How Do You Design Beer Recipes (Poll)?

[BrewerinBR]

1. Decide the style --
2. Research the style, BA and BJCP Style Guidelines, books and online -- taste
beers in the style at brew pubs or other commercial or from members of brew
club.
3. Research style ingredients (see #2)
4. Formulate a recipe in my head
5. Enter the recipe into my custom spreadsheet.
6. Repeat 2 thru 5 until satisfied I have a firm idea
7. Brew - test - document
8. Tweak and repeat.

 

[normonster]

I'm surprised how many people refer to BJCP while concocting brews. I guess I do to some degree because it's built into beersmith but I don't let it influence what I'm after...ie color, ABV, etc.

 

[GreatLakesBrewer]

I use an Excel spreadsheet I created to calculate everything I would need on and before brew day that is adjusted for my system. But other than the mathematical formula I use my book collection coupled with input from the internet than adding my own little tweaks.

 

[BrewerinBR]

I'm surprised how many people refer to BJCP while concocting brews. I guess I do to some degree because it's built into beersmith but I don't let it influence what I'm after...ie color, ABV, etc.

Both BJCP and BA style guidelines are good places to start to provide insight and guidelines into what is considered "normal" for a particular style. They are just that guidelines and I use them to see what is "considered" to be normal. The ranges for OG/FG SRM and IBU are guides for volume of grain and water and hops based on my system. There are other sources that provide much greater detail, including my own eyes, nose and taste buds that give me more inspiration than guidelines or books ever will!

 

[catdaddy66]

I mostly see arch several recipes of a style and look for general ingredients and ratios. Then I piece together something as close as possible given my stores (either on hand or needed to be purchased) and plug it into Fermentation Log software to tweak it how I'd like it.

 

[Weezy]

1) Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels is a good start if you want to make a beer from scratch
2) Recipe database here on HBT is a good place to get ideas.

Designing Great Beers....+1

I use brewmate (it doesn't need a registry entry, it'll run from the cloud on any PC I use, work or home. Or frona thumb drive as well) and spreadsheets for equipment related stuff.

 

[drainbamage]

I'm surprised how many people refer to BJCP while concocting brews. I guess I do to some degree because it's built into beersmith but I don't let it influence what I'm after...ie color, ABV, etc.

Only the rough guidelines. I'm not going to freak out if my OG is a few points high/low, or if I use US-sourced grains in a Belgian-style ale.