Can't stick to a recipe...

[2drunk2]

Am I alone on this?

I have an idea for a recipe, and I run all the numbers. Then, I get excited and plan a trip to the homebrew store. I walk in and start talking to my buddy. Something catches my attention and I start changing my grain bill. Oh... You have zythos hops 50% off? I can work with that. Suddenly, I'm not even brewing the same style.

The result is always tasty beer, and I'm having fun. I've made 3 attempts at a simple blonde though, and always leave the store with something completely different. Who else does that?

 

[Clarke]

+1/2

I have change my intended recipe on the fly when I enter the LHBS, but most of the time I walk out with what I need for my intended recipe but end up with extra hops, a different extra yeast, and a half pound of this grain or that grain or both. What is bad is I do this every time I go.

But I only have two beer recipes that I have made more than once, each time I brew it is a different beer. I have to use up that extra stuff I so obsessively buy.

 

[2drunk2]

Exactly!

 

[bobeer]

I do this on brew day. I buy my grain in bulk and mill at the house so I have a bunch of different grains/hops/yeast/ingredients on hand all the time. I get a recipe together and then go down and start milling and see some grain and add it in. Then in the boil I throw more hops in or some other additive like molasses, fruit peels, brown sugar, whatever... It always comes out well but I'm left with the what-if's... What if I just brewed what I had on paper? Then I get the next-time's... next time I'll stick to the recipe... which never happens! Maybe one day.

 

[Rotgut]

Once I get to the brew store, my recipe doesn't usually change unless they don't have what I'm looking for and I need to choose a substitute.

I do however, find recipes I'd like to try and almost always end up changing them to suit my own tastes. I do the same thing when cooking. I rarely follow someone else's recipe exactly.

 

[2drunk2]

I'm glad that I'm not alone on this. I'm having a good laugh at myself.

 

[Trox]

About the only time any of my beer recipes are safe from change is once it is in the bottling bucket; anytime between entering it into Beersmith and bottling that recipe has about an 80% chance of being changed some where down the road.