or Northern Brewer or any of them.

14

I only just hit batch #81,  so my take has a bit less experience behind it than the greybeards’, but I’ll echo Denny and the others in saying: Begin with the end in mind.  What is the sociocultural and organoleptic target for the beer?  When, where, with what, and with whom do I plan to drink the beer?  And based on that, what do I want it to taste like, how much body should it have, how much alcohol?  And in turn, based on those, what ingredients and processes are likely to produce that outcome?

EDIT:  The above accounts for about 2/3 of my batches.  The other 1/3 consists of “Huh… I wonder what’ll happen if…” recipes that usually fail miserably but I have fun learning through them.

[/quote]

My 10 gallon batches usually need some tweak when scaled up to 7 or 10 barrels. Efficiency of the brewhouse is different, hop utilization can be very different.

Some commercial breweries struggle when they go to a larger system. One I know dumped a lot of 200 bbl batches as they were dialing in, they still had their 50 bbl system to brew a standard.

15

Is that due to the intensity of the boil?  Smaller system boiling more vigorously?

16

I’m not  hop scientist, but boil dynamics big vs small kettle. Boil off rates can be different. Other equipment differences can come into play, external vs internal Calandria vs steam jackets.

17

To the OP, you need a base to start. Start by brewing some simple, proven recipes (I highly recommend Breing Classic Styles here). Learn how they come out on your system. Then change/add/delete an ingredient and see how that changes the recipe. It takes work, but it’s tasty work, and it’s a worthwhile investment. Over time you will have a solid foundation and can start to visualize recipes in your head.

18

From a BYO article “Behind the IBU: Advanced Brewing” (http://www.byo.com/stories/article/indices/37-hops/200-behind-the-ibu-advanced-brewing) “Alpha and iso-alpha losses are known to occur throughout the brewing process, for example by being carried out of solution by adhering to break material, trub, yeast and vessel walls.” Kettle and fermenter walls have more effect with a smaller system.

19

I’ve got a few styles that I feel I have a decent grasp on, and I much prefer simple beers. So I’m sort of doing that now.  I’ve brewed for a very long time, but the more I learn the more I want to learn. Reading on the web is a double edged sword, and there’s contradictions on virtually every topic there is.  A guy can spend a lot of time sorting through all the “facts”. And that’s ignoring the number of times the entire industry changes their mind about this or that.

Hmm.  I was thinking last night about some of my old notes on early IPAs that turned out well. Those along with stuff I’ve read in the past week or so leads me to believe it’s my boil process that’s “ruining” the ones I make today.  There’s more than that too, but I have some new stuff to try (on a 5 gallon batch, not 10 :smiley: )

20

“Reading on the web is a double edged sword, and there’s contradictions on virtually every topic there is.  A guy can spend a lot of time sorting through all the “facts”. And that’s ignoring the number of times the entire industry changes their mind about this or that.”
That’s part of the fun.