Craft beer

[giantmetfan]

Im right now trying to get into all grain. I've done about 6 extract batches and really love brewing. I'm investing in equipment for all grain. The reason I'm here is because I want to start doing my own thing and creating my own recipes with all grain. You could say I'm very hesitant to not have a set of directions in front of me. How do u know how much malt to use and which malts go good with each other and which yeasts and which hops to complement each other. Im also want to find a sources where it gives me the basic fundamentals for each style of beer. I yet to have found a good source! I'm very confused about the whole "craft" part but I want to get into it. Any advice from any one?

 

[MrHopScotch]

A great place to start would be Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. For each style he goes over the defining characteristics and ingredients as well as actually providing some actual details of commercial and successful homebrew recipes using which ingredients and in what proportions. I find these to be a fantastic place to start experimenting with a particular style.

 

[giantmetfan]

Thank you! I really appreciate it!

 

[RM-MN]

I think that this is an even better place to start than Designing Great Beers. Look up a style, choose a recipe, modify it a bit if you want and the new recipe is yours. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=82

 

[beergolf]

I agree with RM- MN. Look at the recipe database and you will notice a lot of similarities between recipies of a certain style.

Brew a few to get a good feel of what they taste like and then you can make up your own.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Designing Great Beers will help you figure out the "why" for recipe creation, and if you want to design your own it's absolutely indispensable. I'd also suggest Brewing Classic Styles, which while primarily an extract recipe book, does have all-grain variants for every beer, as well as style fundamentals, and even if you don't brew a given recipe as is, when you're going for a new style it's a good check to make sure you're in the ballpark for the style.

 

[MrHopScotch]

Designing Great Beers will help you figure out the "why" for recipe creation, and if you want to design your own it's absolutely indispensable. I'd also suggest Brewing Classic Styles, which while primarily an extract recipe book, does have all-grain variants for every beer, as well as style fundamentals, and even if you don't brew a given recipe as is, when you're going for a new style it's a good check to make sure you're in the ballpark for the style.

Well said. I was having trouble articulating that myself.

 

[NTexBrewer]

What type of All-Grain brewing are you planning to do? Brew in a Bag (BIAB) or Mash Tun? This will help people point you in the right direction to websites or books etc.

Are you close to a Homebrew Store. Lots of homebrew stores do brewing demonstrations which can be helpful. Also, check your area for clubs. They may also have a brew day.

Brewing software is very helpful for developing recipes and also to store information about your brew day which will help you develop better recipes and make your brewing more efficient. The software also saves data that is unique to your brewing system like boil off rate, trub lose, efficiency, etc. This is important so you can take a known recipe and fine tune it to work best for your setup.