Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them

Hi All,

Here is a technique I came up with to brew multiple quart batches, at once, to try different ingredients. I plan to add this as a tutorial but the whole reserve posts thing seemed to be a pain, so for now, here's a direct link.

Try ingredients before brewday

Hope you find it useful!

Nice technique. I like experiments.

Thanks. This looks like its a great idea. Will definitely be trying this out soon. Cheers!

Bookmarked the link and will be playing around with this technique, meethinks....

Thanks for posting it!

I like it. But I do have a question. Do you think an oven would work as well as a microwave? The thought of 1200w for an hour does seem a little scary but then again, anything longer than 5 mins doesn't go into my microwave.

You can put the mason jars in a pot on the stove with a few inches of boiling water if you don't want to use the microwave.

Bookmarked your link. I love the idea. I'm just starting to get into more recipe development, but it is very overwhelming. I liken it to cooking also, but I've been cooking/eating for ~25 years, so I'm pretty familiar with many ingredients/spices, but I've only been brewing for ~1.5 years, so it's hard to know where to start. Thanks!

great writeup. I look forward to trying this out.

Great idea!

Many ways to customize and adapt to specific needs and tests.

The one thing I can think of if we want to sample the flavor and aroma contribution of the specialty malts in a finalized beer is that their character maybe largely obscured by the hops and DME itself. Also the amount of hops added could be more precise perhaps.

This is way more refined than chewing raw malts to get an idea of their flavor.

IslandLizard said:

The one thing I can think of if we want to sample the flavor and aroma contribution of the specialty malts in a finalized beer is that their character maybe largely obscured by the hops and DME itself. Also the amount of hops added could be more precise perhaps.

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That is true and I did think about that. That's why I added hops at the beginning for bitterness only and amped up the percentage of specialty grains.

For example, Amber malt is very pronounced at 5%, but I bumped it to 10% so that it really stands out. You could bump it even higher if you wanted.

As for the hops, I was at the mercy of my crappy scale. I'm going to get one that's more precise in the future.

mtnagel said:

Bookmarked your link. I love the idea. I'm just starting to get into more recipe development, but it is very overwhelming.

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This is exactly why I did it. People always say that recipe design is the most fun part of brewing but having to dedicate half a day, only to hope that you get the result you want, kinda stinks.

I figure if you're not overwhelmed by the ingredients you use, like you mentioned, you'll be confident in your design decisions and you'll see more people making really fantastic and interesting beers!

scoundrel said:

That is true and I did think about that. That's why I added hops at the beginning for bitterness only and amped up the percentage of specialty grains.

For example, Amber malt is very pronounced at 5%, but I bumped it to 10% so that it really stands out. You could bump it even higher if you wanted.

As for the hops, I was at the mercy of my crappy scale. I'm going to get one that's more precise in the future.

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Yes I now realize you're using relatively high percentages of specialty grains, so that helps to let them stand out.

I guess mashing some base malts could be added to the experiment too, instead of using plain DME. In beer I can always taste the undertone of DME (and LME) and more so at higher gravities.

Unless the scale is precise to 0.1 grams, eyeballing the length of the hop pellet pieces is not a bad idea, similar to what you're doing with apportioning the yeast after weight out.

Subscribed! Dude. This rocks! I have been doing mini batches for months with hops and hop timing. This is right up my alley and you did a great job with your experiment. I'm going to do something similar so thanks for sharing this!

divrguy said:

Subscribed! Dude. This rocks! I have been doing mini batches for months with hops and hop timing. This is right up my alley and you did a great job with your experiment. I'm going to do something similar so thanks for sharing this!

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Sure thing! I did another batch last night without Fermcap and it turned out great and only took a couple hours. You just need to get past the hot break.