Where do your recipes come from?

[jmcnamara]

Curious to see what other people have to say.
Do you just go by kit instructions or recipes you've found elsewhere?
Do you tweak those existing recipes based on your knowledge / preference of ingredients?
Do you create one from scratch based on what you've read about a particular style or ingredient?

or is it somewhere in between or another option?

for me, i think it's typically the last one, but sometimes the second one. when i started brewing, i was perhaps more apt to follow a "tried and true" recipe, but that quickly fell by the wayside as i read and brewed more

 

[jeffpn]

I've brewed extract kits for 18 years. I've done my best to convert those kits to BIAB. Any listed steeping grains go right into my mash. And what I believe are the extract conversion grains, which may even be more of some of the steeping grains. Same yeast is a no brainer. Hops are a bit different. I like 6.5 gallons when my boil is done. That's what I find gets me 5 gallons packaged. Since I have a greater volume than the kit is designed for, my IBUs go down. I make up for that by turning a 5 minute hope into a 10 minute hop, etc.

 

[jmcnamara]

I've brewed extract kits for 18 years. I've done my best to convert those kits to BIAB. Any listed steeping grains go right into my mash. And what I believe are the extract conversion grains, which may even be more of some of the steeping grains. Same yeast is a no brainer. Hops are a bit different. I like 6.5 gallons when my boil is done. That's what I find gets me 5 gallons packaged. Since I have a greater volume than the kit is designed for, my IBUs go down. I make up for that by turning a 5 minute hope into a 10 minute hop, etc.

sounds like you lean towards the second option then?

 

[jeffpn]

They're only tweaked for conversion to all grain and higher volume. I would not have much confidence (or even desire) to develop my own grain bills and hop choices. Yeah, put me down for B.

 

[jmcnamara]

it's weird, thinking about other food related things, i wouldn't ever stray from a baking recipe (cookies, bread, etc.) since it seems so unforgiving for the final product.

but cooking? i'll stray all day long. there's a reason my chili "recipe" is essentially the receipt from the grocery store and whatever i have in the spice cabinet at the time. i don't follow rules very well

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

3 and 4, funny some times Ill start out with a recipe I found but change it so many times its not like its original at all

edit, I will say all of my recipes are designed around my system and ingredients I normally have here, most need to be changed for other systems

 

[Thurston Brewer]

For me it's a combination of tweak and scratch (sounds kinky, huh? ). Just like in cooking, I'll look up a number of recipes for what I'm after to get a sense of what's involved then go with what sounds good to me.

 

[newmanwell]

I consult the BJCP guidelines and build a recipe from there. Assuming that I'm looking to brew a style to the guidelines.

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Much like Ozarks , mine mostly started out as something different .

I do have some clone recipes that I can't change too much and some styles don't really give much fiddle room anyway

 

[Brew Cat]

Never did kits or extract. When I first starting I would tweak recipes that I found. Now I make most recipes from what I have on hand. Some times someone will say I liked such and such then ill look for a recipe and make it fit my system. After the first run I'll keep brewing it with changes to make it my own.

 

[LlewellynBrewHaus]

Most all mine come from style profiles, then I tinker with malts I have on hand or am looking to experiment with. For hops I look for ones with similar flavors/aromas or ones that oppose each other but are complementary

 

[jmcnamara]

interesting. while somewhere in my mind i guess i loosely approach it from a style guideline perspective, it's only mostly so i can see those little green checkmarks than an actual desire to stick within those guidelines

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

most all recipes I brew have all green, some times 1 off here and there

 

[Brew Cat]

most all recipes I brew have all green, some times 1 off here and there

I usually go a little outside the lines on bittering or abv but not always. Depends what I'm going for. Those bjcp guidelines are only for beer nerds who care about that . I make what I like to drink. I will say German style lagers are the only thing I try to stay in the lines for

 

[jmcnamara]

I usually go a little outside the lines on bittering or abv but not always. Depends what I'm going for. Those bjcp guidelines are only for beer nerds who care about that . I make what I like to drink. I will say German style lagers are the only thing I try to stay in the lines for

To your point, very rarely do I shoot for middle of the style for any particular stat

 

[oliver]

i get an idea of a style i want to brew, and then research different malts that will contribute to the flavor i want, same with hops and yeast. When i have my own recipe built, i go look at examples of beers i've drank, and then compare to see which way i could tweak it.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I do all three Macca I've been brewing a lot of brulosophers recipes lately as you've probably all seen sorry about the overload. As the malts in Aus aren't always available like that Briess honey malt your victory malt too I have to find a near substitute usually melanoidin I've used ( I know it ain't the same). And my last two brews were made from scratch but from inspiration of recipes I see here and elsewhere on line. I'm happy to brew a tried and tested beer from reputable source for sure as I don't have to do the tweeking.

 

[Thurston Brewer]

As I'm just getting started (again) I'm keen to stick close to a few styles and repeat until I feel I know them and can produce consistently. I don't want to experiment much yet - just hanging low on the learning curve.

 

[OkanaganMike]

When I started brewing I went straight to all-grain BIAB and bought 2 or 3 "beer in a bag kits" from my LHBS. These kits were derived from tried and true recipes from various forums. I brew how I cook. When I'm making something totally new to me, I'll go by the recipe verbatim but the next time I'll always add some "Mikey spice" and make it my own. I've been working on my own Nut Brown and starting on a winter seasonal and looking for a particular taste. For these I benchmark similar recipes and research them a bit to find what I think I'm looking for and tune it from there.
I've got a bunch of odd ball left over malts that will soon be going into some kind of Frankenbrew. Pretty excited to see how thats gonna turn out.

 

[Head First]

Sometimes 1 but very seldom leave a recipe alone so mostly 2 & 3.

That's why we do it at home. So you can brew what you like. Tweek it here and there to try and make it more to your liking. I do follow certain grain volumes to fit my system as I only have 10gal mash tuns so abv stays pretty much around 5 to 7% unless making a big10-14% seasonal with just first runnings.