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prrriiide

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SWMBO turns 40 next month, along with several friends. The 17th to be exact. She has come up with the concept (and freely shared it with her other 40th celebratories) the I am to brew 5 gallons of beer utilizing 40 ingredients. After due diligence in dissuading this course of action, it it's clear that I ain't getting out of it.

I have a good stash of about 10 different hops, but they don't like hoppy beers. I'm going to dig into beersmith tomorrow but I'm open to suggestions.

It's going to have to be a lighter beer because a darker probably won't have time to mature.

THIS is a challenge.

Oh, and I already told them it would probably taste like arse.
 
Well I guess it depends on their definition of an ingredient. If you want to get down to the real nitty gritty, I guess I could say for a regular APA I typically use:
Water
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Lactic Acid
Potassium Metabisulfate
Star San
2-row
Vienna
Victory
White Wheat
Bravo
Centennial
Cascade
DME for starter
Bell's yeast
Oxygen (it goes in the wort right?)

So that's only 16. I wish you the best of luck. I guess lots of specialty malts in very small quantities. There's no way you can have 40 ingredients all contributing something unique IMHO.
 
you could go all weird and use something from each of their zodiac symbols - an edible flower in your brew( orchid is february 17th I think) find the meanings of their names and relate them to something - anything you can toss into a beer. it doesn't even have to lend flavor

or you could just come up with a bunch of stuff, tie it to the birthday and just brew a beer and say you put it in without having to deal with the hassle of having to track down edible flowers.
 
Oh my goodness ... well, you could go the route of "drop of honey, pinch of sugar, one speck of dried orange peel..." Best of luck!
 
I believe I see the problem here. You are are using you're brewing mind and trying to come up with a legitimate recipe that you think will turn out well. Fortunately, at least from your comment, she hasn't specifically ask for that. :D
8 lb of 2 row
.5 oz of.....
black malt
candi sugar
carafa
crystal 20
crystal 40
crystal 60
crystal 80
Vienna
malted wheat
flaked wheat
white wheat
honey
table sugar
dextrose
(15)
plus a few of Phenry's suggestions...
Water
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Lactic Acid
Potassium Metabisulfate
DME
Bell's yeast
(22)
Lime peel
Lemon peel
Bitter orange peel
Sweet orange peel
corriander seed
seeds of paradise
vannilla
coffee
(30)
your 10 hops makes 40!

The beer will probably suck a**, but look at the plus side: You have fulfilled your SWMBO wish, you can get out of what ever you don't want to do for the next 6 months by saying "can't afford it after making that beer, and you will get to know the guys at your LHBS REALLY WELL (probably best to give them a cooling off period before you go back).

Good luck!
 
How about you make her favorite beer and name after her that seems more appropriate. The random 40 ingredient brew would more than likely taste like shh and then she will be mad at you for wasting money lol
 
Jewbilation has 16 hops, 16 malts and 16% alcohol. You should be able to get another 8 ingredients in there lol.
 
How would she know? Is my question.

I would brew up a beer that you know she likes, perhaps add an ounce of black patent to offset the color to diffuse suspicion.
Then present her with a mock recipe of 40 ingredients and have her and friends try to identify each ingredient as they drink this beer. Could lead to some interesting conversations and debating.

Got the idea from my college days when we would buy a keg of non-alcoholic beer and tell our party guests that it was the real deal. Many didn't know the difference.
 
--edit--
Ah heck, just go to the LBHS and ask for ONE tablespoon from every container and ONE hop pellet from every package. take a photo of the guy's face.
 
I just counted 43 malt varieties in the northern brewer catalog. I like the previous post suggesting .5 oz of each, but I would try .25 oz. If you used 2-row plus 29 other malts, thats only 7.25 oz of specialty malts. How bad could it be!

On second thought, maybe just get 5 kernels of each of the specialty grains that aren't already in your favorite recipe. Then, technically, you've used 40 ingredients but there wouldn't be any noticable flavor difference (i dont think...)

Good luck with that!
 
Just make her a nice light beer, she will still love you even if it doesn't have 40 ingredients!
 
RandomBeerGuy said:
How about you make her favorite beer and name after her that seems more appropriate. The random 40 ingredient brew would more than likely taste like shh and then she will be mad at you for wasting money lol
Click to expand...

She won't be mad about that. She even said she doesn't care what it tastes like as long as there's 40 ingredients in it.

Redbeard5289 said:
How would she know?
Click to expand...

She brews with me. Or at least is out in the garage with the wives of my brew buddies while I make it. She will want to see each ingredient go in to the mix.

I'm going to give this an honest shot. I think I can do it as long as I don't put in much of any one thing other than base malt and hops.
 
Seriously, if you do the "one hop pellet per ingredient" route, that will knock out a nice hunk of it without it being a disaster.

Quarter ounce of a bunch of speciality grains, and you are golden.

I honestly think that you can absolutely make a drinkable to good (if not amazing) beer, provided that you take a good recipe for the base, then jazz it up a bit with the miniscule amounts of the extra ingredients.

I think it's a fun idea, OP. Please do post back and let us know how it turns out. Heck, I might brew a 40 ingredient beer for me own 40th birthday!
 
prrriiide said:
She won't be mad about that. She even said she doesn't care what it tastes like as long as there's 40 ingredients in it.

She brews with me. Or at least is out in the garage with the wives of my brew buddies while I make it. She will want to see each ingredient go in to the mix.

I'm going to give this an honest shot. I think I can do it as long as I don't put in much of any one thing other than base malt and hops.
Click to expand...

Fruit salad in the secondary. That should help get you to forty.
 
501irishred said:
I believe I see the problem here. You are are using you're brewing mind and trying to come up with a legitimate recipe that you think will turn out well. Fortunately, at least from your comment, she hasn't specifically ask for that. :D
8 lb of 2 row
.5 oz of.....black malt
candi sugar
carafa
crystal 20
crystal 40
crystal 60
crystal 80
Vienna
malted wheat
flaked wheat
white wheat
honey
table sugar
dextrose
(15)
plus a few of Phenry's suggestions...
Water
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Lactic Acid
Potassium Metabisulfate
DME
Bell's yeast
(22)
Lime peel
Lemon peel
Bitter orange peel
Sweet orange peel
corriander seed
seeds of paradise
vannilla
coffee
(30)
your 10 hops makes 40!

The beer will probably suck a**, but look at the plus side: You have fulfilled your SWMBO wish, you can get out of what ever you don't want to do for the next 6 months by saying "can't afford it after making that beer, and you will get to know the guys at your LHBS REALLY WELL (probably best to give them a cooling off period before you go back).

Good luck!
Click to expand...


..multiple yeasts are also a possibilty....

Where's Revvy?
 
Instead of .25oz of different malts. Make you recipe, and then add one gram of whatever malts you can find, or have on hand, to the mash. :D Chances of it having any real impact on the brew is very low (almost nil). You could even do .1 gram of the other hop varieties for the 60 minute addition, then load up on the flavor/aroma additions to balance.

If she wants 40 actual ingredients, then you can give her 40 ingredients. Doesn't mean she'll taste more than a few of them though. :D If she asks why it's so damned good (compared to tasting like rotten ass) you could tell her that while it's 40 ingredients, you used you BRAIN to override her neurosis over the number 40 and came up with something worth drinking. :eek: :D

You'll have to let us know who many nights you spend sleeping on the couch after that. :D
 
Dynachrome said:
Katie bar the door!

I just had a vision of a larder full of different 55lb bags of grain stacked to the ceiling.
Click to expand...

Sweeeeeeeet... :D

BTW, it might be better to have a combined count of ingredients, and additions/steps that comes out to 40. Hop burst it and you could get several of that count eliminated quickly. :D
 
Split your grain bill into a PM use some liquid some dry extract, then a variety of grains essentially doubling up the amount of ingredients that achieve the same thing. Steep redundant specialty grains as well.
 
How many different colours of food colouring are there? Make each bottle a different colour. Experiment with adding dried fruit to the bottom of some bottles.
 
Some good suggestions here. Could also add some herbs to increase the exoticness of the recipe, mugwort, heather tips, Indian was parole, etc. I can send u a bit of those. Thought I was going to make gruits but changed my mind.
 
How about you make it up....and tell her you added whatever;) (Disclaimer....this advice comes from a married man, and is not the best advice in the world, and may not lead to positive outcome. Also as a married man yourself, you infact MAY be hurt in the following of this advice)
 
This is a blessing in disguise! How often do you get the chance to stock up on supplies with the excuse that it is all for your lovely wife? Just say that they had a minimum amount you could buy per ingrediant at your LHBS and BOOM. You now have 40 different ingrediants to toy around with for the next several months!
 
I turn 50 next month and my plan is brewing an ESB SMaSH with 1.050 OG, SRM of 5.0, IBU of 50 and ABV of 5.0%

color is a little light for ESB, but don't ANYONE TELL BJCP!
 
So...

the beer was a HUGE hit with the party-goers. There were only about 10 people drinking off of it, but it floated in less than 3 hours!

It's a really nice winter warmer-spiced beer. The nutmeg is prominent, but there are numerous layers to the flavors. Even with the spicy/hoppy/citrusy flavors, the beer shines through. I never thought I'd say it, but I'll be brewing this as a regular cold-weather beer!
 
prrriiide said:
So...

the beer was a HUGE hit with the party-goers. There were only about 10 people drinking off of it, but it floated in less than 3 hours!

It's a really nice winter warmer-spiced beer. The nutmeg is prominent, but there are numerous layers to the flavors. Even with the spicy/hoppy/citrusy flavors, the beer shines through. I never thought I'd say it, but I'll be brewing this as a regular cold-weather beer!
Click to expand...

That is great to hear! Thanks for letting us know.
 

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