I'm probably not "typical"........ There really is no question about that ;-)........... I get a bit more of this and a bit more of that than I need, and sometimes buy something on a whim with no idea what I'm going to do with it. Eventually I have to brew a "left over" beer, and I sit down in front of Brewer's Friend, as well as googling what I have to see how to use it. With bit of extra 2 row on hand for the backbone of the brew, I'll put a few other things in with it, and use that extra packet of hops........ The Mosaic I ordered with my last order on a whim, because I'd heard good things about it for example.
I'm not good at following recipes........ but none of the all grain brews I've made yet are dumpers!
Recently I screwed up and put the wrong bag of grain in my brew bag..... Oops! I had RedX and 2 row, and mashed straight two row instead of RedX. They look the same in the bag..........But they don't look at all alike after mashing. I had some Carapils and some Crystal 60 in my left over collection, and some left over Fuggles and Magnum. I simply tossed the Carapils and CR60 in a steeping bag and put them in the boil, put a bit of magnum in for bittering, and tossed the Fuggles in later. The resulting brew APA Fuggles is quite good, and wouldn't have been brewed without my having made a mistake and also having left overs around.
In another case I was dying to brew something.......anything, but hadn't been to the LHBS for quite a while. All I had was 2.25 lbs of 2 row, as well as some Northern Brewer and East Kent Goldings............. Searching the cupboards, I found some rice and some honey. I cooked up the small amount of rice, and mashed with the two row, and added honey to bring the OG up to suitable level during the boil. It made a nice 2.5 gallon batch of a very light colored beer........not light on ABV. The combination with NB and Goldings resulted in a nice pilsner tasting beer..... as if I had used Saaz.
I personally would rather create something than follow a recipe. But you've got to have some sort of plan and not step too far off the beaten path. The mistakes all have already been made........no sense repeating them!
H.W.
