Buckley

Recipes 

Hey everyone,

I'm brand new to the DIY beer hobby. I have made a brown ale and a pale ale from kit and my next mission is to brew a stout.

After this third batch I would really like to make something from scratch with individual ingredients. As much as I enjoy the brews I've made I still feel as though they aren't 'mine'.

I wondered if anyone had some beginner recipes or books to point me to. What books I have found seem overwhelming and a bit too large-scale for my tiny operation.

What was everyones first 'from scratch' experience, what style of beer is the safest bet for a noobie and what ingredients/processes are best?

Thanks in advance for your advice!
Ryan

brian_g

Recipes 

By from scratch, do you mean all grain where you mash the grains yourself or do you want to do extract with steeping grains?

For styles, I'd say stick with ales and yeast-only fermentation (no Lambics or Belgium sours). Other then that I don't think it matters much.

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Buckley

Recipes 

Brian,

Yes I mean grain mashing. I want to have as much of a hand in the process as I can.

ChshreCat

Recipes 

Were your first batches all grain? If not, I'd suggest getting into it with established recipes or AG kits so you can nail down your process first. You don't want to be drinking your beer and knowing something was off but not knowing if it was your recipe or your process.

As for first recipes, my first one was a brown ale. It's a very easy style to come up with a recipe for.

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brian_g

Recipes 

There are different ways to do it. But basically it works like this:

1) The mash: The grains are soaked in hot water (150F-155F) for 60 to 90 minutes. People usually use 1.25-2 qt for every lb of grain. (You'll need between 7-11 lbs for a 5 gallon batch.)

2) The sparge: The grains are rinced (sparged) with water at 170F

3) The boil: Hops are boiled. 60 min for bittering hops, 10-15 for flavor, 5 minutes for aroma.

4) The wort is cooled.

5) Yeast is added.


To do all this you'll need a way to keep the mash at a constant temperature for 60 to 90 minutes. Temperature is critical here. The enzymes need the proper temperature to work. Too cold they wont be activated, too hot and you'll destroy them. You also need a container that can hold the 8-11 lbs of grain plus the water. You need a way of straining the grains so they don't end up in the brew pot. A lot of people use a cooler and build a straining system into it. But it is possible to do in on the stove in a large mesh bag.

You also need a way to boil 6.5 to 7 gallons of wort. Either with one large pot or you can split between several pots.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of ways to do this, but this is the basic overview. If you have follow up questions, we'll try to answer them.

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Malticulous

Recipes 

At first I would examine many recipes for the style you want to make, taking note of the common ingredients and the percentage in the grain bill. Read the BJCP guidelines. Brew it then adjust the grain bill and brew again. Make it your's and perfect it to your taste. Books can help but there is nothing like personal experience.

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snailsongs

Recipes 

Do yourself a favor and get these two books and read them cover to cover once, I did when I first started and between these books and this forum site, I had a trifecta of knowledge, recipes and information that helped make me into a competent all-grain brewer in about 6 months. I wanted it and was very eager to learn too, so that helped, but get these books, seriously.

John Palmer's 'How to Brew' ....the definitive text on modern homebrewing; it will give you the quick knowledge to brew good beer immediately and it will also give you a solid understanding of the science of brewing.

Palmer's and Jamil Zainasheff's 'Brewing Classic Styles'. The recipes in this book are pretty much all proven, and they are usually great representations of their respective styles, so you can use them as a point of reference in creating your own or just brew them straight up. my copy of this is dog-eared in so many places that they don't even mean anything anymore.....

If you have your process down ok and you only want one book, get the latter.

jsullivan02130

Recipes 

This is the correct answer.

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jescholler

Recipes 

The books that snailsongs recommends are very good (How to Brew is a must for ANY brewer). The book that I use that is similar to Brewing Classic Styles is Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. He doesn't necessarily give recipes, but he lays the groundwork for you to do that on your own.

I also listen to The Jamil Show on thebrewingnetwork.com. He devotes an entire show to each style and gives a recipe for you to brew. I don't have Brewing Classic Styles, but I believe the recipes from the podcast are mostly from the book. Either way, after reading the BJCP style guidelines, listening to The Jamil Show, and reading Designing Great Beers, I usually feel like I can develop my own recipe. I also browse recipe databases (HBT, Recipator, etc.) and look for common themes.

My first recipe that I developed was an American Amber Ale. I think it was a good choice. An APA would probably be good as well.

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r2eng

Recipes 

+1 on the "Brewing Classic Styles" book. That, and Zymurgy/BYO magazines give insight as to the grains, hops and yeasts used to brew any style that might interest you.

Once you have the basics of brewing to a style, you can come up with any recipe you need. However, get a program like promash/beersmith to check IBU/OG of your recipe. It'll help!

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