Recipes!

If brewing beer is like making soup, then what do beer recipes look like?

Many brewers tweak basic recipes and make them their own. They log their failures and successes in a variety of ways. 2006 Sam Adams Longshot American Homebrew contest winner Bruce Stott keeps his recipes in an Excel file. In addition to recording the ingredients he’s used, he also notes the brewing conditions, the temperature of the batch at various points, and more.

Recipes can be simple lists of the ingredients needed, with a few tips on how long to brew and at what temperature. Other recipes, like Bruce’s, make note of the brew’s gravity (alchohol content as measured with a hydrometer), and keep careful detail of each stage in the brewing process.

A typical, simple recipe can look like this: (taken from BeerRecipes.org)

Ingredients:

• 7 pounds, GWM pale malt
• 14 ounces, Carastan malt (36L) (Huge Baird)
• 1/2 ounce, chocolate malt
• 7–1/4 gallons water, treated with 1/2 ounce gypsum and pinch

OG: 1.051 in 5-1/2 gallons

Procedure:
Mash in with 8 quarts at 170F. for a target of 153-155. Conversion done in 30 minutes. Mash out at 168. Sparge with remaining supply liqour to collect 6–1/4 gallons. 90 minute boil. Chill and pitch yeast. Ferment at about 68F.

Rack to secondary after fermention dies down and dry hop with Cascade pellets and Kent Goldings. Let sit until fermentation completely done (e.g., pellet crud sinks)—about a week or two.

Prime and bottle or keg in the usual manner.

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There are a plethora of sites on the Internet that offer beer recipes. A good friend of mine swears by Cat’s Meow, a no-frills site that offers recipes categorized by beer type. It has been around since 1994, and boasts hundreds of recipes. The site has an index and a search function to find the recipe you’re looking for as quickly as possible. Cat’s Meow also has a converter, so brewers who don’t want to calculate the difference between a gallon and a liter can type their measurements into a form and the site will do the rest.

Upon closer inspection however, it looks like Cat’s Meow might not be updated anymore, or will be taken down soon. The site’s creator, Mark, recommends recipe-searchers to try Gambrinus’ Mug, a site very similar in presentation to Cat’s Meow. The difference is that users can now contribute their own recipes and grow the database that way.

BeerRecipes.org is a little more dressed up than the previous two sites, and offers recipes organized by beer type, as well. In addition to recipes, the site has a brew forum, links, and a mailing list for those brewers who want to be connected to the brewing world at-large.

There are many more sites offering beer, mead, lambic and even wine recipes on the Internet; all it takes is a simple search! It pays to do some research and to experiment with different recipes. Bruce Stott’s extremely organized record system has taught me that the best way to make a good beer the second time around is to keep good notes!

But most importantly, brewing beer is supposed to be fun!