Are u irritated by complex recipes like i am?

[the_bird]

for mocking purposes only.

I can almost guarantee though, by knocking off the decimal in whatever recipe software he's using, the OG, color and ABV won't budge.
and that .17 won't effect the IBU, not at FO.

Not disagreeing that you'd never notice the difference.

The "mocking" part, though.. I mean, c'mon.

 

[jerrodm]

I too tend toward the simpler side of the spectrum. I like grain bills and hop schedules where I can really taste every additional piece that's added to the recipe.

But, depending on the beer, that could easily be four or five different grains. How can you make an oatmeal stout without including (at the very minimum) a base malt, a roasted, and some flaked oats? Add in a crystal for some sweetness and that's four fermentables right there, for a relatively simple stout grainbill. It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

Hop schedules are the same way. Would I have four (or six) different hop varieties or additions for the stout I just described? No way. But I did hop the IPA I brewed this weekend four different times, and will dry-hop it in a couple of weeks when I secondary. It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish with the beer.

I might agree with the general sentiment that the relationship between complexity of recipe and the marginal benefits of complexity is inverse (as complexity increases, the value of additional complexity gets smaller), but there are plenty of good reasons to add that fifth type of malt to your grain bill, or to pair the one bittering hop with two different flavor/aroma hops. It's all about what you want to accomplish.

And, even if the "complexer is better" crowd were indisputably wrong, why stress over it? Frankly, I like chatting with y'all about brewing, but as long as I'm happy with my beer I couldn't care less how everyone else decides to make theirs.

Cheers!

 

[GrogNerd]

GrogNerd

French: From grognard (“grumbler&#8221, from grogner (“snarl, grunt, growl, grumble&#8221 + -ard

also Spanish: gruñon

literally, it means "grumbler" but also used as "mean old man"

 

[Brewitt]

Crystal 120L is a wholly different beast than the "roasted" malts. It's flavor contribution has a little bit of roast undertone, but is mostly adding dark-fruit notes, with some bittersweetness. A little bit adds a lot of depth, and doesn't really overlap with chocolate malt or roasted barley or any of those (there might be a little overlap between C120° and Special B).

Whether it's technically "roasted" or not isn't (to me) interesting; it adds wholly different characteristics to a beer, IMO adding more complexity than mixing black patent with roasted barley and chocolate malt, for example.

Correct, but I was just lumping them together in terms of roastiness of flavor. Then I was corrected based upon a technical point. Now you are taking me back to differences in there contribution to flavor. I think my point was that different malts with different degrees of roastiness and conversion produce more complex flavor profiles. I'm happy to leave it at that. But it did prompt me to take a closer look at the precise relationships between the different malting/roasting processes which is educational and helps my understanding of brewing. So, thanks for the input.

 

[Leadgolem]

Mind posting this recipe? Was it a blueberry ale or wine? Just thinking about what late addition could mess with OG unless its something like honey or simple like to much top up water.

I believe this is a wine. I had read some comments by people having trouble with higher abv recipes and blueberries. The basic idea was to see if there was something endemic to blueberries that was causing off flavors at higher abv targets. I hadn't planned on adding the syrup, but I have several other kinds of syrups and didn't particularly need another one cluttering up my kitchen. I know the name is lame, but I haven't thought of anything that's right for the recipe yet.

Blueberry Wine
Batch Size: About 1 gallon.
OG: 1.160
FG: 1.020
ABV 18.7%

In primary:
1 qt rw knudsen just blueberry.
1 bottle mama's choice whole blueberry syrup. I can't find the bottle, but it was about 12 oz.
About 1.3 lb of sugar. I didn't actually weigh my sugar first, so this is estimated.
1 tsp dry distillers yeast.
1 tsp yeast nutrient.
1/2 tsp yeast energizer.

In secondary:
1/2 tsp powdered bentonite.
2 old pennies

Here are my actual notes:

10-27-2012 10:00 pm: Mixed up blueberry wine. 1 qt rw knudsen just blueberry. 1 bottle mama's choice whole blueberry syrup. About 1.3lb sugar. Gravity 1.16. Higher then I intended. Syrup has corn syrup in it. Probably won't ferment dry.

11-11-2012 12:00 am: FG 1.020 18.7%. Funny smell to it, reminds me of the weirdness from the cherry limeade. Kinda nasty muskiness. Added 1/2 tsp bentonite. Split into 2 bottles, needed the 1 gallon jug.

11-12-2012 11:30 pm: Funny smell still present. Probably H2S. Added an old penny to both bottles. Shook them like hell. Smell is gone. Awesomeness. Will let these settle out again and bottle. Stuck in fridge to cold crash.

11-22-2012 7:00 pm: Bottled 1/2 blueberry wine 4 12oz bottles.

I always use yeast energizer and yeast nutrient when I make wine or cider, I only make notes about it if I'm using amounts that are different from my standard setup. The same goes for the yeast.

I drank the other 2 quarts of this after it had settled in my mini fridge. I was for about 3 days off of it.

Doing this again I would probably use 1 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient, that would probably take care of the H2S issue.

I was aiming for 1.1 and had planned to use a champagne yeast. When I saw how high the OG actually was I decided I'd better use a yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance or the end product was going to be disgustingly sweet.

Distillers yeast is also the least fussy yeast I've ever used, and I didn't feel like making a starter.

I do not believe that there is anything about blueberries/blueberry juice that is causing off flavors. It is more likely that they simply don't contain some nutrient the yeast needs, so the yeast is becoming cannibalistic.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

No. Not at all. I have bigger things to be annoyed by and regardless of the recipe I am usually left to tweak it to my brewhouse anyway.

 

[Grantman1]

I don't much care how other people brew. Lately I've been scaling back to simpler recipes to make sure I'm nailing down my ability to make a good tasting, clean, intentional beer--one that comes out exactly as planned.

There's nothing like enjoying an incredible beer, then learning that the recipe is stupid simple.

On the other hand, there's nothing like drinking a deep, complex ale and trying to decipher everything that's going on in there.

I'm thinking that there's a time and a place for both, at least in my book.

 

[Chriso]

I'm a lot more bothered by poor spelling or grammar than I am by complex, multiple-ingredient recipes.

I have a recipe for Dark Mild that uses seven different specialty grains. All of them in small quantities. Why? It gives me a more complex flavor profile than simply using a single crystal malt plus chocolate malt. And I want my dark mild to taste complex, not simple and thin.

But I don't think that I need to put 7 specialty grains into every recipe I craft.

P.S. per the list of stereotypes posted earlier in this thread, I am of the "Mash Slinger" variety.

plus he's got 2 oz of a hop at 5 minutes, then 1.83 oz of the same hop at FO.
seriously? .17 of an oz is a going to make or break the recipe? what is that, ONE pellet?

At least on my digital scale, I find that one pellet is 0.05oz. So 0.17oz would be about three pellets.
I use three pellets when I brew a yeast starter.
No real point... just coincidental observation.

 

[Grantman1]

I'm a lot more bothered by poor spelling or grammar than I am by complex, multiple-ingredient recipes.

Amen to that! It's painful trying to read or respond to any post when it reads something like:

"I'm not sure what to do i brewed a stout this saturday mashed at 158 and used notty it hasn't started fermenting yet it's been 3 days should i pitch another packet of yeast it's sitting at ambient temp of 68 in my basement right now i really don't know why i haven't seen any airlock activity yet"


Not saying this in a holier-than-thou way, but it just hurts my brain having to read that kind of stuff.

 

[drainbamage]

*Shrug* I couldn't really care less. The beauty of brewing is that it's one of those things that can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

I'm at the point where I can make up a fairly simple extract recipe on Hopville and brew a decent beer from it, yet there are kit-only brewers I know that when I tell them that, they look at me like I'm talking particle physics. On the other hand, I see some of the really elaborate AG recipes on here and think "yikes."

As long as you're making a beer that you're happy drinking, that's the important thing.

 

[GrogNerd]

At least on my digital scale, I find that one pellet is 0.05oz. So 0.17oz would be about three pellets.
I use three pellets when I brew a yeast starter.
No real point... just coincidental observation.

at that scale, I could see where 3 pellets would make a difference.

wait...

you HOP your starter?
that's a first; I'm a n00b and have never heard that before

 

[jerrodm]

For the record, there is NO reason to hop a starter.

 

[GrogNerd]

For the record, there is NO reason to hop a starter.

haha... just effin' with me? maybe it's a 1L batch and he misspoke?

 

[Chriso]

No mis-speak here. I hop my starters. As mentioned, barely hopped at all, but I do. Basically pursuing the idea that you want your yeast to "grow up" eating foods as close to what they'll eat in their adult life plus you get a very mild disinfectant quality to boot. Zero sources to give you, it's just something I've done since I started in '07. (That said, I tend to very rarely make starters in the first place, I'm more frequently one of those chuck-the-packet-of-dry-yeast-in-without-even-hydrating-it people.)

This thread ( https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/hops-yeast-starter-2013/ ) seems to back up your position of 'it doesn't matter'. I just happen to have an open bag of high-AA Sorachi Ace from many, many brew days ago, that is in a ziploc and not a vacuum bag. So it's easy to open, pinch three pellets, and shut it again. (Of course, the sack is probably gone cheesy by now, it's been open for at least a year.)

 

[ghpeel]

I want to say that Uncle Charlie told us to hop our starters back in the day with Complete Joy of Homebrewing. The idea being (I guess) that a little hops will block lacto from forming in the starter maybe?

I usually do Real Wort Starters, diluted to near 1.040 if necessary, but occasionally if I'm boiling up some DME for a starter, I'll throw in some mystery pellets from the freezer. Superstition maybe.

 

[GrogNerd]

No mis-speak here. I hop my starters. As mentioned, barely hopped at all, but I do. Basically pursuing the idea that you want your yeast to "grow up" eating foods as close to what they'll eat in their adult life plus you get a very mild disinfectant quality to boot. Zero sources to give you, it's just something I've done since I started in '07. (That said, I tend to very rarely make starters in the first place, I'm more frequently one of those chuck-the-packet-of-dry-yeast-in-without-even-hydrating-it people.)

This thread ( https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/hops-yeast-starter-2013/ ) seems to back up your position of 'it doesn't matter'. I just happen to have an open bag of high-AA Sorachi Ace from many, many brew days ago, that is in a ziploc and not a vacuum bag. So it's easy to open, pinch three pellets, and shut it again. (Of course, the sack is probably gone cheesy by now, it's been open for at least a year.)

the reasoning is sound, I had just never heard of that before. I am heading to the "What did you learn today?" threads

and I just used Sorachi Ace for the first time as a dry hop in my AIPA. Hard to believe completely flat beer could taste so good. I almost didn't want to bottle it, just wanted to drink it all right then. the next 18 days will be torture

 

[highgravitybacon]

There's a rich beauty to simple beers. The pinnacle of achievement in my mind is Duvel.
One malt,
Two hop additions. One at 75 min, one at 30 min.
Dextrose.

Now the fermentation is anything but simple, but their inputs are Amazing. Surly Hell is another simple, clean beer.

Nothing wrong with a complex beer at all. But I love a beer that blows you away with its simplicity. Especially when you open one and think "my god how did they do this?" Then to discover its a one sentence recipe.

Sierra Pale Ale is another one. What a fantastic beer with a simple recipe.

 

[shoreman]

Yes.

 

[chuckstout]

No, I love some mogul madness

 

[jerrodm]

There's a rich beauty to simple beers. The pinnacle of achievement in my mind is Duvel.
One malt,
Two hop additions. One at 75 min, one at 30 min.
Dextrose.

Now the fermentation is anything but simple, but their inputs are Amazing. Surly Hell is another simple, clean beer.

Nothing wrong with a complex beer at all. But I love a beer that blows you away with its simplicity. Especially when you open one and think "my god how did they do this?" Then to discover its a one sentence recipe.

Sierra Pale Ale is another one. What a fantastic beer with a simple recipe.

Agree with this--there's something beautiful about a beer with simple ingredients where the process really shines through. I think about my weissenbocks, that get the traditional triple decoction treatment and oh boy, are they amazing...complex, huge mouthfeel, spicy. And they've got (usually) two types of grain, one hop addition, and that's all.

Again, not to say this is the ONLY thing that's worthwhile in making beer. That RIS with several different layers of crystal and roasted flavor, plus flaked oats, with a complex hop schedule, plus vanilla bourbon soaked oak chips, is also a revelation of flavors, aromas and texture. There are many roads to the promised land, brothers and sisters!

 

[badhabit]

The longer I brew the more I like simple recipes. I will however admitt that I have a few recipies that I developed over a number of years tweeking that have a long and complicated malt bill. The problem is that those few are some of the best beers that I brew. I do have others that are much less complicated that are also in the "best beer" list so who knows. I will say that I have come to believe that the most important element in brewing is not what you put in the beer but how you treat it.

 

[mjohnson]

Like most things, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Smart guy, that Antoine.

Its also helps to remember that many complicated hop bills we see from commercial sources are complicated to mitigate risks of hop shortages. Its hard to make a 100% amarillo IPA when you cant buy amarillo.

 

[germanmade84]

There's a rich beauty to simple beers. The pinnacle of achievement in my mind is Duvel.
One malt,
Two hop additions. One at 75 min, one at 30 min.
Dextrose.

Now the fermentation is anything but simple, but their inputs are Amazing. Surly Hell is another simple, clean beer.

Nothing wrong with a complex beer at all. But I love a beer that blows you away with its simplicity. Especially when you open one and think "my god how did they do this?" Then to discover its a one sentence recipe.

Sierra Pale Ale is another one. What a fantastic beer with a simple recipe.

Funny you mention this since thats where i saw the real dividing point. That is when i found a recipe for Duvel! I said to myself, "if Duvel is that simple, but turns out so dang good, then why do people go so crazy with complex recipes!" Also for all my IPA's that ive made i always used the Sierra Pale as a base model for my own recipe and the beers are always better than any store bought beer.

 

[weirdboy]

the beers are always better than any store bought beer

I'm sure you make great beer and everything, but you simply aren't going to the right stores if this is the case.

 

[Brewitt]

I'm sure you make great beer and everything, but you simply aren't going to the right stores if this is the case.

Or he just likes his beer better! For him, that's what matters.

 

[germanmade84]

I'm sure you make great beer and everything, but you simply aren't going to the right stores if this is the case.

I hear that, but honestly my big thing is unfiltered beer, and nowadays not many beers are unfiltered. I dont think brewerys are helping taste by filtering. Only appearence. Thats too bad, yeast is tasty!

 

[Leadgolem]

Easy street

 

[chuckstout]

 

[Denny]

I hear that, but honestly my big thing is unfiltered beer, and nowadays not many beers are unfiltered. I dont think brewerys are helping taste by filtering. Only appearence. Thats too bad, yeast is tasty!

There are at least as many unfiltered craft beers as filtered. Maybe more.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I keep brewing the same basic recipe over and over. I dropped all the .25 this and that after batch 2. You just don't get any real difference when you add a very small amount of white wheat or whatever. Maybe something, but there are so many variables.

That said, D2 syrup, yeasts, heavy roast malts, high AA hops, Cascade vs Noble hops, etc definitely make a difference and are noticable. Adding some rye was very noticable to mouthfeel and taste.

Depends on the recipie. Guiness stout without that .25 OZ of acid malt just comes up short. And lkkk how little black panent you need to get the proper color.