Maybe I am just a dick...

[hunter_le five]

- 99% Perspiration 1% Beer
- Always brew your best.
- "Be sure to protect the beer from marauding squirrels"

I only had enough sweat for around ~40%, so I subbed the rest with the tears of my neighbor's children. I didn't have any beer handy, so I recycled some from last night (yeah yeah I know, pissing in the primary, rookie mistake).

The end result was salty as hell, and the sirens are getting louder.
I was so preoccupied with the squirrels that I completely forgot about cops.

Never making this recipe again, I think I'll stick with pruno. Once again Breezy has led me astray with his shoddy recipes.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I'll admit it does irritate me when I see someone blame a perfectly good recipe that they altered enough to ruin & I've been irritated by those who brew somebody else's recipe & either claim it as their own, or they change 1 minor thing & claim it's original. That being said, I also expect people to tinker with recipes. Sometimes they find something that turns out to be really good; sometimes not so much.

Whenever I tinker with a recipe, I make sure to brew the original 1st, that way I have a baseline to work from. I also make certain to give the recipe originator credit when & where it's due. Sometimes a recipe simply becomes so popular that the originator gets left behind. Ed Wort's apfelwein for example. It's been a long time since I've seen anybody refer to it as "Ed Wort's," now it's just "apfelwein," kind of how all facial tissue gets referred to as the brand name "Kleenex."

Brandon O's graff is a recipe I've experimented with quite a bit, sometimes so much that the only thing the same is the fact that it contains apple juice. Those recipes are mine, but they are all based on Brandon O's.

I think sometimes people just get excited about brewing something & they want to try all these different things, or they ask questions that we've all heard over & over: "Can I make a sweet, sparkling cider?" or "has anyone ever tried cinnamon in their brew?" They're likely new to brewing & as excited about it as a puppy is when you come home from work. About all we can do is point them in the right direction, make sure they know there is a search function, and recommend they brew the base recipe as is before they tinker with it. Some will listen, some will just do it their own way anyway.

That's my 2 cents worth. Regards, GF.

 

[jmendez29]

I disagree. It's not like going to a restaurant and asking a chef to alter a dish. It's like reading a cookbook and cooking a recipe in it to your own taste.

If I take the bagel recipe in The Bread Bible and add raisins, sunflower seeds, or poppy seeds, then I'm a bad guy for having never made them plain? Am I a bad guy because I've never used the egg wash?

Give me a break. You all remind me of my mother who freaked when I told her I used whole wheat and olive oil in my grandfather's waffle recipe instead of white wheat and shortening. I said, "Ma, you are freaking out over waffles you aren't eating."

And I do write my own beer recipes. I start with the flavor I want and work back to grains and hops. Then I look at styles and see what I'm near. Then I pick a yeast and begin refining the recipe. Sometimes I knock out a recipe in a weekend. Some linger in limbo for years before I think I have it right.

I still think you're focusing on the wrong point. Changing the recipe isn't bad, but blaming the original recipe when it turns out bad, after all the adjustments, is what is really at issue.

 

[MindenMan]

I earlier stated my Brown Porter was based on a Brown Porter of Jamil's. I do believe I was missing the point... Once again Yooper, you are spot on. It is MY recipe now. I LOVE Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter, and thought if anybody could nail a clone, it would be Jamil. ( No disrespect to anyone) I believe my recipe was modified due to lack of the proper ingredients, so I did my best to stay within the style guide with what I had on hand. In my restaurants, if somebody had to think on their feet, and the copy was better than the original version, it was known as a "Happy Accident" because, "...When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars..."

I guess I just dated myself. W/O looking, who can name the title of this song?

 

[MaxStout]

I earlier stated my Brown Porter was based on a Brown Porter of Jamil's. I do believe I was missing the point... Once again Yooper, you are spot on. It is MY recipe now. I LOVE Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter, and thought if anybody could nail a clone, it would be Jamil. ( No disrespect to anyone) I believe my recipe was modified due to lack of the proper ingredients, so I did my best to stay within the style guide with what I had on hand. In my restaurants, if somebody had to think on their feet, and the copy was better than the original version, it was known as a "Happy Accident" because, "...When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars..."

I guess I just dated myself. W/O looking, who can name the title of this song?

Aquarius - The 5th Dimension.

What did I win?

Seriously, I do the same. I try to stick with the proven recipe, but invariably, my LHBS will not have 1 or 2 of the ingredients, so I'll have to sub something close.