beginners side of creating recipes...

[Redpappy]

I hope that I am posting in the right area.. if not, please direct me.

For the past few years, I have brewed many 5 gal batches using recipes from others recipes... I am thinking I need to make my own recipe, just so that I have what I want.. I have only done a 15 recipes, but have only done 7-10 several times. So I have a few questions to help me figure out what I am looking for, and finding out how to build a recipe.

I am looking for a light pale ale style. I have the feeling I want a more of a carmel flavor some comments made from a recipe that I posted that I enjoy (design from LHBS).

Is John Palmers book t(how to brew, newest addition) the best that goes over this? I will admit, i hate reading, but when the category interest me, i will bare with it.

I do use beer smith 2, as well as BruNwater.

...

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

With books, start with How to Brew and see where it takes you. You mentioned that you don't like to read - so that makes it hard to recommend Mastering Homebrew (Mosher) or Designing Great Beers (Daniels) in this stituation.

Expert brewers share content in many ways. They often appear in podcasts (Brew Strong network, BeerSmith podcast, Basic Brewing, Experimental Brewing, Master Brewers Association podcasts ...) - same ideas expressed in a different format. They write articles for magazines (BYO, Zymurgy, Craft Beer and Brewing, ...) and web sites (https://beerandbrewing.com/, ...).

Expert brewers also present at conferences (AHA's national homebrewers conference - AHA membership gets you access to seminars back to 2012 Seminars Archive | American Homebrewers Association, you can browse for free). Seminar categories include "Sensory analysis", "Ingredients", and "Recipe Formulation" which will get you names of additional experts who may also appear in podcasts.

Understanding ingredients: there are a number of techniques for understanding individual ingredients. "Dry hop bud light" for hops, for malts, "Hot Steep Method". Later this morning, I'll update this section with additional notes or delete it if others cover what I have to say. See #6 below.

 

[TheMadKing]

Just to clarify, is your question that you would like help finding a light pale ale style? Or are you saying you need some pointers on the overall methods/strategies of recipe design? Or both?

 

[Yooper]

I think listening to podcasts on recipe formulation may be your best best if you don't enjoy reading.
An easy way to get started is to look at the recipes you like, and see what's similar and see what's different in them.
Also, if you like caramel malt in pale ales, for example, look at some pale ale recipes and see what color/amount they use to get an idea of possible amounts.
One last thing- consider a SMaSH beer. Use some base malt, and a single hop, and see how that is to your palate. Then you know what the plain grain and that hop taste like, and that can be your base to add caramel malt next time.

 

[Redpappy]

Just to clarify, is your question that you would like help finding a light pale ale style? Or are you saying you need some pointers on the overall methods/strategies of recipe design? Or both?

Looking for pointers on the overall methods/strategies of receipe design.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

(continued from #2)

With ingredients, flavor wheels can be a valuable resource. Ingredient providers will often include flavor wheels in their product information at their web site.

Flavor wheels, in combination with tasting techniques like "Dry Hopped Bud Light", "Hot Steep Method, and split batches for yeast, is possible to survey a variety of flavors without brewing a lot. Podcasts (like Basic Brewing's "Hop Sampler" and "Malt Sampler" episodes) can be a good resource.

 

[brewbama]

I began simplifying my grain bills a while back based roughly on Drew Beechum’s ‘Brewing on the Ones’ concept combined with John Palmer’s template found in his book How to Brew, Chapter 20 Experiment! — Developing your own Recipes.

I’ve gone thru iterations and refined this template to my tastes. The simplicity just makes life easier, reduces inventory, and produces some fairly tasty beers IMO. Most of my recipes do have C malts in them. I use C malts for color, body, and flavor. For example, I’ll use British Crystal in British beers, Continental Cara(s) in German and Belgian styles, and American C# malts in American styles.

I believe the country of origin matters because the different barley variety used to make the malt produces a certain flavor inherent to the style. IOW Pils malt made from American 2-row is different than Pils malt made from German 2-row. Likewise, American Pale and British Pale taste different which I attribute to barley variety. The other malts in a particular maltster’s portfolio follow suit.

Roasted malts start appearing in my ambers and darker beers for further flavor and color. I’ve learned that if I use a ‘specialty malt’ (e.g. Biscuit) to try to balance it with an ~equal C malt addition.

I rarely, if ever, use adjuncts because I prefer all malt beers though I will use sugars (turbinado, candi syrup, inverts, etc) to play a role in certain styles.

Below is my basic template. I riff off that.

Yellow = 100% Base or Base combination, or Base + 10*L C malt (e.g. this could be 95% Pils with 5% CaraHell.)

Blonde = Base + 20*L

Golden = Base + 40*L

Pale = Base (e.g. 2-row + Munich) + 5% 60*L

English Bitter = Base + Dark Crystal (~75/80*L)

Amber/Pub Ale/Dunkel = Pale + 1% Choc/Carafa

Brown/Dunkel = Pale + 2% Choc/Carafa

Porter/Schwartz = Pale + 4% Choc/Carafa

Stout = Porter + 1% Roast Barley

‘Base’ could mean one malt or a combination of base malts depending on style ( e.g. Pils, Pale, or Pale Ale + Munich and/or Vienna).

C malts are normally 5% of grainbill but could go higher. ...but only slightly. Maybe 1-4% higher. Rarely into double digit percentage of grain bill.

Grains are substituted in/out to create completely different beers. (e.g. American 2-row + C60 + 1% Choc = Amber Ale. Substitute Munich for the 2-row, CaraMunich for the C60, and Carafa Special for the Choc = Dunkel).

However, I try to remain in my ~12# grain bill +/- 1# range so water volume and mineral additions remain constant between beers.

Of course, style appropriate yeast and hops follow to produce a certain style.

 

[TheMadKing]

Looking for pointers on the overall methods/strategies of receipe design.

In the most basic sense:

Step 1: define the beer you want to brew. The simplest two ways I know are to fill out a bjcp score sheet and describe the flavors you want, or pick a commercial beer that's pretty close to what you want

Step 2: build your grain bill. When first starting out its difficult to know what grains add what flavors to a beer, so it'll take some trail and error. General rules are: pick a base malt that has characteristics you want 75-90% of the grain generally (can be more or less). Then select specialty malts. I prefer to keep it as simple as possible otherwise flavors get muddy. Ask yourself:

what is this adding to the beer? For every single ingredient

Step 3: select your bittering hops. I use magnum for almost 100% if my beers. Any high alpha acid hop will do though.

Step 4: select your aroma and flavor hops. This is overwhelming for most and the part that I've struggled with the most in brewing hoppy beers. Every hop can express different flavors depending on how it's used and even the crop year. So this will simply take experience. I recommend sticking to 3-4 hops that are widely used in modern IPA's and mastering them before moving on. Citra, Centennial, Simcoe are a good 3 to start with and very versatile.

Step 5: select your yeast. This is also overwhelming and I suggest you pick 3-4 yeasts and master them before moving on. US-05, S-04, a lager strain if you do lagers, and maybe a Belgian or hefe strain depending on what you like to brew.

Step 6: define your process based on the characteristics you want and the ingredients you've selected: mash temp/technique, fermentation temp, aging/lagering profile

Test, refine, repeat. Take good notes, keep a journal of brews, taste and smell your raw ingredients to get more familiar with them.

All of the research recommendations above are excellent, but if you don't like reading they may feel like a slog.

 

[Redpappy]

Thanks for the great info. When it comes to crystal malts, what would be th3 best way to get the difference, such as the difference between c10 and c20. Is it as easy as grabbing a few grains and popping them in your mouth?

 

[bracconiere]

i bassicly just treat specialty malts like salting the pasta water....i really don't need to whip out the milligram scale for it.....

( in my opinion, which isn't popular round' these parts....give up on 'good' beer, and just start throwing stuff in the mash...you'll get a feel for what 'you' like..you're a homebrewer not a marketing agencey)

 

[TheMadKing]

Thanks for the great info. When it comes to crystal malts, what would be th3 best way to get the difference, such as the difference between c10 and c20. Is it as easy as grabbing a few grains and popping them in your mouth?

My thought process is that caramel/crystal malts add increasing levels of Caramel flavor up to C75 with C10 appropriate to add complexity to a pilsner and C75 something you might add to a british bitter.

C80 and above I consider "roasty" meaning I would only use them in a darker beer ranging from a wee heavy to a stout.

Tasting the malts is a great way to place them in your mental flavor spectrum.

 

[bracconiere]

Tasting the malts is a great way to place them in your mental flavor spectrum.

just do it knowing it's like drinking a glass of apple juice to know what the cider will taste like.....

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

When it comes to crystal malts, what would be th3 best way to get the difference, such as the difference between c10 and c20. Is it as easy as grabbing a few grains and popping them in your mouth?

If I were to "start from the beginning" with crystal malts, I would start by sampling a group of them using the "Hot Steep Method". A mix of American and British crystal of roughly the same color. Light (C40), Medium (C60), and Dark (C120) plus Special B. Look at the flavor wheels / sensory profiles. Chew on a couple of kernels as well.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Recipe templates: For another perspective, take a look a couple of the diagrams at the summary page for Mastering Homebrew: "Amazing Shape-Shifting Recipe" and "Red and brown beers recipe formulation" (other colors are in the book).

 

[TheMadKing]

If I were to "start from the beginning" with crystal malts, I would start by sampling a group of them using the "Hot Steep Method". A mix of American and British crystal of roughly the same color. Light (C40), Medium (C60), and Dark (C120) plus Special B. Look at the flavor wheels / sensory profiles. Chew on a couple of kernels as well.

I would also add some German crystal malts to that like Caramunich I, II, and III

They have a different, drier, character to them than American or British crystals

 

[Tyler B]

For me, and I'm only a few years into this hobby, my recipe development goes like this:

1. Come up with a beer style I want to brew.
2. Look at the chapters dedicated to that particular style in the books Brewing Classic Styles and Designing Great Beers. These books break the beers down by style (sounds like you are after apale ale or more likely a Brittish bitter). The books are straight forward, easy to read, and you can skim through to the relevant parts of each chapter about ingredients. This gives me a good idea about hops, grains, etc. I should likely be considering.
3. Once I've got an idea of what I want, I look at other proven recipes here in the recipe database, at Home Brewers association, and in the book Brew Your Own Big Book of 300 Clone Recipes (recipes sorted by style, also very easy to skim through). This gives me a good idea about what ingredients offer in commercial beers that I'm familiar with and lets me read other people's comments/opinions etc.
4. Finalize my own recipe based on my personal preferences, ingredient availability, etc.

It's not easy formulating and brewing a great beer. Experience certainly helps. Brewing simple beers or making subtle changes to a recipe also helps to identify what each ingredient offers.

This process is one of my favorite parts about brewing. I love exploring new styles and ingredients. Best of luck!

 

[kevin58]

Look up Randy Mosher. Randy has published books on the topic ...or for the cliff notes version look up some of his interviews on Beersmith's video podcasts.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I tend to go one of two ways when I formulate a recipe. The first is exactly how @Tyler B described. It's normally for a style I want to try, or I've had a beer of that style and want to brew my own. It's a safe method but allows some creativity.

More often nowadays though, I have a 'picture' in my head of what I want, I'll actually close my eyes and get the taste and smell of it. Then I think about how I'm going to create the beer that's in my head (which is rarely to any published style). What gravity? What gravity:hop balance? What mouthfeel? What hops? How much hop? What colour? What dominant grain (grainy/hay, malty, biscuity etc.)? What specialty grain flavours and how much? What yeast character? etc. I call this the 'Gordon Strong' method. It only comes from brewing a lot and getting to know what each ingredient and, equally importantly, what each process change, brings to the table.

 

[Tyler B]

I tend to go one of two ways when I formulate a recipe. The first is exactly how @Tyler B described. It's normally for a style I want to try, or I've had a beer of that style and want to brew my own. It's a safe method but allows some creativity.

More often nowadays though, I have a 'picture' in my head of what I want, I'll actually close my eyes and get the taste and smell of it. Then I think about how I'm going to create the beer that's in my head (which is rarely to any published style). What gravity? What gravity:hop balance? What mouthfeel? What hops? How much hop? What colour? What dominant grain (grainy/hay, malty, biscuity etc.)? What specialty grain flavours and how much? What yeast character? etc. I call this the 'Gordon Strong' method. It only comes from brewing a lot and getting to know what each ingredient and, equally importantly, what each process change, brings to the table.

Someday, I hope to have the experience/skill/ability to utilize your second method. I'm just not there yet. I can close my eyes and picture exactly what I want, I just don't know what ingredients make "that".

On a side note, when I did the eyes-closed/visualization thing, for some reason I got a massive craving for Lagunitas Brown Shugga...

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Beersmith's video podcasts.

The BeerSmith Podcast Index | Home Brewing Beer Blog by BeerSmith™

 

[waldoar15]

Over time, I've found that simple recipes generally end up being the best

I also understand the need to experiment to get to that point as a new brewer though.

 

[jrgtr42]

There's a lot of great information here already.
One thing I might suggest, if there's a recipe that you like, use that as a base, then change something (add or subtract) until it's great. Change only one thing at a time, though - you want to be able to tell what the difference is.
Once you do this a few times, you'll be able to decide how to build a recipe from scratch, to get the idea of where you want to be. Or you can tweak something so far it's not really what you started with.
For instance, I have a pale ale I brew all the time. It was originally a clone of the New Albion that Sam Adams brewed a ways back. It was a good beer (not quite how Sam did it, but, they're a big commercial brewery, not some schmuck in the basement.)
11.5lBs pale ale malt, 2/3ox Cascade at 60, 15 and 5, 1056/001/05 yeast.
Anyways, when I brewed it, it was good, but I thought it was missing something. Next time I added .5lb Caramel 40 malt in. That was too much caramel flavor, and too dark, so I dialed it back to C-10. Much better. Then I changed the pale malt to Pilsner malt. That, and a little tweaking of the hop sched (60, 10 and 1) gets it to where I want it. I now consider this recipe locked in.

 

[Tyler B]

Over time, I've found that simple recipes generally end up being the best

I also understand the need to experiment to get to that point as a new brewer though.

That's what I'm finding too. Now, I usually try to make sure each ingredient that is added has a purpose. Instead of adding/blending multiple things for the same purpose.

 

[Yesfan]

I began simplifying my grain bills a while back based roughly on Drew Beechum’s ‘Brewing on the Ones’ concept combined with John Palmer’s template found in his book How to Brew, Chapter 20 Experiment! — Developing your own Recipes.

I’ve gone thru iterations and refined this template to my tastes. The simplicity just makes life easier, reduces inventory, and produces some fairly tasty beers IMO. Most of my recipes do have C malts in them. I use C malts for color, body, and flavor. For example, I’ll use British Crystal in British beers, Continental Cara(s) in German and Belgian styles, and American C# malts in American styles.

I believe the country of origin matters because the different barley variety used to make the malt produces a certain flavor inherent to the style. IOW Pils malt made from American 2-row is different than Pils malt made from German 2-row. Likewise, American Pale and British Pale taste different which I attribute to barley variety. The other malts in a particular maltster’s portfolio follow suit.

Roasted malts start appearing in my ambers and darker beers for further flavor and color. I’ve learned that if I use a ‘specialty malt’ (e.g. Biscuit) to try to balance it with an ~equal C malt addition.

I rarely, if ever, use adjuncts because I prefer all malt beers though I will use sugars (turbinado, candi syrup, inverts, etc) to play a role in certain styles.

Below is my basic template. I riff off that.

Yellow = 100% Base or Base combination, or Base + 10*L C malt (e.g. this could be 95% Pils with 5% CaraHell.)

Blonde = Base + 20*L

Golden = Base + 40*L

Pale = Base (e.g. 2-row + Munich) + 5% 60*L

English Bitter = Base + Dark Crystal (~75/80*L)

Amber/Pub Ale/Dunkel = Pale + 1% Choc/Carafa

Brown/Dunkel = Pale + 2% Choc/Carafa

Porter/Schwartz = Pale + 4% Choc/Carafa

Stout = Porter + 1% Roast Barley

‘Base’ could mean one malt or a combination of base malts depending on style ( e.g. Pils, Pale, or Pale Ale + Munich and/or Vienna).

C malts are normally 5% of grainbill but could go higher. ...but only slightly. Maybe 1-4% higher. Rarely into double digit percentage of grain bill.

Grains are substituted in/out to create completely different beers. (e.g. American 2-row + C60 + 1% Choc = Amber Ale. Substitute Munich for the 2-row, CaraMunich for the C60, and Carafa Special for the Choc = Dunkel).

However, I try to remain in my ~12# grain bill +/- 1# range so water volume and mineral additions remain constant between beers.

Of course, style appropriate yeast and hops follow to produce a certain style.

The BeerSmith Podcast Index | Home Brewing Beer Blog by BeerSmith™

Excellent posts! Thanks to the both of you!

I'll have to give your template a try.


I'm sure I could have found the podcasts by going through and opening Beersmith, but would have never thought about that until I saw your post.

 

[mattdee1]

Brew a "clone" of a beer you like, or find some well-regarded recipes with lots of reviews from a site like this one. Reading a whole slew of "testimonials" from other brewers of a recipe is a great way to leap-frog over a bunch of early failures and hit the ground running.

Regardless of whether you do a clone or a community-proven recipe, make it your baseline. Now, you ask yourself what you wish were different about the result - color, hop character, body, etc. - and try various known ways of achieving those differences.

I think the biggest obstacle that most homebrewers have to contend with in coming up with their own excellent "house" recipes is their own impatience and/or desire to brew a bunch of different things all the time. The problem is, you can't expect to absolutely nail every target in 1 or 2 tries. Plain and simple, you have to keep iterating on it until you dial it in. The key is having a willingness to sacrifice "constant exploration" for repetition. This is 90% of the battle, IMO.

Believe me, I totally understand the desire to brew this and brew that and brew the other thing. But now that I'm 5 years in, I've started to seriously iterate on a bunch of house recipes and it's definitely paying off. So far I've got pretty solid and well-received (by friends and family) recipes for blonde, amber, wheat, pale ale, and porter. I've got 6 taps on my bar so now I need to polish up my IPA game, then its on to some kind of lager.

 

[Redpappy]

There's a lot of great information here already.
One thing I might suggest, if there's a recipe that you like, use that as a base, then change something (add or subtract) until it's great. Change only one thing at a time, though - you want to be able to tell what the difference is.
Once you do this a few times, you'll be able to decide how to build a recipe from scratch, to get the idea of where you want to be. Or you can tweak something so far it's not really what you started with.
For instance, I have a pale ale I brew all the time. It was originally a clone of the New Albion that Sam Adams brewed a ways back. It was a good beer (not quite how Sam did it, but, they're a big commercial brewery, not some schmuck in the basement.)
11.5lBs pale ale malt, 2/3ox Cascade at 60, 15 and 5, 1056/001/05 yeast.
Anyways, when I brewed it, it was good, but I thought it was missing something. Next time I added .5lb Caramel 40 malt in. That was too much caramel flavor, and too dark, so I dialed it back to C-10. Much better. Then I changed the pale malt to Pilsner malt. That, and a little tweaking of the hop sched (60, 10 and 1) gets it to where I want it. I now consider this recipe locked in.

Do you still call it New Albion clone or have you renamed it? I do a Boston ale clone that brew, I have tweaked it a little by adding 8 oz carapils and added another oz of saaz last 5 min ( can’t remember the hop schedule)

 

[jrgtr42]

Do you still call it New Albion clone or have you renamed it? I do a Boston ale clone that brew, I have tweaked it a little by adding 8 oz carapils and added another oz of saaz last 5 min ( can’t remember the hop schedule)

LOL. I usually call it Newest Albion, for lack of a better name. If I had any sort of creativity I might come up with a new name for it, since it does bear little resemblance to the original at this point.

 

[Redpappy]

LOL. I usually call it Newest Albion, for lack of a better name. If I had any sort of creativity I might come up with a new name for it, since it does bear little resemblance to the original at this point.

Lol... do the same, call it Boston Ale, even though it doesn’t resemble it.

I think I am over thinking the process of creating a receipe.... seems like most are started from one, but then altered and if the creator is has a creative mind, the rename it...

On a sepperte note, I do plan on doing the dry hopped bud light option. I actually have 6 hops in my freezer. One being cascade, in which I know how it turns out. So, hopefully that will help me out...

(continued from #2)

With ingredients, flavor wheels can be a valuable resource. Ingredient providers will often include flavor wheels in their product information at their web site.

Flavor wheels, in combination with tasting techniques like "Dry Hopped Bud Light", "Hot Steep Method, and split batches for yeast, is possible to survey a variety of flavors without brewing a lot. Podcasts (like Basic Brewing's "Hop Sampler" and "Malt Sampler" episodes) can be a good resource.

. Out of curiosity, why do you think they suggest bud light?

 

[jrgtr42]

Lol... do the same, call it Boston Ale, even though it doesn’t resemble it.

I think I am over thinking the process of creating a receipe.... seems like most are started from one, but then altered and if the creator is has a creative mind, the rename it...

yes and no on that - In one sense, the mixtures to create a recipe are unlimited, but in another sense, they all start with malted barley, hops, yeast and water. Malt being the largest part of the recipe, and your base malt is the biggest part of that. So in a sense, the original Albion recipe was a simple as you can get - it was 2-row pale malt, Cascade hops, and Wyeast 1056 / SLP001 / S-05 - it's all the same strain of yeast, one of the most basic Ale yeasts out there, plus local water - and that wasn't necessarily by design, when the recipe was designed, that's all that any of the suppliers would sell him - it was late 70s, before any of the microbrewers (as they were at the time) had expanded beyond a strictly local radius.
Now, we have a couple dozen types of base malt, by dozens of maltsters, so each one's pilsner malt, for instance, will be slightly different. Probably hundreds of varieties of hops, and similar numbers of yeasts.
But as far as designing your own recipes, it's not reinventing the wheel. You can start with deciding what style you want, and how strong, and you can tweak variables from there. So for a standard IPA, for instance, you probably don't want dark crystal or roasted malts, so you can tweak the different bases and other malts to get the flavor you want. Then the hops - how bitter, then what flavors do you want - piney, citrus, and so on, and adjust your hop varieties from there.
Often it takes several brews of a beer changing the recipe to get what you want. But that's the fun of it all, no?

On a sepperte note, I do plan on doing the dry hopped bud light option. I actually have 6 hops in my freezer. One being cascade, in which I know how it turns out. So, hopefully that will help me out...

. Out of curiosity, why do you think they suggest bud light?

I'm guessing it's because Bud Light has very little flavor - malt or hops, to begin with, so it's pretty much a blank canvas to test out what each hop will bring to the party.

 

[Redpappy]

If I could get some feed back on this, I would appreciate it. I did purchase - Brewing Classic Styles - And surprising i have been reading (when the wife isn't tormenting me) On one spot they were going over Dry yeast, on how you should rehydrate, but they didn't really go over a reason for it. I have basically been using dry yeast for my brews and have just been pitching them. I am not sure if I should try to rehydrate (us-05, main dry yeast i use.) or not, especially since I do not have a controlled ferm chamber. Would it be worth the extra min or so to try this or not??

I have brewed up a MoreBeer recipe (light ale) and I am thinking of using this a starting point on actually learning of flavors and such. Grain Bill is as fallows:

8lbs 2 row
8oz Cara-pils
8oz crystal 20

hops - .5 oz cascade 60 min and 1 oz cascade 1 min
yeast us-05

Things that I have noticed with my set up and what I am wanting to change. going off my taste buds, its light, i do get a light hint of malt, and a tone of grapefruit. Head retention is very little ( maybe my kegging set up)

Starting out, i will be changing the 1 min hops to centennial - flavor
Malts, i'm not sure if I sure add more Cara-pils to increase head attention, or or make a change in my mash temp ( right now is set at 152F).

I know that there is many factors that effect head retention, but it is just troubleshooting what will work with my system.

I don't want to mess with the carmel as of yet, I know I only want to make as few amount of changes so that I can see/taste the difference that each one makes.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Brewing Classic Styles was published in 2007. Since then, dry yeast and recommendations on how to use dry yeast have changed - both Fermentis and Lallemand generally recommend either re-hydrating or direct pitching. For some strains, with higher gravity worts, it is recommended to re-hydrate - so you may want to check the product information sheet (and related information at the yeast "lab"s site) for the strain(s) you are using.

Since you are experiment with flavors and seem to be happy direct pitching US-05, I'll suggest continuing to direct pitch US-05.

 

[Tyler B]

Glad you like the book! I find that one and Designing Great Beers both very useful.

I quit rehydrating a year or two ago, after accidentally rehydrating with RO water which resulted in a lackluster fermentation. I honestly haven't looked back. I direct pitch in both high and low gravity worts. I've never had any issues with stuck fermentation or slow starts. No perceived off flavors either. I have used numerous different yeasts from both Lallemand and Fermentis and just don't see any benefit to rehydrating. It is so easy and avoids unnecessary exposure to some source of infection. If you choose to rehydrate, and that works for you, great keep doing what you like.

As for foam/head retention, I've never noticed much benefit from adding that much carapils either. However, for some reason, I continue using it in a lot of recipes. I seem to get good foam in my beers when I use a decent amount wheat malt for some of my base malts. I've used it in IPAs, stouts, Kolsch, sours all with good results. Im also relatively new to kegging, so you might be able to get someone else to chime in and give you some advice there.