Batch made up

[lwald]

What is the best way to invent a Batch of beer.

Like what malt should I use with other malts

What hop should I get or don't that madder

I want to make a Irish stout but I want it to be my own not from a recipe. How should I do this

Ps is there any book or web site that will help me with what grains go good with others or specialty malts

Thanks cheers

 

[broadbill]

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. Yes, all of that matters in making up a recipe. I think what you will find that for a given style, there is going to be a great deal a similarity between them. What makes a style is the ingredient that go into it.

 

[homebrewdad]

If you browse recipes for a given style, you will see a lot of similarities - this will give you a good place to start.

Software like Brewsmith can really help with this, as you can choose a desired style, then plug in your ingredients and see how you fare in terms of gravity, hop balance, color, etc.

 

[theveganbrewer]

I'd suggest a few things.

1) Go to the recipes section of this site and search through the Irish stouts. Read about the ingredients, find similarities, differences, read about the tasting notes of brewers here that have tried them. Pick out the things you like and the things you don't like. Start piecing together your tastes and the ingredients that enchance the things you like. This site has a ton of recipes you can study and learn from and then use your knowledge of style to create your own recipe.

2) It won't be an Irish stout if you don't meet the guidelines, so you have to follow something if you want to technically make an Irish Stout. You can check out the BJCP (beer judges) style guidelines for a Stouts. http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style13.php

3) Use commercial beers as a guideline to identify your tastes. You can also try looking up your favorite Irish Stout's and trying to find their clone recipes. For instance, search Google for "Guinness clone" and you'll find recipes that you can study and learn about. If you like certain parts of a commercial beer, looking at a clone recipe can help you figure out which parts of it you could include in your own brew. If you are not familiar with a lot of commercial brews in your style, check out ratebeer.com or beeradvocate http://beeradvocate.com/lists/style/162 to find out which beers are the best of the best. Use their clone recipes as a base from which to build your own recipe.

 

[RainyDay]

That's a pretty big question. You're honestly better off brewing a few batches from well reviewed recipes. There are so many ingredients that give different flavors and do different things for your brews that tasting them is the best way to see if you like them. Spend some good time looking at recipes on this site, you'll start to see some reoccuring themes (such as base malt being no less trhan 70% of the recipe, stouts almost always having roasted barley, what hops are basically exclusively used for bittering and not aroma etc etc). Other than that, the only way to see if you like a recipe (or specific malts/groups of malts in a recipe) is to try it. Nothing wrong with using someone elses recipe until you get your feet under you.

 

[evrose]

What hop should I get or don't that madder

No, it don't madder. It don't madder at all. Just use parsley.

 

[TopherM]

I get matter and matter the more it don't madder! What? What's the madder? Now you have me EVEN MATTER!

 

[lwald]

Ha ha my phone likes to sell words wrong. Stupid I phone

 

[evrose]

Ha ha my phone likes to sell words wrong. Stupid I phone

Yeah sure. Blame it on the phone. Riiiiiiiight.

 

[cmybeer]

Ray Daniels book! Get it, read the style you want to brew. It will be a bit dry but all the info is there and terrifically accessible.

 

[amandabab]

What is the best way to invent a Batch of beer.

Brew enough so you can get predictable and repeatable results.
Take all the variables out of your process, then you can tell what different things actually do when you change them.
keep insane OCD notes.

Online calculators and brew software can only tell you so much, you actually have to be able to brew it. A great batch that can't be repeated is nothing.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

If you browse recipes for a given style, you will see a lot of similarities - this will give you a good place to start.

Software like Brewsmith can really help with this, as you can choose a desired style, then plug in your ingredients and see how you fare in terms of gravity, hop balance, color, etc.

I have to second this. When I want to come up with a recipe for a style I haven't played with before, I look at recipes for examples of that style that I really like and/or are known to be great examples. Then I sit down with BeerSmith and start adding the appropriate ingredients.

 

[joerose]

I just did my own recipe and picked a beer I really liked and found research into all the specifics around it, ibus, hop type, style, and fg and just kinda reverse engineered it. Talking to my lhbs also helped with the color I was working on. All of it took about 6 hours over the course of two days. But I feel I did a lot of legwork and the accomplishment so far feels great. It's still an experiment of sorts but a calculated one.

 

[lwald]

Nice thanks a lot. I just got beer smith and it is amazing. I was playing on it all night and came up with one. I'm going to try in a few weeks.

Thanks for all the info guys.

Cheers