What Beer Style did I just make? (Extract Brew)

I keep doing this. Making beer that I don't know what style it is. I think I know where this is going then I totally screw it up or just decide to kitchen sink it. So far, results have been GREAT.

1st Question: Should I buy these beer softwares I keep hearing people mention? Do these tell you what style you're about to brew based on ingredients? I need one that works with Macintosh that has a companion iPhone & iPad app so I can sync my brews. Is there something like that?

Here's what I brewed tonight.

Brewer's Best American Pale Ale Kit
http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1013_American_Pale_Ale.pdf

I followed their schedule but made some modifications. They call for 2 gallon batch but I have a large kettle so did 4 gallons and will ferment 5 gallons in a glass carboy.

@ 160 F, Steep 1lb of Caramel 20L for 20 minutes in bag

bring to rolling boil

60 minute LME (Munton's Light one tin)
60 minute Bittering hops 2 ounce (cascade 6.4%)
45 minutes 1lb DME (Briess Golden Light 1 lb)
40 minutes cascade (1oz pellet)
30 minutes DME (Briess Golden Light 1lb)
25 minute corn sugar (1 lb)
20 minutes LME (Munton's light one tin can)
15 minutes chinook 1 ounce
5 minutes willamette aroma 1.5 ounce (4.7%)

Then I terminated boil, did about 25 minutes wort cooling. FG is 1.068 at 70 Degrees F. Expected was, at the high end, 1.055 but the 2 lbs of DME and 1lb of corn sugar weren't on the recipe as fermentables.

So..I know this is no longer an APA. Did I make an IPA or Double IPA? I was hoping for a single. Guess I should stop doing kitchen sink recipes.

Hopville beercalculus is free. I assume it's not as good as beersmith or promash as it's in beta testing but it tells you when you're out of style guidelines.

An EXCELLENT free recipe resource is www.brewersfriend.com This website has helped me tremendously in crafting my own recipes, and it is super easy to use. Give it a try, and you may not feel the need to pay for brewing software.

OP, if you're already doing a hoppy beer from a kit/recipe, and you tinker with the hop schedule, odds are very much against you making a dumper. It's when you grab lots of random ingredients and trhow them together that you tread a fine line between genius and grossout.

Beersmith is all of $25 or so, and is an amazing tool. Do yourself a favor and buy it. You get to try it out for something like three weeks for free.

I don't think there is a program that will take a recipe and tell you what you made. I've just used beersmith which gives you style ranges to design a beer to. I think your best bet to figure out what you made is to download a copy of the bjcp guidelines and see where you fit. There's free calculators to determine srm and ibu's.

Looking at your recipe though, I think you should still have a pale ale. Dry hopping it would make it more of an ipa I think beersmith is worth every penny of the $25. It's a great tool to design recipes. Especially if you do all grain because it automatically adjusts for your equipment once you get it dialed in.

For software for a Mac get Beeralchemy.I use it on my Mac and my iPad. I make last minute adjustments and notes on my iPad while brewing and then synch it to my Mac. Works great.

Right now Beersmith has a free 21 day trial. Might be worth downloading it, can't hurt.

Kate00 said:

Looking at your recipe though, I think you should still have a pale ale. Dry hopping it would make it more of an ipa.

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Definitely go with the dry hop to bring it into the IPA realm. Honestly the style guidelines are just that, guidelines. If you make a strong pale ale but want to call it an IPA then I doubt anyone would argue the point. I made an octoberfest with ale yeast and it wasn't lagerish enough so I called it mocktoberfest. Everyone thought it was funny and it went over well since they knew it wasn't going to be spot on. Keep experimenting and try not to get too caught up with labels unless you are going to enter competitions.

or you could just follow the recipe

Glynn said:

or you could just follow the recipe

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Where's the fun in that? I thought brewing was all about the creativity! (At least is it for me!)

There are only two styles that matter, good beer and bad beer, here's hoping you made the first type.

Don't get hung up on styles it's anal and says nothing in particular about the final result, just the box it fits in.

EoinMag said:

Don't get hung up on styles it's anal and says nothing in particular about the final result, just the box it fits in.

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Wow!!

Good tips guys. I'll pickup BeerSmith and look at Beer Alchemy since I'm mostly Mac but do have a PC.

For styles, I guess I'm still trying to learn what makes what. I aimed for a HUGE IPA 2 weeks ago and ended up making a barleywine instead. I want to avoid getting too far away from the intended style but I wanted a hoppier APA and the OG lead me to believe this will either beer a maltier APA or very low-end IPA.

I'll be dry hopping with Citra on this

Good replies though. I know worrying about styles is wrong but this only my 6th batch so I still want to make sure I fall in line with something.

DrummerBoySeth said:

Where's the fun in that? I thought brewing was all about the creativity! (At least is it for me!)

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LOL Sorry im a professional chef.....must .....follow.... recipe ....aaggggggg

Glynn said:

LOL Sorry im a professional chef.....must .....follow.... recipe ....aaggggggg

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Hah. My girlfriend is the same way. I've been cooking for us for years. I grew up with my Dad who is a "what's in the pantry" chef and it's how I cook now. I want italian sausage penne with pesto and Parmesan but how that's made, I can never make the same thing twice.

My GF is a baker and measures everything down to the teaspoon.

So, well I apply that to my beer brewing and have been lucky so far. She just laughs when I grab random stuff to add to my beer...how about some vanilla? She just leaves the room. :fro:

try these:

BJCP Style guide. Explains the styles, grains, colors, bitterness, etc.

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_stylebook.pdf

These two books have also been great for learning about styles and what to use.
Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Brand-Name Beers by Mark Szamatulski (May 10, 2010)
Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew

When making recipies, I use the books as guidelines to see what particular grains or yeast is used for a particular style.

Most software will also have parameters for styles so you can see where your beer is. OG, FG, IBU's SRM ABV and so forth.


Making beer is like art, anybody can take a picture with a camera, but a true photographer who understands lighting, aperture, shutter speed will take the better picture. same goes with beer, you can throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and call it beer, and that is fine, but if you want to make truly great and consistant beer, in my opinion, you should understand styles and how everything interacts together. I'm not saying that experimentation is out of the picture, I do all the time, but I always start with a style and then go from there. Styles will give you a starting point (point A) and an idea of where you should finish (point B)

Anyway, that is just my opinion on the whole thing. the main point is to have fun.

adamjackson said:

Good tips guys. I'll pickup BeerSmith and look at Beer Alchemy since I'm mostly Mac but do have a PC.

For styles, I guess I'm still trying to learn what makes what. I aimed for a HUGE IPA 2 weeks ago and ended up making a barleywine instead. I want to avoid getting too far away from the intended style but I wanted a hoppier APA and the OG lead me to believe this will either beer a maltier APA or very low-end IPA.

I'll be dry hopping with Citra on this

Good replies though. I know worrying about styles is wrong but this only my 6th batch so I still want to make sure I fall in line with something.

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I'm a mac guy and I use Beersmith. I found it more in line with how I think than Beer Alchemy.

iskuse said:

Making beer is like art, anybody can take a picture with a camera, but a true photographer who understands lighting, aperture, shutter speed will take the better picture. same goes with beer, you can throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and call it beer, and that is fine, but if you want to make truly great and consistant beer, in my opinion, you should understand styles and how everything interacts together. I'm not saying that experimentation is out of the picture, I do all the time, but I always start with a style and then go from there. Styles will give you a starting point (point A) and an idea of where you should finish (point B)

Anyway, that is just my opinion on the whole thing. the main point is to have fun.

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You're absolutely right. I also would like to make a beer a 2nd time if I find it great and can't do that if I'm just throwing random crap in. I had to dig through my trash to remember what DME was used.

your recipe still falls closest to a American pale ale also really close on a std IPA but closer to the pale. Here is how it looks on beersmith.

brewers best pale
American Pale Ale
Type: Extract Date: 7/6/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal Brewer: Aaron Schecter
Boil Size: 8.51 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: Aaron's mlt
End of Boil Volume 6.50 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.26 %
Final Bottling Volume: 4.50 gal Est Mash Efficiency 0.0 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3 lbs 8.0 oz LME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Extract 1 46.7 %
1 lbs LME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Extract 2 13.3 %
2.00 oz Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 44.1 IBUs
1 lbs DME Dark Traditional (Briess) [Boil for 45 min](8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 4 13.3 %
1.00 oz Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 40.0 min Hop 5 19.3 IBUs
1 lbs DME Golden Light (Briess) [Boil for 30 min](4.0 SRM) Dry Extract 6 13.3 %
1 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) [Boil for 30 min](0.0 SRM) Sugar 7 13.3 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 22.2 IBUs
1.50 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 5.7 IBUs

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.061 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.063 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.5 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 7.0 %
Bitterness: 99.8 IBUs Calories: 210.2 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 4.4 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 7 lbs 8.0 oz
Sparge Water: 6.01 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.20


Sparge Step: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Bottle Volumes of CO2: 2.3
Pressure/Weight: 3.53 oz Carbonation Used: Bottle with 3.53 oz Corn Sugar
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 70.0 F Age for: 30.00 days
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Storage Temperature: 65.0 F
Notes


Created with BeerSmith

oopps forgot your steeping grains but you get the picture still close to a pale or std ipa

Aschecte said:

oopps forgot your steeping grains but you get the picture still close to a pale or std ipa

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Holy crap! This is amazing. You just convinced me to buy brewing software. That sort of read-out is exactly what I need going forward.

Thanks for the time you put into helping on this one. (liked)

adamjackson said:

You're absolutely right. I also would like to make a beer a 2nd time if I find it great and can't do that if I'm just throwing random crap in. I had to dig through my trash to remember what DME was used.

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I use iBrewMaster app to create my recipies but I also keep a note book. What I initially start with and what I end up with sometimes changes by brew day, either because I changed my mind or the brew store did not have what I wanted and I substitute with something else. What's nice about haveing a local brewshop is that everything is printed out on the receipt, so I usually staple that into my notebook as well. the last three brews though I have not been too good with keeping notes, having a couple brews while brewing doesn't help either.

adamjackson said:

Holy crap! This is amazing. You just convinced me to buy brewing software. That sort of read-out is exactly what I need going forward.

Thanks for the time you put into helping on this one. (liked)

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Beersmith is pretty awesome in that it creates that kind of thing for you, and then it is saved - you can pull it up any time.

Say you decide that you want to make an "Out of the Blue IPA". Load up beersmith, plug in IPA as the intended style. You can still go willy nilly adding ingredients and such - it will let you know how far off the style guidelines you are. Call it measured creativity.

If you love it, you can brew it again. If it needs work, you at least know what you did before, and can build off of that.

I would say it's on the hoppy end of an APA. If you swapped the 60 min. cascades with the 15 min. chinooks, then you'd almost assuredly have an IPA with some judicious dry-hopping.