Reverse Engineering

Is there any software that will build a recipe in reverse?

What do you mean?

wah???

I can only begin to guess what you mean.
Do you mean you put in a style and it tells you what you need?

Beersmith tells you the criteria of a selected beer style and what the ingredients are typically used for.

You wanna do a beer backwards? Start by drinking a couple of your favorite brews, then drink your piss. Next see if you barf up barley, yeast, hops, and water. I'll bet you figure out exactly what kind they were

Displaced MassHole said:

You wanna do a beer backwards? Start by drinking a couple of your favorite brews, then drink your piss. Next see if you barf up barley, yeast, hops, and water. I'll bet you figure out exactly what kind they were

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I don't know why but I LMFAO I mean on the floor!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't say I am gonna try it.

lol. I sometimes wish that I could vomit ingredients. Drink a beer, puke a 10# barley. It would be so much cheaper to brew then lol. Great Idea

Enhoffer-Knopfe said:

Is there any software that will build a recipe in reverse?

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I think I know what you mean, plug in a few numbers maybe fromthe specs on the bottle or website, then have the sw take a stab at the recipe?

Well, not really that I know of. BUT you can take those specs and use them as a start for a recipe in Beersmith or similar software.

My recommendation, start reading. A lot. Make sure you read How to Brew or Papazians book, then read something like Brewing Classic Styles or Homebrewers Bible. Then, when you are feeling good about yourself, pick up designing Great beers. Its not really a front-to-back reader but more of a reference. Once you are comfortable with that book, you will not need to reverse engineer a recipe. You will be able to drink something, then start ballparking it in your head, and use software to fine tune it.

Not sure if its what you want but the BeerTools website has a recipe generator. You enter the ingredients you want to use and the beer style and it determines the correct amounts to meet the specs on the style.

However you still need to know a good deal about making recipes to determine what ingredients to chose and to tweek the end product for best results. Using a beer recipe calculator and playing with the values yourself is probably easier and more effective.

Craig

Thanks for the constructive help. The rest of you must be a real hoot at the Star Trek conventions. Being new to this and knowing how I want it to turn out I thought there might be something to help me generate a recipe to start with.

I think the easiest way to do what you want is read through BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines - Index until you find a style you like then look up recipes for it.

Enhoffer-Knopfe said:

Thanks for the constructive help. The rest of you must be a real hoot at the Star Trek conventions. Being new to this and knowing how I want it to turn out I thought there might be something to help me generate a recipe to start with.

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Read the recipes on this site for ideas, brew a couple and learn what ingredients contribute the flavors you like or don't. I have found that I do not care for the popular combination of Simcoe and Amarillo. Not everything that is popular will suit your palate. It takes some practice and trial and error. The only shortcut is buying commercial. FWIW, I don't like Star Trek.

Or you could try posting the beer you want to clone. Many clone recipes exist already that you could build off of if you gave a little more info.

Enhoffer-Knopfe said:

Thanks for the constructive help. The rest of you must be a real hoot at the Star Trek conventions.

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I'm not sure if this is meant to be an insult or a joke, but making fun of the people you are asking for help from usually doesn't get the kind of responses you are looking for.

If you are new to brewing, I'd say get a few kits under your belt before jumping into custom recipes. From my POV, the only way to learn how to build a recipe is to research. "Brewing Classic Styles", "Designing Great Beers" and "How to Brew" are all books that SHOULD be in your library.

Enhoffer-Knopfe said:

Thanks for the constructive help. The rest of you must be a real hoot at the Star Trek conventions. Being new to this and knowing how I want it to turn out I thought there might be something to help me generate a recipe to start with.

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Wow didn't mean to get your panties all tied in a knot. Guess all that sensitivity training was for nothing

People are trying to help but it's difficult if it's not clear what you want.
It also helps if you indicate what skills and experience you have.

If you have minimal then it's better to follow tried and tested recipes until you have some knowledge of ingredients and what they add to a beer.

Let us know a bit more and we can try to help you.

relax and have a Jolly home brew

My apologies. I guess I need a thicker skin. Apparently some of the humor escaped some of you as well.

No worries....just poking fun (and being an internet tough guy)

Reverse engineering means to take an established invention or idea and breaking it down to it's component parts...that is what was confusing to us....To reverse engineer in homebrewing would be to take an establish commercial beer and try to break it down to clone it. There are no programs for you, but there are some great resources that you can use alongside brewing software to figure it out....There's a couple of great clone books, and BYO's 100 (or 150) greatest clone recipes issue has a great article on how to "reverse engineer" a beer.

But if you are looking for a software that if you mix and match a bunch of ingredients willy nilly and it will say, "Hey, you made and IPA!" No...The bjcp style guide and even software will give you the ranges for each type of beer and usually the ingredients indicative of the style, but you have to juggle the numbers in the software...You can find a lot of great resourses on here, other sites and books that go into great depths on each style of beer...'They will tell you that "this malt is used in a belgian pale ale, for example."

And Jamil, one of the most award winning homebrewers out there did a podcast based on each style...The Jamil Show Podcasts

Right now brewing and a lot of the craft beer world is a mystery to you. Kind of like moving to a new neighborhood and not knowing your way around. Soon enough as you get out and experience the surroundings, things begin to make sense and seem more familiar. Homebrewing and understanding the gambit of beer styles is the same way.

Here’s what I would do if I wanted to immerse myself in craft beer and ultimately brew what I liked:

• Download a copy of the BJCP Beer Style Guidelines.
• Spend some time at BeerAdvocate - Respect Beer.. This is where virtually every commercial beer known to man has been rated by beer drinkers and is categorized (loosely) by the BJCP styles.
• Buy a copy of Jamil’s Brewing Classic Styles. There is one solid recipe for every beer style under the BJCP Guidelines.
• Get a copy of Beersmith. It’s a great software program that will help you build recipes and provide guidelines to stay within style guidelines.
• Narrow my search for the commercial beer I want to brew the most…limiting myself to Ales (because most newer homebrewers don’t have capacity to lager).
• Once I know what commercial beer I want to brew…study the style guidelines and search for a clone on line. Limit your selection to recipes that have been brewed, have tasting notes and when possible, have feedback from others who have brewed the recipe.
• Plug the clone recipe into Beersmith, tweak it as you see fit and …done.

You now have a recipe to brew your favorite beer (or something very close to it).

Anyway…in short answer to your question…I’m not aware of a software program that lets you plug in a certain beer and spit out a recipe.

Thanks. I appreciate the help.

NECRO-ED a thread.. but hope some of you guys either try it.. or shoot me down.

So.. i got to thinkin... How can someone ballpark a comm beer to establish a descent clone that does not exist.
if we think back to HS Algebra, i think i have an answer. all/most comm beers are required to mark the ABV on the bottle label. So we have a starting point, using our ABV calc equation. (OG-FG) * 131.25 = ABV

if ABV is marked as 5.5% then we can do some math. and experiment. first without a FG you cannot determine an OG. So take a sample of your comm beer and toss it into your sample tube and take a hydromter reading. lets say 1.010.

so.. we plug that number into our equation (OG-1.010) * 131.25 = 5.5%. Now solve for OG...!!!

divide 5.5 by 131.25 and you get .04 add a 1. (1.040) Now add this to your FG 1.040+1.010=1.050. plug this into our equation (1.050 - 1.012) * 131.25 = 5.25% ok.now we should be in the ball park. play with your ingredients til you get your OG to match.. so.. if i play with my OG a little i find that 1.052 will get me ~ 5.51 %. THIS is close enough for me.. !!!!

from here.. you can then use your taste, style guide, and WWW. research to determine ingredients.. yeast, hops, malts.. etc.

Does anyone see any flaws to my thoughts.. ? This SHOULD get you VERY close as long as your grainbill %'s are close to the actual comm example...

It is a starting point but there are just too many variations on malts, hops and yeasts to get a close clone unless you have a pretty good idea of what the commercial beer was brewed with. For instance just using a specialty grain at 5% of the grain bill when the original was 1% would make a huge difference. Multiply that variance by each grain in the recipe and you will have something far different even if you end up with the right ABV.

I have been working on a clone where I knew what ingredients the brewer used but not the amounts or timing for the hops. I have done 4 versions and the 4th was great but not the same. The first 3 were good but not even close. I even harvested yeast from the companies beer, not the same one because they have stopped brewing the one I am cloning. The yeast itself made a huge difference. And I don't even know if that is the same yeast they used in the one I am trying.

Agreed, i understand exactly what your talkin about.

kh54s10 said:

It is a starting point but there are just too many variations on malts, hops and yeasts to get a close clone unless you have a pretty good idea of what the commercial beer was brewed with. For instance just using a specialty grain at 5% of the grain bill when the original was 1% would make a huge difference. Multiply that variance by each grain in the recipe and you will have something far different even if you end up with the right ABV.

I have been working on a clone where I knew what ingredients the brewer used but not the amounts or timing for the hops. I have done 4 versions and the 4th was great but not the same. The first 3 were good but not even close. I even harvested yeast from the companies beer, not the same one because they have stopped brewing the one I am cloning. The yeast itself made a huge difference. And I don't even know if that is the same yeast they used in the one I am trying.

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And to further this great point, even if you have the exact recipe of the beer you want to clone, there's no guarantee you'll get anywhere close. Just check out brulosophys exbeeriment. Technique has just a much to do with beer as the ingredients do.

I am still extremely new at this, like three batches new, but I'm confident enough in my understanding of ingredients and my process to try to build a clone of a beer I can't find a recipe for. Community Mosaic IPA. There's a stab at one in the recipe section, and Community lists the malt bill on their website, but no percentages, and also doesn't say which crystal malt. So, I went conservative. I'm going ~70% pale malt, ~25% MO, and ~5% crystal 60. ABV is 7.6, so I plugged at the malt bill until I hit that. IBU is 85, so I plugged in the hop bill (which they don't list, just that it's Mosaic and a blend of American hops) until I hit 100, because I know I won't get the utilization from my process. Not knowing the yeast, but knowing that Community's version has no noticable yeast character, I'm going with S-05.

Will it be an exact replica? I have no hopes of that. Will I have fun trying? Heck yes. Will it be a good beer? I hope. Will it be beer anyway? Almost assuredly.

1977Brewer said:

Will it be an exact replica? I have no hopes of that. Will I have fun trying? Heck yes. Will it be a good beer? I hope. Will it be beer anyway? Almost assuredly.

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This line of thinking is how I approach "clones" as well. I put clones in quotations because I've found it to be a pretty worthless endeavor for me to try and exactly match a beer. Just too many variables... What's more important is that I make a good beer and have fun doing it. Cheers