My beef with Brewing Classic Styles

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Bobby_M

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I completely understand that the book idea started with Palmer wanting to make a recipe book geared toward extract brewing. It's probably the reason the format ended up like it did. However, it's really offputting that all grain versions of the recipes are treated like afterthoughts.

First, the primary recipe is assumed to be extract and instead of duplicating the whole thing, or at least the fermentables list, it uses a somewhat cryptic "replace this with that" for the all grain option. What's worse is that the extract and steeping grains list also includes its relative percentages but you don't get that in the dumbed down all grain portion.

I fully acknowledge that there are probably more extract brewers than all grain, but this isn't the kind of thing that encourages growing in the hobby either. If they're Jamil's recipes, that means they actually had to convert them to accomodate extract. It just seems backwards.

</rant>
 
It can be annoying and hard to open the book and just look at an all grain recipe. I have, for the most part, put all the recipes into my brewing software (BeerAlchemy) and just open that to look at the recipe.

But, I think it was a good move to make it as simple as possible for the extract brewer so a brewer at any stage or level of experience can open it and figure the recipe out. I guess the figured the all grain brewers have seen recipes and can figure it out.
 
I think the book is excellent and you are right it is geared more towards extract. I would imagine they thought all grain brewers would have no problem replacing this for that. I have not had any problems using his book in fact have won many first and second place medals using JZ/Palmers book.
 
I love his PA book! As for the recipes I always cringe at all the white sugar additions. I made a few of the recipes and they came out ok but just like every recipe I take them with a grain of salt (or one gram of calcium sulfate dihydrate) :D

edit: just realized I was thinking of the recipes from Brew your own Brirish real ale that has the white sugar additons.
 
Yeah, The Clonebrew books are the same way. I pretty much need to rewrite the recipes for all-grain with a calculator in hand. It's worth it, though.
 
I think he specifically made the beer very extract-friendly, both because he figured most AG brewers can figure it out (and will have to adjust for their systems and efficiencies anyway) - but more importantly since books like Designing Great Beers are very much focused on the AG brewer. I think he saw a niche in the market, for a recipe book that would be specifically focused on extract.
 
I just bought the book yesterday. I don't mind reading the footnotes for the rest of the grain bill.
 
I'm not saying that I'm incapable of getting it done, but I think a small list of the entire grainbill for the all grain version would have been a nicer way of going just like Radical Brewing does it.
 
Aren't the recipes in the book the exact same ones from his podcasts? Or is there additional stuff in the book?

Here is a link to a bunch of Jamil's recipes, for those that don't want to shell out for the book. (Jamil has mentioned this site on his show so he's cool with these being posted on this site):

Jamil's Recipes
 
Aren't the recipes in the book the exact same ones from his podcasts? Or is there additional stuff in the book?

Here is a link to a bunch of Jamil's recipes, for those that don't want to shell out for the book. (Jamil has mentioned this site on his show so he's cool with these being posted on this site):

Jamil's Recipes

The recipes in the book are all updated. Some have changed.

I do not think the recipes from the podcasts since the book was published have been posted on that website. (They might just be behind.)
 
I don't know the book was made for extract so it's nice that he even added the grain bill for all grain. I for one am not complaining it's easy to put the recipes into beer smith or promash.
 
So they're all Jamil's award winning recipes that he brewed many many times to get right. He's an all grain brewer. The book lists them as extract centric and all grain marginalized. Nothing odd about it huh.
 
The only thing thats odd is that your complaining about a book that was made for extract brewers that has also included the all grain bills as well.

The Book is not an all grain book it's for extract brewers so if you want an easier layout buy an all grain book.
 
So they're all Jamil's award winning recipes that he brewed many many times to get right. He's an all grain brewer. The book lists them as extract centric and all grain marginalized. Nothing odd about it huh.

No, there not all his recipes he has said this many times over. What they all are is award winning recipes.
 
I've found it odd, yes...I'd much rather see something like two separate but equal versions...but that having been said, at the end of the day, it's 6 of one and half a dozen of another. Unless you want to bring a civil rights suit on behalf of AG brewing...:D
 
I'm with Bobby_M here. Its really annoying.
As a (currently) extract brewer, I'm not really motivated to go reverse engineering a recipe to convert it to AG.
I guess if I was really interested in one, I could just pop it into BeerSmith. I think Bobby's point is that you shouldn't have to do that. The book's authors should have done it. Its not like it is hard to cut & paste the recipe and simply replace out the grain bill for the extract (or vice versa).
 
Just picked up this book the other day. I agree with Bobby that there is definite extract bias with the AG recipes almost an afterthought. There are noticeable(expected) stylistic similarities between this co-authored text and the recipe section in Palmer's How To Brew.
 
I like the book and am trying a couple of the recipes. I can understand that its a pain for the AG brewer. I think that sometimes the base malt to use isn't the simplest thing to figure out. Especially when there are multiple base malts including munich and vienna and etc... As Radical Brewing points out, you just can't brew every beer without a mash. Mosher doesn't give recipes for those that can't be done extract. Whether JZ and JP are saying Mosher is wrong, I don't know. I haven't the books in front of me.
 
I'm with Bobby_M here. Its really annoying.
As a (currently) extract brewer, I'm not really motivated to go reverse engineering a recipe to convert it to AG.
I guess if I was really interested in one, I could just pop it into BeerSmith. I think Bobby's point is that you shouldn't have to do that. The book's authors should have done it. Its not like it is hard to cut & paste the recipe and simply replace out the grain bill for the extract (or vice versa).

There's no reverse engineering required. They list the All-grain replacement ingredients for each recipe. I've brewed several recipes from the book since I got it and have no complaints. I enter all my recipes into promash anyway, so for me, it's simply a matter of looking further down the page.
 
I've held off on buying this because I heard that is was grossly slanted towards extract brewing, but if it has the AG replacements listed I may give it a look.
 
Yes, I admit that I'm nit picking. I'm not slamming the quality of the recipes at all. I wouldn't call it an extract brewing book. It's a RECIPE book. They even list them from easy to hard in the sense that some recipes really should be done as all grain to work right. I'm just saying that instead of putting all the extracts/steeping grains into a nice box with relative percentages and then textually explaining the all grain substitutions, it would have been NICE to include an additional small box with the literal all grain version. It would have taken like 5 extra pages total to do this.
 
I've held off on buying this because I heard that is was grossly slanted towards extract brewing, but if it has the AG replacements listed I may give it a look.

I highly recommend it. I use the recipes as a partial framework/starting point whenever I'm designing a recipe for a style I've never done before. I've not been disappointed yet - that special roast suggestion for the SEBA was genius! And yeah, it lists the "main" (extract) recipe, then the fermentation specifics, then the all-grain option where it'll say something like "replace the pilsner extract with 5 lbs of continential pilsner malt"; the steeping/specialty grains almost always stay the same as the base recipe.
 
I think that the book is great, although I've always been more of a "look at the recipe for ideas and make something kind of similar" sort of person for both cooking and beer brewing. Since I'm just really getting started with all grain (3 ag batches so far mixed in with 20 or so extract only/steep/partial mash batches) I followed one of them pretty closely last weekend and it tasted great going into the fermenter.
 
I've commented on the book starting here in this thread.

My beef was that the pre-boil gravities weren't matching up with the grain bills (but as I pointed out, that was from a lack of a table listing the potential gravities of the grains used). That comment got a reply from JamilZ (his 1 and only post on this forum).

Disregarding the gravities problems (I just use what BeerToolsPro comes up with), the book seems pretty good and I did my first AG recently (Through A Mild Darkly, pg. 146) using Bobby_M's AG primer. My readings were good and my efficiency was 68% (the book assumes a 70% efficiency).
 
Still, though, you'd have to make adjustments even if he listed the AG recipe clearly alongside the extract version. Bobby, I know you hit 85% - 90% on most of your batches - you'd still be plugging into BeerSmith to adjust his AG recipes, since they're based on a 70% efficiency.

His recipes in the book do require that you have access to some specialized extracts, like Pilsner and Munich extract (which he also talks about on the show a great deal). There are some recipes, like for any of the smoked beers, where he tells you that you REALLY do need to do a partial mash, just because rauchmalt extract doesn't exist.

Honestly, I read and re-read the book mostly for the pointers, the commentary, moreso than the recipes themselves. What I think is great is that he succinctly points out what the key elements of a particular style are. That's what makes it so much better than just a recipe book, it helps you really understand the styles even if you end up tweaking the recipes yourself.
 
Also they don't adjust the hops at all.

I thought that you get less efficiency for the hops for Extract recipes. And Extract recipes always upped the hops by like 25% from an AG recipe to make up for the decrease in isomerizing efficiencies.

I know I'd have to adjust the recipe depending on the actual AA% levels of my specific hops to get the targeted IBU's. And I have BeerSmith to do that for me. But I kinda agree with Bobby. It's wierd that JZ brews AG so they'd have his AG recipe, then they'd convert it to extract, then they'd reconvert it back to AG.

I'm not saying it can't be done but it's like when you translate English to German in Babblefish then back from German to English. Sometimes it ends up being a little different.

Rudeboy
 
Less efficiency not for brewing with extract, per se, but because extract brewers tend to do partial boils. If you brew extract with full boils, extraction rates are the same.

I'm really of the opinion that "recipe books" are of limited use; where Designing Great Beers and, to a slightly lesser (but broader) extent JZ's book, fit into play is helping you really understand the styles, what the key elements of them are, what their background is, and give you some general guidance so that you can do your own recipes and make your own adjustments.
 
I highly recommend it. I use the recipes as a partial framework/starting point whenever I'm designing a recipe for a style I've never done before.

+1.

I also really like the text section where he explains the keys and the common faults to brewing each of the styles. I've used the recipes as starting points. I will always add my own little personal tweeks to any recipe to tailor it to my tastes.
 
I've found it odd, yes...I'd much rather see something like two separate but equal versions...but that having been said, at the end of the day, it's 6 of one and half a dozen of another. Unless you want to bring a civil rights suit on behalf of AG brewing...:D

Hey next post is 8888. Just saying :D
 
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