Is this recipe any good? Changes?

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sentfromspain

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Hi, my friends and I are beginners and we found this recipe:

In a stainless steel pot, soak 250 grams of yellow corn and 500 grams of barley in 10 liters of water (good spring water quality) for four hours.

Then add 15 grams of hops, and boil all of the ingredients for two hours. After this, let the mix cool down.

Add 15 grams of beer yeast (diluted), and cover the pot for 48 hours of fermentation.

After this, filter the liquid and bottle. Store the bottles in a cool place for 6 days before consuming.


Does this recipe sound right?

Are there any changes/suggestions that would make this experiment more successful?

We do not have expert beer equipment, but we know enough about the ingredients and the level of sterility that the pot/bottles need to give it a try.
 
If something is slightly wrong, we can offer suggestions for improving it.
If you are trying to design an airplane, and start with a recipe for sausage meat, would you really try to improve that recipe in the hope that it will somehow produce a flying machine, or would you throw it away and start from scratch?

-a.
 
ajf said:
If something is slightly wrong, we can offer suggestions for improving it.
If you are trying to design an airplane, and start with a recipe for sausage meat, would you really try to improve that recipe in the hope that it will somehow produce a flying machine, or would you throw it away and start from scratch?

-a.
Click to expand...

+5

monsterbrewma said:
Waiting for the April fools follow up....
Click to expand...
I think the fool is too big of a fool to post that it's really an April fool's post... Even if it is, it's in real bad taste... Below even BMC standards level bad taste. :eek:
 
What we wanted to try was a simple recipe. So telling me that "it's wrong, try again" doesn't tell me what is wrong with the ingredients, the quantities, the times, or the techniques. It is simply being unhelpful, while at the same time telling me to look somewhere else for a start. Might as well tell me to "bugger off."
 
sentfromspain said:
What we wanted to try was a simple recipe. So telling me that "it's wrong, try again" doesn't tell me what is wrong with the ingredients, the quantities, the times, or the techniques. It is simply being unhelpful, while at the same time telling me to look somewhere else for a start. Might as well tell me to "bugger off."
Click to expand...

1. At least read the information in the beginners section on HOW to brew..
2. Read the information on THIS site...
3. Pick up one of the recognized primer books on home brewing, read it cover to cover.
4. Use ingredients for making BEER, if you want to make a beer...
5. Use items recognized as being suitable fermenters.
6. KNOW what you're doing, don't just take stabs at it in the dark...

What you posted would be like walking up to a 5 star chef and asking him for advice on making Pop-Tarts, but only using cheap ingredients, that might be ok (but not in the amounts you are talking about) cooking them for three days, then wonder why they taste like burned ass... Or wondering why he comes at you with a rather large knife... :eek:
 
sentfromspain said:
What we wanted to try was a simple recipe. So telling me that "it's wrong, try again" doesn't tell me what is wrong with the ingredients, the quantities, the times, or the techniques. It is simply being unhelpful, while at the same time telling me to look somewhere else for a start. Might as well tell me to "bugger off."
Click to expand...

For easy, relatively quick, and very good beer, try one of the Brewer's Best kits: http://www.brewersbestkits.com/recipes.html

You can choose the kind of beer you would like to make, and they have very good easy instructions. They have them at local homebrew stores, or you can them online.
 
Yooper: thanks for the advice. I'll look into it.

Golddiggie: I was under the impression that this was the "Beginners Beer Brewing Forum," and while I do understand that there are certain guidelines you have to follow to make a beer, I do not believe that you have to study and memorize a series of books in order to make one. I was looking for a decent recipe that was easy to follow and would not be too difficult. One recipe I found had specific instructions, seemed simple enough, but apparently is incorrect. That's no reason to belittle me. Beer has been made for centuries by people who were following directions - many of these people did not have educations. If rednecks can make moonshine using pots and pans, I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to make a beer.
 
This was the response I got from a different forum:


In a stainless steel pot, soak 250 grams of yellow corn and 500 grams of barley in 10 liters of water (good spring water quality) for four hours.

Merely soaking it will do you little good, it would need to be mashed at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. I would not suggest doing this for more than 60 to 90 minutes maximum. Be aware that if you are using whole grain corn, it will be adding nothing to your beer. it would need to be pre cooked and flaked to help this recipe much.

Then add 15 grams of hops and 600 grams of brown sugar, and boil all of the ingredients for two hours. After this, let the mix cool down.

Bring the liquid to a full boil before adding either of these. A single hop addition will give you bitterness with little flavor or aroma. If you have more hops, add the original 15 grams, and add an additional 15 g after 30 minutes and another 15 g 25 minutes after that for a total boil time of 60 minutes. 2 hours is excessive and not needed.

Add 15 grams of beer yeast (diluted), and cover the pot for 48 hours of fermentation.

Be sure the beer is cool to room temp before adding that yeast. There is simply no way the beer will be fermented in 2 days. Let it sit for at least 2 weeks before bottling.

After this, filter the liquid and bottle. Store the bottles in a cool place for 6 days before consuming.

If you let it sit for 2 weeks, there will be no need to filter it at all. Siphon off the beer into a sanitized vessel and add 1 cup of sugar (assuming this is a 5 gallon batch, if not, adjust accordingly), stir well then transfer to sanitized bottles and cap them.

The inventor of this recipe either does not know much about brewing beer or the directions are from 1981. Modern techniques have superseded this "old school" method of brewing.

You are on the right track and I congratulate you on being suspicious of the quality of those instructions.

Let us know how it turns out.
 
ajf said:
If you are trying to design an airplane, and start with a recipe for sausage meat, would you really try to improve that recipe in the hope that it will somehow produce a flying machine, or would you throw it away and start from scratch?

-a.
Click to expand...

LMAO! :mug:
 
This looks more like a badly corrupted recipe for moonshine. Soaking corn in the spring or the crick for a few days is the first step in a lot of shine methods. Then you let the bag sit in the sun for a couple of days to let the corn sprout. Then you mash.

250g of corn and 250g of barley isn't going to get you very far either.
 
I say go for it. Give it a try.

But it seems odd that you are asking people to type out information that is already typed out in detail many times over. Do some reading then ask educated questions, you'll get along here better.
 
Alleydude said:
I say go for it. Give it a try.

But it seems odd that you are asking people to type out information that is already typed out in detail many times over. Do some reading then ask educated questions, you'll get along here better.
Click to expand...

Seriously, folks. We're in the "beginner's forum". If you need to keep telling people to go read, then please move on to the more advanced forums. I don't think it's fair to post reprimands. A link to more information is great, but if I would have been treated that way as a beginner, I would have left right away.

Remember, there isn't any need to reply if you feel that you can't give good helpful input- there are 70,000 others who can help out.!
 
sentfromspain said:
Any improvements on this?
Click to expand...

My suggestion is to forget the recipe to begin with. It's simply bad. It very well may produce alcohol, but it won't be beer and it won't be good!

There are some very simple and easy extract recipes for beer. You can start with a minimum of ingredients, and make good beer. You'll need some sanitizing chemicals (that's crucial) and some siphoning gear. I like to use an "ale pail", a big bucket with a lid and a hole for an airlock, that I got at a homebrew store. A couple of other "musts" include a hydrometer, and a decent thermometer.

You can make a really good beer with one of those "brewer's best" kits, or another kit, and a few items that I mentioned.
 
Yooper said:
Seriously, folks. We're in the "beginner's forum". If you need to keep telling people to go read, then please move on to the more advanced forums. I don't think it's fair to post reprimands. A link to more information is great, but if I would have been treated that way as a beginner, I would have left right away.

Remember, there isn't any need to reply if you feel that you can't give good helpful input- there are 70,000 others who can help out.!
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. I am a newbie myself, but it's obvious that the OP hasn't even taken the time to look at even the most basic of recipes. I've seen a lot of beginners on here, myself included, asking what are probably simple and redundant questions, and have been received with warm and informative answers and help. But the questions that were asked (at least in my opinion) had some knowledge base behind them and and just needed to be guided in the right direction to make the best choices.

The OP had a recipe that was not really a beer recipe, might as well be a recipe for Tallhouse Cookies, and is asking WHY it won't make beer. A quick look at any simple beer recipe will certainly clear up the questions, and as I posted before, that info is already on here many times over.

He might as well have made a post "Teach me how to make beer". Would we have been rude to tell him to do some reading first?
 
Alleydude said:
He might as well have made a post "Teach me how to make beer". Would we have been rude to tell him to do some reading first?
Click to expand...

I agree. I understand saying "go read" is hardly constructive. However, it seems to me that with even a basic knowledge or minimal research of brewing beer, you would know that this recipe is some sort of prison rotgut and process does not line up anything I can find (read garbage).

The op claimed to know enough about ingrediants and sanitation to give it a try. I googled "How to brew a basic beer" and found the first link http://eartheasy.com/eat_homebrew.htm with a recipe that recommends malt extract (hopped or unhopped, light, dark or stout), yeast and water. Already, this very fundamental recipe found along with basic brewing instructions, would show to me that the OP has done little to no research whatsoever on what is involved in beer recipes and brewing processes. If you type in "How to brew" on google, the first link is John Palmers free book online, which as we all know is a very good go-to source, especially for starting out. To further make my point, I typed in "beginner beer recipe" and found this website http://allrecipes.com//HowTo/beer-brewing-for-beginners/Detail.aspx. Again, the recommended process and ingredients far surpasses the ops instructions and recipe.

Honestly, research is pretty important. I've seen none done in this scenario.
 
Sorry i thought i was in the how to make tacos forum.Ill be on my way now.
 
If I wrote in this forum it is because I had doubts about the recipe. It was the simplest recipe we found, and having no experience in making beer we couldn't possibly know that it wasn't right. There are other beer recipes and obviously I had googled them before, but you have to agree that making a stout is not the same as making a lager. So when we were looking at recipes that had varying levels of difficulty, we decided to go with the simplest.

Just because we chose a recipe based on its simplicity, and that recipe is wrong, doesn't mean we haven't looked at any material. And being told that the recipe is garbage doesn't help me see what's wrong with it so that I can figure out what to really look for.

I wasn't asking "teach me how to make beer," I was asking whether the recipe would really work, and if not, what was erroneous and if there was a proper recipe based on those materials. A person from a different forum did just that without criticizing me for writing a post in a beginner's forum. All that I got here is a "don't waste my time" response, which completely defeats the purpose behind having a forum.

When somebody asks for an opinion from people with more experience, that person needs to be pointed in the right direction. Yooper has been the only person to do that, and this thread already has 3 pages of commentaries. I would recommend being a little more patient.
 
If I wrote in this forum it is because I had doubts about the recipe. It was the simplest recipe we found, and having no experience in making beer we couldn't possibly know that it wasn't right. There are other beer recipes and obviously I had googled them before, but you have to agree that making a stout is not the same as making a lager. So when we were looking at recipes that had varying levels of difficulty, we decided to go with the simplest.

Just because we chose a recipe based on its simplicity, and that recipe is wrong, doesn't mean we haven't looked at any material. And being told that the recipe is garbage doesn't help me see what's wrong with it so that I can figure out what to really look for.

I wasn't asking "teach me how to make beer," I was asking whether the recipe would really work, and if not, what was erroneous and if there was a proper recipe based on those materials. A person from a different forum did just that without criticizing me for writing a post in a beginner's forum. All that I got here is a "don't waste my time" response, which completely defeats the purpose behind having a forum.

When somebody asks for an opinion from people with more experience, that person needs to be pointed in the right direction. Yooper has been the only person to do that, and this thread already has 3 pages of commentaries. I would recommend being a little more patient.
 
And as far as I can tell, the only major difference in ingredients between this recipe and other simple ones is that the others use malt extract instead of grain barley (which would need to be germinated and mashed before the process begins).

As for the technique, the technique in the original recipe is faulty, and I feel that the other forum pointed out where it went wrong fairly well without being pompous about it.
 
Seriously sentfromspain just toss that recipe, there's way too much wrong with it to try to improve or correct. Like someone else suggested just get yourself a brewers best kit or a kit from Austin home brew supply or northern brewer. These kits are a great way to get into the hobby and they make some damn good beer - they're real simple to make with easy to follow instructions and there's lots of different types of beer styles to choose from. An even easier method would be a canned extract kit from coopers or muntons which will still make a decent beer. Do some reading in the beginners forum and get your learn on. Good luck :mug:
 
If you are just starting out brewing, the first step would be to check out a local home brew store, seems there are quite a few in your area.


[ame="http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=homebrew+store&fb=1&gl=us&sll=37.991834,-122.244873&sspn=0.225116,0.609055&rq=1&ev=zi&radius=19.9&split=1&filter=0&hq=homebrew+store&hnear=&ll=37.947988,-122.279205&spn=0.22525,0.609055&z=11"]http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=homebrew+store&fb=1&gl=us&sll=37.991834,-122.244873&sspn=0.225116,0.609055&rq=1&ev=zi&radius=19.9&split=1&filter=0&hq=homebrew+store&hnear=&ll=37.947988,-122.279205&spn=0.22525,0.609055&z=11[/ame]
 
Actually I am currently living in Spain, so I have to make do with what I can find at health and natural food stores. Though I will look at the kits and see if I can fix this situation a little.
 
The biggest problem with your question was the timing. I think many of us are suspicious of posts dated April 1. You probably would have gotten more helpful responses on any other day of the year.

I would go with Yooper's advice. Buy an extract kit from your local homebrew shop or from an on-line store. And read the first chapter of How to Brew.
 
To make beer, you need malt, and you need to follow certain procedures.
The "recipe" you posted contains no malt and would not make anything even remotely resembling beer.
If you want to make beer, I doubt you could get suitable ingredients from anywhere but a home brew shop. Even if you can get malt elsewhere, I doubt that it would be brewers malt, and brewers malt is what you need to make beer. If you don't have a home brew shop locally, you could try http://www.masmalta.com
They seem to have a number of kits.

-a.
 
Actually I have ground malt. I assumed that the recipe required malted barley, which would mean making a mash (which seems to be the first part of the recipe, though the times are off). If I only had the barley, in grain, I would have to germinate it first.
 
sentfromspain said:
When somebody asks for an opinion from people with more experience, that person needs to be pointed in the right direction. Yooper has been the only person to do that, and this thread already has 3 pages of commentaries. I would recommend being a little more patient.
Click to expand...

My post had 3 different examples of where to find relevent information regarding how to brew with no experience whatsoever, by typing fewer words than in your original post. They also included how and when to use your basic ingredients (malted barley or extract, yeast, hops and water).

If the information already provided isn't enough for you to find an answer, hopefully this is the kind of response your looking for. There are four main ingredients in beer, Malted Barley (or extract malt) for fermentable sugars and flavor, hops for bitterness, aroma and to balance the sweetness, water and yeast for converting sugar into alcohol. The recipe you listed sounds like it is a very cheap way to make an alcoholic beverage as it provides sugar, water and little else. However I would not say it would make beer per se and it will probably taste disgusting. The types of hops, types of sugar, process and yeast dictate the flavor of your final product.

Along with the websites and links already posted, finding a cheap ingredient kit would probably be ideal to make a drinkable beer and learn the process moreso than that recipe you found.
 
The recipe I posted had malted barley (though I only cited barley), sugar, water, hops, and yeast. What are you talking about
 

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