Anybody try winging a recipe?

[beerhound28]

Hello everyone
Last week i boiled up a partial mash but i totally winged it..I used 5 lbs of DME
3 lbs of belgian pilsner malt (90 min mash@ 148F) long and low mash..Im not a hoppy beer lover so only used 2 oz of saaz hops(not good for bittering i know) boiled for 60 mins..did a full boil and added the DME at the last 20 minues of the 90 min boil also added 1 lb of dextrose at the end to kick up the alcohol ..started with 5 gallons after the boil had 4 gallons of wort..chilled the wort and pitched a starter of wyeast 1388 belgian strong..also used yeast nutrient and whirlfloc..Anyway its almost a week later and the airlock is still very active and i keep ambient temps at around 64-68 degrees and plan on letting it go for a few weeks maybe a month depending on the FG..BTW the OG was 1077..Has anybody did what i did and just threw stuff together without following any guide lines? and if so how did it turn out? I do not have too much hope in this batch cause it smells like a banana laffy taffy factory but alot of people say that is the belgian yeast..But then again this was a test run to see how it will turn out..Any thoughts or input will apprieciated.. thank you and cheers everyone

 

[944play]

Nothing wrong with Saaz for bittering, as a taste of almost any Boh Pils will attest. It's just that you have to use so much of it, you'll be getting some nice hop flavor in addition to the refined nobley bitterness always conferred on the cultivar.

 

[Airborneguy]

Once you understand the ingredients, and how they work together, it's really not hard to "wing" a recipe. Of course it may not be an award winner that you end up with, but it will probably be drinkable beer as long as the brewing procedures were sound.

 

[VanHorneDog]

all the time, im like. lets do an irish red. grabbed some irish ale yeast, two row, crystal and roasted barley. bam! irish red... well kinda. but it got drank! hahah.

one time we went into the home brew store, just started eating barley and went, lets do this, some of htis and some of that. had about 3 oz of scrap hops lying around and bam! pale ale. kinda fun to go outside the box on a recipe and see what happens. i LOVED the malt profile of that beer, but wish i used belgian yeast, guess what? my last beer was a very similar malt profile but with belgian yeast. boyah.

 

[beerhound28]

Cool man..your right, it is fun to just throw things together..It will be sick if my brew turns out like duvel (aint gonna happen)..either way it will be happy if its drinkable..its all fun..cheers