Recipe searching based on malts/hops on hand?

Is there a recipe database somewhere online where i can list my malts and hops i have at home and it will come up with recipes using those ingredients?
I am quite new to brewing so i wouldn't try my hand at coming up with my own recipes yet.
(btw i have maris otter, 2row, crystal and munich, simcoe, warrior, amarillo, chinook and cascade)

The_Glue said:

Is there a recipe database somewhere online where i can list my malts and hops i have at home and it will come up with recipes using those ingredients?
I am quite new to brewing so i wouldn't try my hand at coming up with my own recipes yet.
(btw i have maris otter, 2row, crystal and munich, simcoe, warrior, amarillo, chinook and cascade)

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I am new to the whole brewing business too.....but I cant really think of a software or website that is intelligent enough to create a recipe for you.

Why dont you try brewtoad? There is a learning curve obviously....so dont go there and leave it after 3 seconds saying that "this site is rubbish". 2 good things about brewtoad:
1, you can choose the style you are aiming at (they will tell you what OG, FG, SRM, ABV..etc...you should have to get that style).......but this is not good enough...because you cant choose, for example, an American Pale Ale (and expect to brew one) and use English hops and yeast (I guess this is an obvious thing to you already.....so, knowing this will make the use of the site easier).
2, The site has a recipe database. They are recipes other users have published/created.


Alternatively use beersmith. You install this on your PC and it is similar to brewtoad...but I think brewtoad is easier to use and has more recipes.

Good Luck.

i thought beersmith had a feature for this. not sure. i use brewtarget which is free.

RonPopeil said:

i thought beersmith had a feature for this. not sure. i use brewtarget which is free.

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beersmith has some built-in recipes in the free version. I havent paid for it. Maybe it has such a tool.....anyone experienced enough could confirm this?

Beer smith won't suggest recipes for you, but it will let you upload your on hand stock and let you use it as inventory management.

What i meant was more like filtering out a few recipes from a huge recipe database by the type of malts and hops used.
I already tried Brewsmith and i am using Brewtarget but i don't want to create new recipes yet, i want to find other people's recipes made from the hops and malts i have.

(An example: Let's say i only have maris otter and citra. Instead of coming up with a recipe for them (which wouldn't be hard) i put maris otter and citra into a recipe search engine and it will show recipes using maris otter and citra made by other more experienced brewers. What i wanted to ask is is there a recipe search engine like that)

The_Glue said:

What i meant was more like filtering out a few recipes from a huge recipe database by the type of malts and hops used.
I already tried Brewsmith and i am using Brewtarget but i don't want to create new recipes yet, i want to find other people's recipes made from the hops and malts i have.

(An example: Let's say i only have maris otter and citra. Instead of coming up with a recipe for them (which wouldn't be hard) i put maris otter and citra into a recipe search engine and it will show recipes using maris otter and citra made by other more experienced brewers. What i wanted to ask is is there a recipe search engine like that)

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Read my previous comment......I have told you where that you can "browse" recipes. There are always searching options you can set to tailor the search to your needs (try it here: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes).

Even here on homebrewtalk...you can do it too. There is a built-in searching engine within the recipe database. I have just found a nice Xmas ale there typing "christmas". You could do the same....put, for instance, "citra". It will give you all the recipes that mention citra. It might be a bit time-consuming if you search for a word that is popular. So...make sure you narrow down your search so that you would only get meaningful matches.

Here is a screenshot...you find the searching thingy on the right-hand side of the screen.

Then I hit CTRL+F and typed "bomb" to kinda make it easier. I typed bomb because I recalled a recipe I have recently found by that name...and voila: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/citra-bomb-ipa-422409/

Elysium said:

Read my previous comment......I have told you where that you can "browse" recipes. There are always searching options you can set to tailor the search to your needs (try it here: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes).

Even here on homebrewtalk...you can do it too. There is a built-in searching engine within the recipe database. I have just found a nice Xmas ale there typing "christmas". You could do the same....put, for instance, "citra". It will give you all the recipes that mention citra. It might be a bit time-consuming if you search for a word that is popular. So...make sure you narrow down your search so that you would only get meaningful matches.

Here is a screenshot...you find the searching thingy on the right-hand side of the screen.

Then I hit CTRL+F and typed "bomb" to kinda make it easier. I typed bomb because I recalled a recipe I have recently found by that name...and voila: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/citra-bomb-ipa-422409/

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I tried both of those but i dismissed them because they could only search only for one keyword. Let's say i input cascade into the search bar and i get 10000 recipes using cascade and a lot of other hops and malts i don't have.
(although the search function here might allows for more than keyword at a time but i don't know how yet) How would you input a search term where you want the search engine to show every beer made of maris otter and amarillo for example.

With your grains and hops on-hand, you could make some killer Pale Ales and IPA's, that's for sure..

eltorrente said:

With your grains and hops on-hand, you could make some killer Pale Ales and IPA's, that's for sure..

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Yeah i bought them to clone some commercial IPAs i know but then i thought that there are probably better recipes out there than the few entry-level IPAs i know and tasted.

The_Glue said:

Yeah i bought them to clone some commercial IPAs i know but then i thought that there are probably better recipes out there than the few entry-level IPAs i know and tasted.

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Why bother following recipes? - make your own. Simple and easy to do - and much more rewarding than following someone else's recipe, or trying to copy something else.

eltorrente said:

Why bother following recipes? - make your own. Simple and easy to do - and much more rewarding than following someone else's recipe, or trying to copy something else.

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I think i am not at that level yet, after all i have only brewed 4 beers so far. I would not have problems with formulating a recipe within a given style thanks to these brewing softwares but i would trust recipes made by guys with 10-20 or more years of practice more than my recipes yet.

The_Glue said:

I think i am not at that level yet, after all i have only brewed 4 beers so far. I would not have problems with formulating a recipe within a given style thanks to these brewing softwares but i would trust recipes made by guys with 10-20 or more years of practice more than my recipes yet.

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Yeah, I hear you. Nothing wrong with using recipes - I was just trying to encourage you to give it a shot.

It's actually hard to really mess up a recipe, unless you use all Crystal malt for base malt or something crazy like that.

You just gotta start with a fairly simple recipe, like a Pale Ale with just a couple grain types to get your confidence up. No rush though - stick with recipes until your ready, there's plenty out there to choose from.

Jamil has a ingredient database. Not recipes but "with this you can make that" http://www.winning-homebrew.com/recipe-database.html, and if you Google Beersmith cloud recipes, there are a boatload of recipes there too.

Using google you can do something like this:
site:homebrewtalk.com "citra"+"maris otter"+"simcoe". Just be sure to put the words in quotation marks and use the + sign between them no spaces. There is also no space before or after the colon.

It will only return the results for the words in quotation marks AND from homebrewtalk.com only.

eltorrente said:

Why bother following recipes? - make your own. Simple and easy to do - and much more rewarding than following someone else's recipe, or trying to copy something else.

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+1 to this. I just started all grain and got a bunch of supplies from a friend who doesn't do it anymorem didn't know what I could make with it so I just plugged it all into beer smith and built a profile and then cycled through the styles to see where it fit. Then made a batch don't know what it'll taste like but looks and smells like beer.

The_Glue said:

I think i am not at that level yet, after all i have only brewed 4 beers so far. I would not have problems with formulating a recipe within a given style thanks to these brewing softwares but i would trust recipes made by guys with 10-20 or more years of practice more than my recipes yet.

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read other recipes and see how people do things. all the northern brewer kits have an instructions file that shows the whole recipe and process. you can surf those and compare the recipes to the marketing propaganda to see how things are done. should teach you about hopping and which crystal grains to use in which style. mash temps. etc.