Why publish brewing recipes? Conventional wisdom is “Your setup, terror, hops, water, yeast, etc are not same as mine and therefore results are not the same.”.
OK, then, if the assertion is true, we really can’t brew a clone of their beer, then why publish recipes?
Or, is “Your setup, terror, hops, water, yeast, etc are not same as mine…” an old, tired, oft repeated falsehood?
i think it’s kind of a silly question because “yeah there may be minute differences between a recipe brewed in california from california sourced ingredients vs. that same recipe brewed in new england” but obviously following the same recipe would end up at least in the ballpark.
but really - i see almost everyone is very very much into pale beers nowadays. there was a huge push away from the kitchen sink recipes with “4oz of munich 1, 4oz of munich 2, 4 oz of crystal 20, 8oz of crystal 60” etc many years ago, but for me recipe tweaking is still very important as i try to brew beers that i can’t get under almost any circumstances at the store and i really really enjoy dark beers.
publishing recipes and viewing them over the internet has done more for beer style in the past 30 years than the development of beer styles for the preceeding 300 years.
i’d say we have clear and accurate formulations for a huge amount of historical beers, and a huge variety of newly created beers.
For the most part I agree with you. I can’t brew a recipe as written and expect it to come out exactly as the author’s. No way. I use different malts, have a different process, ferment a different way, etc. etc.
But…I can use a recipe as a jumping off point.
I enjoy reading recipes even if I almost never brew them as written. But they can be and often times are…helpful. Maybe I’ll take a hint and use an ingredient I hadn’t thought of before, maybe I’ll consider using a new technique, or maybe I’ll see a style in a different light.
For me, they have a purpose. And the more I brew, the more I understand where a recipe can take me. Or not.
Why publish cookbooks either, then? All agricultural products (edit: and water!) are inherently variable. Yes, my setup, ingredients, etc., influence the outcome, but I can still use my mom’s recipe to cook gumbo that tastes like hers … even though I’m using ingredients bought in Alabama instead of Louisiana. Her recipe is a starting place from which to work.
Likewise, a published recipe is a point to work from. It’ll get you in the ballpark and it’s up to you from there.
I agree with Fred that getting in the ballpark is a good start. I used to try to replicate beers that I had had in my past, searching the interweb for any clues to the correct ingredients. It was useless, every time I followed a recipe to the tee, it never came out as a “clone”. But it was still beer. Now I use what I have in stock, I don’t fret about the exact malts/hops/yeast to use. I use what I have in stock making reasonable substitutes (for my taste), and who knows - maybe it will turn out better than the “clone”. I do learn that I like some ingredients over others though. I have never tried to brew a porter and wound up with a german pils, and I have yet to dump a batch, so I will continue to haphazardly use interweb “clone” recipes as a starting point, and I appreciate whomever did the work to get me in the ballpark because it still seems to make beer.
I include recipes when posting about what I am brewing just to cut down on questions. Invariably I am asked, “do you mind sharing the recipe?” so I just share it up front. Most brewers here do that as a courtesy.
As far as finding and emulating a recipe from a book or a website; I agree with others: I rarely brew as written but adjust for my system, tastes, and ingredients. The written recipe is a known starting point. If you don’t know where you started you can’t make adjustments to move in a particular direction.
As others have said, for me it’s primarily a jumping-off point for making something similar. I almost never brew exactly to recipe, but I will make a valiant attempt in some cases.
I also enjoy looking at detailed recipes to learn about new brewing ingredients–malt brands, yeast strains, etc. I’ve found some nice additions to my brewing inventory that way. Same with mash details – when I first saw mashes in the 140s (after seeing 152 as the default for so long), it made me think, do a bit more research, and then adopt the process as needed in my own beers. I’ve also been able to share ingredients and techniques with others. When I post recipes, my dad reads them, and then we have a fun conversation about ingredient choice, etc.
You could say the same for food recipes yet cookbooks are some of the best sellers. Without other people who have had success in making something publishing their recipes what would the rest of us do for a starting point?
Maybe one point to understand is that you can’t clone a beer.
I like to see what is it a certain beer. While I know I won’t be able to clone it, I have come pretty close taste wise to some commercial brews when I have a recipe that imitates it.
I look at any recipe whether it be beer or food as a place to learn and as a starting point. I may or may not follow it depending on how complicated the recipe is.
The talk about food recipes reminds me of how frustrating it is to try to follow one of my grandmother’s recipes. They don’t list measurements or amounts, just vague descriptions of how much of various things to add. The measuring cup was not standardized until around 1900 and it took a long time for family recipes to be re-written to use standardized amounts. Baking temperatures and times were also not listed. These recipes were suggestions that were to be interpreted by an experienced cook who knew what to do with vague instructions. Today people seem to want a recipe to be a precise, detailed set of instructions to follow blindly with no experience or interpretation required.
I’ve brewed some recipes and hit extremely close to commercial brews. If I cared a lot about cloning beers I would brew the beer several times to dial in the recipe for my system.
While it is true that every system and brewer is different, it’s also a bit silly to pretend like you can’t brew the same beer in different places or on different systems. If that was true, commercial brewers could never scale recipes from a test system to production systems, build new breweries, or contract brew elsewhere. Breweries couldn’t even brew the same beer twice because there’s always a little batch variance. Beer is a biological product and there is no perfect replication even with the most exacting standards.
But really the best use of published recipes, clone or not, is to look at successful recipes and how they translate into great beer.
re-reading my thing about “many people are brewing paler beers than in the past for the most part” i didin’t clearly state the relevancy of that - which is that the “recipe” aka list of ingredients and processes is more important the less heavy malts and higher amounts of those malts are in it sort of. ie. an amber ale with 10% crystal 60 and 10% victory malt and 3% chocolate malt is gonna be less subtle than a 100% 2 to 3srm pale malt beer, so “recipe” is more of a factor than how you create and treat the wort i guess.
same, i have targeted certain commercial beers over a few iterations and feel like as of now i have written isntructions for myself to make a beer that is very similar to that beer. its absolutely doable, i still like the idea of “cloning a beer” personally.
lol, reading recipes from the middle ages is crazy. and they dont even mention realities such as “how hot is a fire vs. your fire” and so on
When I was a maintenance team leader in the Army I’d tell my soldiers to follow the book exactly. I called it “cookbook maintenance “. [emoji23]