Read Online Modern Homebrew Recipes by Gordon Strong - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gordon Strong
Tags: Cooking, Technology & Engineering, Beverages, Food Science, Beer, CKB007000 Cooking / Beverages / Beer
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malt) or be more specific (e.g., Crisp Maris Otter). You have to make these detailed decisions immediately; you may wait until after the entire recipe is sketched out.
Once I have drafted an initial concept, I put it into a recipe program such as Beer Alchemy to validate the numbers and check the ingredient percentages. The review and revision process can be quite iterative, so it’s useful to have recipe software make sure the ingredients add up and to see the target parameters of the beer. When a recipe built using percentages is expressed in weights, I often perform a final rounding step so that the weights are easier to work with on brew day.
Balancing flavors for a style – While recipe formulation involves quite a bit of math, there is also an artistic element to designing a beer that must not be ignored. Unfortunately, this side of brewing is hard to explain and teach – how does someone learn to be creative? Many people want how-to instructions, but that’s not how humans learn creativity. To formulate unique, special recipes, you need to understand the ingredients, their flavor profiles, and how they change during the brewing process. You also need to understand what each contributes as part of a larger recipe. Finally, you need to understand how altering the balance of these components affects the overall impression of the finished product.
Learning ingredient profiles – I recommend tasting your ingredients at every stage in the brewing process to see how they change. Tastings steeped grains and hops can help you develop basic flavor and aroma familiarity, but there is no substitute for brewing, as the finished beer is much different than the basic ingredients. Brewing beers that feature single ingredients (such as single malt and single hop beers) allow you to vary and evaluate additional ingredients (such as specialty malts and yeast), which can be a very instructive exercise. Small batch brewing or homebrew club experiments can also help you gain an understanding of these flavors (with less work for yourself).
When thinking about the contributions from each ingredient, understand they can provide both flavor and aroma, but can also have other side effects such as changing the body, fermentability, appearance, and mouthfeel (like roasted grains adding tannins). Keep in mind that you must make tradeoffs when putting together a recipe; not every ingredient brings only positive contributions, and some may require additional work to compensate for their unwanted side effects.
Ingredient intensity – There is much to learn about how ingredients affect the final beer profile when used in different concentrations. There’s a big difference between using 2% crystal malt and 10% crystal malt, or using crystal 40 versus crystal 120, or between 10% crystal malt and 10% Munich malt. When experimenting, try to brew beers with different concentrations so you can understand the difference between a background flavor and a primary flavor. If someone offers you their homebrewed beer, quiz them about the recipe so you can use their experience as a learning opportunity as well.
As with cooking, I think it’s important to understand which ingredients have a strong flavor and will dominate the final profile if used too heavily. Biscuit malt, black malt, or the oft-abused peat-smoked malt for instance, can take over a beer as easily as pungent herbs like ginger, rosemary, or saffron can take over a food recipe.
Contributors to balance – I like to look beyond the numerical specifications for a beer, as I don’t think IBUs or gravity readings tell a full story. Yes, the ration of bitterness to the beer’s original gravity can tell you something about the balance, if the beers are generally of the same alcohol level and final gravity. But 50 IBUs will taste different in a 6% beer with a final gravity of 1.006 than in a 6% beer with a finalgravity of 1.024. Even in a beer with similar numerical specifications, other
Once I have drafted an initial concept, I put it into a recipe program such as Beer Alchemy to validate the numbers and check the ingredient percentages. The review and revision process can be quite iterative, so it’s useful to have recipe software make sure the ingredients add up and to see the target parameters of the beer. When a recipe built using percentages is expressed in weights, I often perform a final rounding step so that the weights are easier to work with on brew day.
Balancing flavors for a style – While recipe formulation involves quite a bit of math, there is also an artistic element to designing a beer that must not be ignored. Unfortunately, this side of brewing is hard to explain and teach – how does someone learn to be creative? Many people want how-to instructions, but that’s not how humans learn creativity. To formulate unique, special recipes, you need to understand the ingredients, their flavor profiles, and how they change during the brewing process. You also need to understand what each contributes as part of a larger recipe. Finally, you need to understand how altering the balance of these components affects the overall impression of the finished product.
Learning ingredient profiles – I recommend tasting your ingredients at every stage in the brewing process to see how they change. Tastings steeped grains and hops can help you develop basic flavor and aroma familiarity, but there is no substitute for brewing, as the finished beer is much different than the basic ingredients. Brewing beers that feature single ingredients (such as single malt and single hop beers) allow you to vary and evaluate additional ingredients (such as specialty malts and yeast), which can be a very instructive exercise. Small batch brewing or homebrew club experiments can also help you gain an understanding of these flavors (with less work for yourself).
When thinking about the contributions from each ingredient, understand they can provide both flavor and aroma, but can also have other side effects such as changing the body, fermentability, appearance, and mouthfeel (like roasted grains adding tannins). Keep in mind that you must make tradeoffs when putting together a recipe; not every ingredient brings only positive contributions, and some may require additional work to compensate for their unwanted side effects.
Ingredient intensity – There is much to learn about how ingredients affect the final beer profile when used in different concentrations. There’s a big difference between using 2% crystal malt and 10% crystal malt, or using crystal 40 versus crystal 120, or between 10% crystal malt and 10% Munich malt. When experimenting, try to brew beers with different concentrations so you can understand the difference between a background flavor and a primary flavor. If someone offers you their homebrewed beer, quiz them about the recipe so you can use their experience as a learning opportunity as well.
As with cooking, I think it’s important to understand which ingredients have a strong flavor and will dominate the final profile if used too heavily. Biscuit malt, black malt, or the oft-abused peat-smoked malt for instance, can take over a beer as easily as pungent herbs like ginger, rosemary, or saffron can take over a food recipe.
Contributors to balance – I like to look beyond the numerical specifications for a beer, as I don’t think IBUs or gravity readings tell a full story. Yes, the ration of bitterness to the beer’s original gravity can tell you something about the balance, if the beers are generally of the same alcohol level and final gravity. But 50 IBUs will taste different in a 6% beer with a final gravity of 1.006 than in a 6% beer with a finalgravity of 1.024. Even in a beer with similar numerical specifications, other
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