how did you choose recipes when you first started brewing beer?

I want to start brewing my own beer, but I'm not sure where to start choosing a recipe.

brew_newb said:

I want to start brewing my own beer, but I'm not sure where to start choosing a recipe.

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Find what you want to brew. Do a search for it either on google or HBT, find a receipe that sounds good too you. And you can always alter it for your own needs.

If your into IPA's there are severial ways to brew them and easy.

Im assuming your doing extract right?

Edit: have you already brewed? Or have you used any extract kits?

I chose from my lhbs. They had a clone recipe for one of my fav local beers. Started there and then I was hooked!!

Went to my lhbs and they had a clone recipe for one of my fav local beers. Then I was hooked!!

What are your favorites that you've had so far? Styles?

Start brewing clones of your favorites and then you know what your favorite malts and hops are. After that you can create your own and explore new ingredients.

I started with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Celebration Ale as beers I wanted to be able to brew. You can start by looking at the style section below in the forum for recipes, or search clone/recipe of ...... (favorite craft beer)

I was scientific

Eeny, meeny, miney moe... Pick and ale and let it go.

Went with an Irish Red. Sounded good.
What style of beer do you like? Most LHBS will be able to help you with a kit if you know the styles you like.

I did a few kits until I was comfortable with ingredients, mostly partial mash kits from austinhomebrew.com. Then I started making my own recipes, but still using other good recipes and the BJCP style guidelines as references. I still get ideas from other recipes, especially on styles that I'm not as familiar with like dopplebock or Belgian dubbels.

I started brewing beer styles that I like. At first they were kits and once I got the procedure down I moved to all grain. There, I went to quality sites like this one and found experienced brewers that appeared to be respected by the community. I brewed their beers and no have a stable rotation of four styles that I brew consistently.

This winter I will expand the rotation and include some styles I am not all that familiar with.

I started with just simple recipies with as few ingredients as possible. That way they were easy as pie to tinker with later when I got them down

Brew what you already know that you like to drink. If you brew something you just want to try, you might be stuck with 5 gallons of perfectly good beer that you don't really want to drink.

I used to drink a lot of Hefe in Germany, so I started with those since I remember the taste and like the head and mouthfeel. Your favorite store bought is a key to making the kinds of brews you enjoy and not be stuck with 5 gallons of perfectly good but unliked beer.
Wheelchair Bob

I started by looking at recipes of the same style I wanted to brew, then decided which flavors I preferred among them and formulated my recipes from there.

There are great recipes on HBT. I usually look at the recipe on here and then take a look at hopville do see what the basics of a given beer are. Then I go to my LHBS and see what they have. Also, check out the jamil show podcast, he gives basic recipes for every type of beer. I hope that helps. If you want some recipes I have had success with early on in my brewing career, PM me and I will send you some.

I agree with everyone about making beers you enjoy, but I would also suggest either a Heffe or a Saison because they are simple recipes and the yeast can handle more erratic fermentation temperatures. And, they are finished relatively quickly. Basically I think those two styles will give you a lot of confidence and a delicious product.

It's pretty simple really. When I ordered my first kit I got to choose from 3 or 4 varieties that shipped with it.
After that I found a brew store and found something I wanted to make.
Then I started experimenting.

You probably want to buy a kit for your first go around so that you are only working on your brewing rather than recipes.
After you get a couple batches under your belt you can look at recipes and decide if you want to invent your own.
The more you make the more you learn and the more able you are to fine tune a recipe to your taste.

I have only got 3 brews under my belt all in a local college brewing class. I brew a Black Ale and Pale ale because that's what the professors commanded. I was stationed in Germany for a couple years so I knew the flavors of bocks and hefeweizen really well. I really have not found a good fresh hefe here in the states as they usually have the yeast stuck together so I chose hefeweizen for my project beer. Over the months we have tasted probably 50-60 different beers withing different style ranges. We would write down out thoughts of Aroma, Appearance, Taste etc and rank them against each other to our liking. After getting warmed up in class and verifying blood alcohol was below .06 I would hit the liquer store on the way home and pick up a couple six packs of different craft beers to plan for my home brews and what I can really drink 5 gallons of in a timely manner. Soon discovered a HyVee grocery store nearby had a killer liquer dept. They had one cooler section of craft beers in individual and they run sales of pick any 6 for something like $5. Really good way to sample 6 different IPA's one time and stouts the next etc. I will probably brew another Hefe on my own equipment and then I picked out a honey wheat kit from Austin Home brew. Once I bottle my Apfelwine I will also get started on a Russian Imperial Stout that I tried about a month back. It was brewed in 08 by one of my professors, won awards and was absolutely delish. Anyway That's how I started and I probably won't target a clone recipe for my first year. Once I decide on style I look at recipes here by how many people are engaged in conversation about it or look at kits, how they rank and the number of reviews.