Great stuff folks, thank you for all your input. I am just starting, but I am already noticing some similarities. With time and experience I will come up with a few that I really like and take it from there. I am going to look for that hop flavor chart someone posted a while ago and save it. That seemed to have a boat load of info on what each brings to the table. Thanks again all for your replies. RR
As a new brewer IMO the best thing to do is brew, taste ingredients and study the recipes you brew so you can understand the interplay between ingredients and start learning things you like in recipes. As you learn the ingredients/combinations you like that will help you form building blocks for future recipes.
When I think about recipes I start thinking about the beer I want to brew. What will it taste/smell/feel like? How will I serve it? Then start working backwards to build the recipe. I like to research trustworthy recipes especially those close to what I want to get a rough sketch of a basic recipe. I might look at older recipes of my own and articles on the style for additional ideas. Then I start dialing in the recipe. I usually think on and adjust a recipe for several weeks before brewing to give myself time to synthesize all of the info I took in and try to make the recipe the best it can be. I could push a recipe out sooner but I enjoy percolating on a recipe as part of the brewing process.
These days you also need to have a backup plan in case some of the ingredients you want are not available. I usually have a shopping list with an alternative for each item. For some things there are no real substitutes, but for most there is something close. I try to shop far enough in advance that if the store doesn’t have what I want I can have them order it or I can get it somewhere else.
There is one thing about recipes that isn’t obvious - you need to have enough diastatic power in the grain bill. I don’t brew from grain any more and don’t remember the details, so I won’t try to give specific instructions - but it’s something you will need to consider when formulating recipes.
Start by brewing known recipes for a few batches, then you can try making small substitutions or additions in a recipe you know to try out new ingredients or processes.
American Pale Ale is a good style for experimenting with hops, base malt and even Cara/Crystal malt. Other styles work too, depending on what you like. Brewing Classic Styles is getting a little old, but it’s a good resource for recipes for most styles. I still refer to it from time to time.
the best recipe done with subpar ingredients or process isnt going to make a good beer. I like simple recipes made with quality ingredients.
I read all of the “Classic Beer Styles” books that the Brewer’s Association published when I first started to brew in the early nineties. There were not as many available back then as their are today, but it was a great place to start because even the craft beer industry was in its infancy. I literally devoured every brewing publication on which I could get my hands and I am certain that pretty every brewer on this forum who started to brew before any significant Internet forum appeared did the same thing (the magazine “Brewing Techniques” was invaluable at that point in time). If you read enough recipes, you will discover that most of them fall into either the 90% base malt/10% specialty malt/adjunct or the 80% base malt/20% specialty malt/adjunct categories grist-wise. The base malt puts one on the page whereas the specialty malts and adjuncts are used to fine tune flavor, body, and color.
IMHO, the major takeaway from the Daniel’s book is the bitterness to gravity ratios for different beer styles (defined as IBUs to O.G. or in shorthand the BU:GU ratio). That information has stood the test of time. What I have found is that brewers either over-hop or under-hop their beers when they first start creating their own recipes. I know that it was a problem for me. An IBU calculator will get one on the page, but re-brewing a beer several times while tweaking the kettle and finishing hops is the trick to truly understanding the importance of BU:GU ratios in producing a beer style. The claimed IBUs in today’s IPAs are a little misleading, especially from smaller breweries that do not have full quality control labs. A lot of the IBU levels claimed by West Coast-style IPA brewers are little more than works of fiction because the major hop charge occurs at or near knockout with additional hopping done via dry hopping. Like the components found in humulus lupulus’ cousin, hop alpha acids are not soluble in water. They have to be isomerized via boiling for a period of time to be soluble in water.
Subpar ingredients are not the problem today that they were when I started to brew. We received the castoffs from the microbrewers as they were called back then. The microbrewers received the castoffs from the industrial brewers. Purchasing ingredients from a reputable supplier with good inventory turnover is the key. I have not seen brown hops on a homebrewing supply store in a long time, but it was common problem when I started to brew.
I still see poor hops being sold at homebrew shops and definitely taste them in some of the homebrews Ive tried at club meetings.
I agree. I began buying hops based on harvest year a while back from reputable sources such as YCH, Hops Direct, or Ted. I believe I can tell the difference with fresh hops or it may be confirmation bias. [emoji2369] Either way, I like the outcome better than buying an unknown harvest year from a HomeBrew shop.
Kind of a combo of what others have said, but I’ll have a style in mind and will usually look at the BJCP guidelines for that style. Then I’ll check out recipes for that style, usually starting with award winners, just to get a feel with what others have been successful doing with the style.