Creating a recipe....steps??

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brentt03

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So I really wanna know!

I am in the process of creating a recipe, but am having trouble starting.

I bought the book 'Designing Great Beers' and it has a lot of good info, but seems to be lacking in actual creation of a recipe, it tends to give more of the chemistry and such (which is important), but doesn't get me going

I also purchased beersmith, so I am sure I could plug and play with a result, but I would like some sort of method to the madness.

I know what kind of beer I want to make (an IPA) and i know the color, taste, aroma I want....so where is the best path to take from here??

I feel I have a good grasp on it, just want a good approach.

Thanks
 
I sort of develop my recipes organically...I do the same thing when I cook. I just sort of get myself into a frame of mind where I feel like I can taste what the recipe will be like as I select ingredients and quantities.

I start with choosing an appropriate base grain. For an IPA I typically use 2-row or Maris Otter depending on the character I am going for.

Then I just sort of think about the aspects you mention (color, taste, aroma) of JUST THE GRAIN and select specialty grains as appropriate to try and hit that combination. Once I feel like I've got what I'm looking for (at least on paper), I think about the hops and essentially do the same thing all over again. I think about the hop profile I want, and select appropriate hops for bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry hops.
 
weirdboy said:
I sort of develop my recipes organically...I do the same thing when I cook. I just sort of get myself into a frame of mind where I feel like I can taste what the recipe will be like as I select ingredients and quantities.

I start with choosing an appropriate base grain. For an IPA I typically use 2-row or Maris Otter depending on the character I am going for.

Then I just sort of think about the aspects you mention (color, taste, aroma) of JUST THE GRAIN and select specialty grains as appropriate to try and hit that combination. Once I feel like I've got what I'm looking for (at least on paper), I think about the hops and essentially do the same thing all over again. I think about the hop profile I want, and select appropriate hops for bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry hops.
Click to expand...


I like that method.

How do find it best to determine the appropriate amount of each ingredient to use?
 
The difference between using Beersmith and stabbing in the dark is... just that, night and day. For me anyhow. I like that Beersmith gives me parameters to work within (or guidelines to color outside of for that matter.) My methodology is pretty simple:

1) Do some research. Read up on the style you are trying to create, find out what ingredients are traditionally used. See what ingredients people are putting in their recipes today. Start rolling the ideas around in your head. Don't confine yourself to numbers just yet. Instead, pick one or two ingredients that you want to focus on.

2) Formulate. Since you are using Beersmith, this will be simple. Hopefully you have a good idea what your LHBS has in stock. Start by choosing your base malt. Whether you are using light DME or 2row Pale, just punch it in. I suggest 8 lbs to start (you can continuously modify this number in Beersmith to make adjustments.) Now click the add malt button and scan through the list. Mousing over items will give you lots of helpful pointers. Choose 2-4 lbs of specialty grains. Then follow the same process with hops.

3) Tweak. Now look at your numbers. Are you happy with the predictions? Do you maybe want to lighten the color or increase the bitterness? Do that now and finalize your game plan. Print this list off (or carry your laptop) and go to your LHBS; be prepared to tweak again. You never know if the store will be out of a particular ingredient or their hops might have a different AA% than what you planned with Beersmith.

4) Brew. Bring your creation to life. Put together a fermentation schedule. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

5) Taste. Once you have kegged, bottled, what-have-you-ed; taste it. Does it taste good? Of course it does! But could it taste better? Probably. Good thing you documented everything, right? Now take these notes and go back to step 3, tweak the original recipe a little bit at a time. Keep notes, get friends opinions, and refine your recipe.

6) Brew again! Brew lots! Don't stop brewing, ever!

Or do it your own way! But these are the general guidelines I follow. Early on the most confusing part is designing your grain bill. But as long as you stick to something around 75-90% base malt* and throw in a little dextrin for head retention for your initial ventures you will be ok!

*This is not a rule! This is just a suggested guideline for step #2. I'm allergic to flames, don't flame me.
 
tjpfeister said:
The difference between using Beersmith and stabbing in the dark is... just that, night and day. For me anyhow. I like that Beersmith gives me parameters to work within (or guidelines to color outside of for that matter.) My methodology is pretty simple:

1) Do some research. Read up on the style you are trying to create, find out what ingredients are traditionally used. See what ingredients people are putting in their recipes today. Start rolling the ideas around in your head. Don't confine yourself to numbers just yet. Instead, pick one or two ingredients that you want to focus on.

2) Formulate. Since you are using Beersmith, this will be simple. Hopefully you have a good idea what your LHBS has in stock. Start by choosing your base malt. Whether you are using light DME or 2row Pale, just punch it in. I suggest 8 lbs to start (you can continuously modify this number in Beersmith to make adjustments.) Now click the add malt button and scan through the list. Mousing over items will give you lots of helpful pointers. Choose 2-4 lbs of specialty grains. Then follow the same process with hops.

3) Tweak. Now look at your numbers. Are you happy with the predictions? Do you maybe want to lighten the color or increase the bitterness? Do that now and finalize your game plan. Print this list off (or carry your laptop) and go to your LHBS; be prepared to tweak again. You never know if the store will be out of a particular ingredient or their hops might have a different AA% than what you planned with Beersmith.

4) Brew. Bring your creation to life. Put together a fermentation schedule. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

5) Taste. Once you have kegged, bottled, what-have-you-ed; taste it. Does it taste good? Of course it does! But could it taste better? Probably. Good thing you documented everything, right? Now take these notes and go back to step 3, tweak the original recipe a little bit at a time. Keep notes, get friends opinions, and refine your recipe.

6) Brew again! Brew lots! Don't stop brewing, ever!

Or do it your own way! But these are the general guidelines I follow. Early on the most confusing part is designing your grain bill. But as long as you stick to something around 75-90% base malt* and through in a little dextrin for head retention for your initial ventures you will be ok!

*This is not a rule! This is just a suggested guideline for step #2. I'm allergic to flames, don't flame me.
Click to expand...

No flaming from me! I'm a beginner, and every bit of info helps! That's how we all learn right??!! :mug:
 
brentt03 said:
How do find it best to determine the appropriate amount of each ingredient to use?
Click to expand...

Your Beersmith software will hold your hand through you beginning trials. Just be certain that you have the software configured to your equipment; are you doing partial or full boils? Or are you boiling 6.5 gallons down to 5.5? This will help the software make better predictions.

Then under the grain tab you will find suggested amounts to the right and reasons with the scroll over. Like Crystal20, adds body/color/head retention, use up to 20%. Then note when you added the grains to the bill, it gives you the percentages by weight.

Same concept with hops. The IBUs will change based on the size and duration of the boil, the amount of hops and their alpha acid content. Note that when scrolling through the list, Beersmith helps you by giving the area of origin (useful for styling) and suggested use (such as bittering/aroma/etc).

You can even use Beersmith to help with your yeast selection as it gives general descriptions and you will see that your FG will even change slightly based on the chosen yeast's attenuation.
 
A really good pair to Designing Great Beers is Brewing Classic Styles. It has actual recipes that are good examples of all the styles - and those recipes are based in part on Designing Great Beers if I recall correctly.
 
Frodo said:
A really good pair to Designing Great Beers is Brewing Classic Styles. It has actual recipes that are good examples of all the styles - and those recipes are based in part on Designing Great Beers if I recall correctly.
Click to expand...

I will have to check that one out...'Designing Great Beers' seems to be a good book with lots of info, but doesn't really give you much of a step-by-step guide to creating...just kinda gives you the background to doing so
 
I don't think Brewing Classic Styles gives you a step-by-step any more than Designing Great Beers really. What it does really well though is give great descriptions of what characteristics each style has, and ways to have those characteristics come out in the finished product. Plus a recipe or two for each style as an example.
 
Brew an existing recipe with no alterations. The brew it again with a change! You could
9I have) brew it several times with one ingredient change, different each time, as well as mash temp changes and fermentation temp changes.
 
Designed Great Beers gives you everything you need imo. I love that book. At the end of each chapter it gives you the basics for what should go into that particular style (amount of base/specialty/crystal/types of hops/amount of additions/etc...). If you follow that information and also look inside of each chapter it will tell you a breakdown of each component used in the recipes (type and amount). It took me a while to really understand exactly what he was getting at, but now that I do that book is a great resource for recipe formulation. With that book and the BJCP guidelines you should have everything you need to make a good base recipe to begin with. From there you will just tweak each brew going forward to your liking after each taste.

Good luck.

cp
 
CPooley4 said:
Designed Great Beers gives you everything you need imo. I love that book. At the end of each chapter it gives you the basics for what should go into that particular style (amount of base/specialty/crystal/types of hops/amount of additions/etc...). If you follow that information and also look inside of each chapter it will tell you a breakdown of each component used in the recipes (type and amount). It took me a while to really understand exactly what he was getting at, but now that I do that book is a great resource for recipe formulation. With that book and the BJCP guidelines you should have everything you need to make a good base recipe to begin with. From there you will just tweak each brew going forward to your liking after each taste.

Good luck.

cp
Click to expand...


I probably jumped the gun on the quality of the book as I am only through part one...but just my initial thoughts....I will still finish it though, anything I can read and grasp on to is more than I know now!
 
A great place to get more information on recipe formulation and ingredient influences is the back episodes of the Jamil Show from the Brewing Network. You can also pick up Brewing Classic Styles from the BN website. I'm really new too, and the webshows have really helped me get a better grasp on process and ingredient control.
 
tjpfeister said:
The difference between using Beersmith and stabbing in the dark is... just that, night and day. For me anyhow. I like that Beersmith gives me parameters to work within (or guidelines to color outside of for that matter.) My methodology is pretty simple:

1) Do some research. Read up on the style you are trying to create, find out what ingredients are traditionally used. See what ingredients people are putting in their recipes today. Start rolling the ideas around in your head. Don't confine yourself to numbers just yet. Instead, pick one or two ingredients that you want to focus on.

2) Formulate. Since you are using Beersmith, this will be simple. Hopefully you have a good idea what your LHBS has in stock. Start by choosing your base malt. Whether you are using light DME or 2row Pale, just punch it in. I suggest 8 lbs to start (you can continuously modify this number in Beersmith to make adjustments.) Now click the add malt button and scan through the list. Mousing over items will give you lots of helpful pointers. Choose 2-4 lbs of specialty grains. Then follow the same process with hops.

3) Tweak. Now look at your numbers. Are you happy with the predictions? Do you maybe want to lighten the color or increase the bitterness? Do that now and finalize your game plan. Print this list off (or carry your laptop) and go to your LHBS; be prepared to tweak again. You never know if the store will be out of a particular ingredient or their hops might have a different AA% than what you planned with Beersmith.

4) Brew. Bring your creation to life. Put together a fermentation schedule. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

5) Taste. Once you have kegged, bottled, what-have-you-ed; taste it. Does it taste good? Of course it does! But could it taste better? Probably. Good thing you documented everything, right? Now take these notes and go back to step 3, tweak the original recipe a little bit at a time. Keep notes, get friends opinions, and refine your recipe.

6) Brew again! Brew lots! Don't stop brewing, ever!

Or do it your own way! But these are the general guidelines I follow. Early on the most confusing part is designing your grain bill. But as long as you stick to something around 75-90% base malt* and throw in a little dextrin for head retention for your initial ventures you will be ok!

*This is not a rule! This is just a suggested guideline for step #2. I'm allergic to flames, don't flame me.
Click to expand...

I think this is a great approach to designing beers. One point that I would like to add is after you have tasted your beer and begin to think about changes, change only one ingredient, volume or step. If you make too many changes to a recipe, you will have a difficult time trying to determine what made the beer better or worse. If you keep it to one variable it will be easier to detect. I believe tjpfeister implied this when he said "tweak the recipe a little bit at a time". And to reinforce a great point that he made, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.
 
Frodo said:
A really good pair to Designing Great Beers is Brewing Classic Styles. It has actual recipes that are good examples of all the styles - and those recipes are based in part on Designing Great Beers if I recall correctly.
Click to expand...

There are three brewing books that I refer to regularly when formulating recipes. They are Designing Great Beers, Brewing Classic Styles, and Radical Brewing. All three are great resources. Radical Brewing is a great source of ideas and inspiration, and Designing Great Beers gives the tools you need to tie it all together, especially if you're not using brewing software.

For a "newbie" beer designer, I'd suggest taking a recipe from Brewing Classic Styles or Radical Brewing, and tweaking it to match your vision. For example, if you want to brew a oatmeal milk porter, you might find it easier to start with a "basic" porter grain bill and then add specialty grains or ingredients to your taste. That way, you know that you're at least starting in the right ballpark.
 
I've started by using some of the recipes here as a "base" just to get an idea of base malts, fermentation time, hops schedule etc.

Then I start plugging the recipe into my calculator and start tweaking from there.

I brew small batches (3-4 gallons) AG now, because it's what my kitchen and equipment will permit, but I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of being able to experiment with different malts without the investment that a larger batch might involve.

Personally, I enjoy experimenting with hops and yeast - not getting into too complicated a malt bill. I'm working on developing a good "base" recipe for a Belgian blond / triple - something I can make more hoppy or less, add fruit or honey, and of course experimenting with different Belgian yeast strains.

With an IPA, you definitely could get into some fun the hops and yeast. The Chico California Ale yeast (WLP 001) and Pacman have been my favorites to use on hoppy (non Belgian) brews.

Seriously, don't be afraid to experiment. Some folks like to create a base wort and then split the boil using different hops / flavorings.. others split the batch at fermentation time and use different yeasts. :)
 

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