Building a grain recipe from scratch

[Pariah3j]

So I've just made the swap to AG. Got to test out the new equipment/setup this last weekend making my brother a Irish Red. Things went well, need to make some improvements for my setup - my new kettle won't fit in the sink, had to ice bath it in the tub - pre-chiller for the wort chiller is looking like a must if I don't want to keep doing that. All things considered, I had a blast with it.

Next step I'd like to take is to start making my own recipes rather than just brewing ones other people have made. But there is where I run into problems, I know I could take existing recipes and tweek them. But that still doesn't help me really get a good understanding of the how/why/etc.

Is there a good resource/book that goes over what grains and why ?

 

[Dcpcooks]

I'd suggest you consider picking up the following books. In this order.

How to brew by Palmer
Malt by John Mallet
Mastering homebrew by mosher


Don't feel like you need to reinvent the wheel. You got a lot to learn from designing a grain bill to mash ph/water hop bitterness and flavor profiles. You've got to figure out what you like as well.

For me it took some time to get a good handle on it all. It's a fun ride and very rewarding

 

[buzd]

I'm in the same boat, and I've decided to start doing a few smash (single malt, single hop) brews to see what the different profiles of the malts and hops taste like. And then go from there.

 

[Transamguy77]

Designing great beers is a fantastic book and reference guide, I just purchased it myself to help build recipes.

It goes over all the beer styles and what goes in them so most of the guess work is already figured out for you.

 

[Pariah3j]

Awesome - thanks guys. Got them added to my amazon wish list and I'll start picking them up as I order more beer stuff

 

[charliehorse]

Designing great beers is a fantastic book and reference guide, I just purchased it myself to help build recipes.

It goes over all the beer styles and what goes in them so most of the guess work is already figured out for you.

I would highly recommend this book. Also, if you buy your grain where the shop keeper will let you taste the grain, you'll find that helps too. Were it not for that, I wouldn't have thought to add Special B to my Brown (even though Special B is Belgian and Brown is British). Nibble in grain, read recipes that have won competitions, talk to brewers in your area (as you know by now, the only thing brewers like more than drinking beer is talking about brewing beer).

 

[jabba11]

All good info here. What I will add is while malt is important, yeast selection will have every bit as much an impact on your beer as what malts are in it. Once in awhile I clean out my "other grains" bin and just make potpourri beer (while still using some common sense here I mean I aint gonna brew up 4 pounds of chocolate malt or something or acid malt). I usually use us-05 or maybe WY1272 etc with either some cascade or even hallertau etc. What I will say is...it still tastes like beer and typically its pretty good. I always makes sure I take notes what I used incase I stumble on something that will make me rich LOL