Creating your own recipe with beer engine

[verno]

I recently downloaded beer engine having now done about 6 AGs. I find myself with a bunch of grains and hops left over, but plenty to make a 23L batch. The question is how do I go about creating a balanced reciped using beer engine. What are the key things I need to look for?

I am aware I need to look at bitterness and gravity but how do I work out what grains should go with what or which hops work well together? Is there any advise as all my previous efforts are based off standard recipes?

All help or advise much obliged, there might be a wonder beer out there? I can list out the ingredients but I quite fancy having a punt myself. The bulk of my grain is maris otter.

Thanks
Verno

[lancsSteve]

There are three approaches I'd suggest: a based-on recipe, KISS or use-it-up-and-hope:

BASE ON A RECIPE:
Find a recipe that you like and that has a similar grain bill to what you have available start a process of substitution and try and maintain the OG and IBUs by tweaking things and substitution. Looking at hop and grain substitution charts may help e.g. http://www.byo.com/resources/hops and http://www.byo.com/resources/grains - by keeping the core stats the same you should achieve a balance of bitterness etc and with careful substitutions should hopeful ot end up with clashing flavours.

KISS:
Keep It Simple Stupid - keep it simple, the simplest hopping and grain bill you can e.g. one malt, maybe a little crystal and one hop and make a few smaller brew lengths and learn your ingredients through keeping it simple. Youc ould try and work out your favourite recipes and their stats such as strength and the all-important GU:BU ratio (Gravity Units to bittering Units e.g. a 'bitter' may be 1:1 so 1.048 and 48 IBUs or as low as 1:1/2 e.g. 1.050 and 25 IBUs) match it to a neutral yeast like nottingham or saf-05

Use It Up and Hope:
Just put it all in - all the grains and all the hops and see what comes out!

Some good other ideas that tend to work when starting out are:

Keep specialist grains low - especially dark grains as these become very dominant so limit any black or roasted malts to tiny percentages unless you want to make a style that uses a lot (e.g. a stout)
Dark beers cover up far more sins than pale beers
Keep hops in national/regional groups - e.g. use European or German hops or UK hops or American hops rather than mixing them up. While interesting things do happen with interesting hop mixes but as a start that's not bad guidance.
Avoid anything too strong/distinctive tasting (e.g. Bramling Cross hops) unless you want that effect.
Don't use more than guide amounts of any one grain - look at guide amounts on a site like malt miller with guide amounts of grain bills http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... t&catId=17 e.g. no more than 20% crystal malt.
Choose your yeast with some care - a neutral like Nottingham or Saf 05 will allow you to see what happened with these two elem,enmts, a more interesting/characterful liquid or slanted yeast will bring its own signature to the brew.

And most of all DON'T SWEAT IT - recipe formulation is fun and not as difficult as it may seem.

Some books that can really help with ideas and recipes are 'Designing Great Beers' by Ray Daniels and Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff.

[boingy]

By far the best way to guarantee decent results is to start from an existing recipe and tweak it to suit your grains. If you post your draft recipe on here you will get a few helpful suggestions, and probably a few sarcastic ones. Alternatively, post the list of ingredients you want to use and someone will be able to offer some ideas (and possibly a bit more "wit")

[WishboneBrewery]

Personally maybe use books and other peoples tried and tested recipes for ideas, add a few of these recipes to BeerEngine and see what Percentages of malts show up... (I find it easier to thing in % when playing with recipe ideas).

Think what Ingredients you've got, then start experimenting... then as Boingy says, post them up here and get some feedback.
Its a pretty forgiving process really.

[Dennis King]

A lot of the fun of brewing is the experimenting. Going back before the days of beer engines, even before the internet, it was always trial and error. Providing you don`t go to silly extremes you will normally get a decent beer and providing you keep records you can then work on those recipes with later beers. I made a "stock" beer several years ago, pale malt, crystal malt, goldings and fuggles nice and simple. Next brew was the same malt but swapped one of the hops for another and so on. Now on stock 32 varying the recipe, sometime slightly sometimes a bit more, ones I really like I will revisit. One in particular I have brewed the last 3 Christmas's`s by popular demand from the relatives.

[verno]

Thanks for all your help. I will work out exactly what I do have and have a play around. I will also post the list of ingredients this weekend when I have worked out exactly what they are.

[verno]

Ok, so here is my list of ingredients:

4500g Pale Malt
800g Crystal malt
900g Pale wheat malt
50g Vienna malt

100g Fuggles
100g Norther brewer
75g Cascade
55g Bobek
50g Amarillo
40g Centenial
80g Hallertauer hersbruck

Nottingham danstar yeast

On reading through GWs real ale book I have shortlisted a couple of recipes with some substitutions:

Caledonian Deuchars IPA - using bobek instead of Stryian Goldings
Fullers Discovery - using hallertauer hersbruck instead of liberty and saaz (not sure if this will work)
Youngs Special - using bobek or cascade instead of goldings

Does anyone have a view on that or on another good recipe using those ingredients? Maybe just pale malt, crystal malt, fuggles and then late hop with bobek?

[Spud395]

For me and I'm not that experienced, you've got a few good recipe's there depending on the style you want.
An English bitter, pale/crystal and fuggles maybe some bobek and fuggles late.
IPA, up the hops add some wheat for head and the vienna (50g wont add much of anything and could be added to any style)
American IPA similar to the above but using centenial/amillaro/cascade
Blonde ale, ditch the crystal and hop with HH and maybe a little bobek with the late HH

I'm sure others will have better ideas, but if I was you I'd crack out beer engine(or other software) and design a brew, just to see

[Dennis King]

Bobek instead of styians works well as they are styrians, used that substitution myself.

[verno]

I quite fancy the blonde ale as I haven't made one of those. I will ditch the crystal as you say, any ideas on ratio of pale malt to wheat? I will throw in the vienna as well. What sort of yeast should I use as I only have nottingham but could get hold of some yeast pretty easily.

Thanks
Verno

[Spud395]

A friend of mine makes a great Blonde ale using Nottingham fermented cool about 15C.

You could try something like this, although this is me playing with beer engine, not something I've tried

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 9 lbs. 14.6 oz 4500 grams 93.8%
Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC 0 lbs. 8.8 oz 250 grams 5.2%
Vienna Malt 7.5 EBC 0 lbs. 1.8 oz 50 grams 1%

Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 2.1 oz 60 grams 67.6%
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 20 mins 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 10 grams 6.4%
Bobek Whole 4.1 % 20 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 18%
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 10 grams 2.1%
Bobek Whole 4.1 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 5.9%

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.7% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.1 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 29 EBU
Colour: 8 EBC

Maybe add back in a small bit of crystal 100g or so if you want.

Again not something I've done and I dont know how you like your beer, but thats the way I design beers

I think that would produce an inoffencive easy drinking light beer that most lager drinkers would like.
Personally I'd like a bit more vienna/munich in there as well for a little more maltiness, but it would be beer.

[lancsSteve]

I'd go for an American Pale Ale heavy on the hop aroma and flavour:

APA
Style: American Pale Ale

Brew length: 23l
OG 1.048
FG 1.011
ABV 4.9%
IBUs 41
Balance 0.86

Grains:
4500g Pale Malt
100g Crystal malt
50g Vienna malt

Single Infusion Mash, 75 minutes @ 65c

Hops:
75g Cascade (assuming 6% AAU)
50g Amarillo (assuming 9.5% AAU)
40g Centennial (assuming 11.5% AAU)

Yeast
Danstar Nottingham Yeast

Boil: 60 minutes

First wort: = 22 IBUS
10g Amarillo
10g Cascade,
5g Centennial

10 minutes = 20 IBUs
20g Amarillo
20g Cascade
20g Centennial

0 minutes = 0IBUs
20g Amarillo
25g Cascade
15g Centennial

Leaves you 20g cascade for a future brew - or for dry hopping.

Put together in BrewPal - just an idea...!

[verno]

Steve and spud thanks for the recipe. I have just done a batch of Sierra Nevada pale ale which I guess is an American Pale Ale, as a result I might go for the blonde option, blondes do have the most fun after all

Out of interest what would the 100g of crystal do?

I prefer beers with a bit of body and maltier flavour but it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Thanks
Verno

[Spud395]

Crystal will add both body and maltiness.
See that's what I'm saying, only you know the way you like your beer.
Maybe it would benifit from more crystal.
My recipe was not ment as something to stick by, by any means.
It was just an example of what you could come up with in a few minutes using brewing software and the list of ingredients you have.

I use Beer Engine, it's a free download by the Graham Wheeler and hosted on this site somewhere now.
There are other versions of brewing software as well.
For me it's a great way to work out for yourself, what you like/what works.

Make up the brew whatever way seems right, get it into you and then decide, well next time I'll add a bit more of that or a different hop, whatever!

If you do end up making anything like that blonde, let me know how it turns out

[lancsSteve]

Hopefully the biggest benefit of this q&a will be to show recipe formulation is not some kind if complex or arcane art but a creative process where a fairly limited range of ingredients enable huge variety. Recipe perfection is a much more complex thing and more a journey than a destination but is make and enjoy any of the above ideas. Wild def recommend getting it reading some of the books mentioned previously

Crystal malt adds unforgettable sugar do increases manliness and body and mouthful but can become cloying, Munich or Vienna can add manliness without the same cloying sweetness. Good luck and hope this ibspires Ideas and variations of your own rather than adoption of ours