Recipe Formulation

This post is going to be all about formulating your own recipe.  Sure, there are plenty of recipes out there for you to brew, but there is a feeling of accomplishment when you brew a beer that is of your own making.  I think you gain a greater understanding of the process as well.

Before going through the steps, I need to point out that I use an iPad app for brewing called iBrewmaster.  This software allows you to create recipes and store them, track batches and share information.  The app also comes with a large database of existing recipes you can use and tweak.  The software is important to mention because I use it for refining the recipe initial estimates, which I will go over later.

Create a Recipe

Step 1: Determine the malts and hops that should be used

In this step, we want to determine which grains will be used and the percentage of each grain for the mash.  We also want to find which hop(s) to use and how long they should be boiled.

I like to leverage the work others have performed.  Some day I hope to be smart enough to immediately know which grains to use for a particular style, but right now I am not that smart. So I will go to our friend Google and perform a search for say "Northern England Brown Ale Recipe".  By the way, all the different style names can be found in the BJCP Style Guidelines.

Anyway, I will go through a dozen or so different existing recipes and keep track of the grains and hops used and their quantity (as a percentage of the total).  Reading the BJCP guidelines for the style will also help in determining the ingredients.  Once I have chosen the most popular grains and hops, I like to go read the grain descriptions and possibly modify the grain bill based on flavors I am looking for.

Once you know the style you are brewing, we can list our known parameters:

• Target Original Gravity: 46 gravity points
• Vfermenter: 6 gallons
• Brewhouse Efficiency: 70% (just use it, we will cover this in a later post)
• Recipe grains, percentages and maximum gravity points:

Grain	Percentage	Gravity Points
Maris Otter	66%	38
Crystal 60	13%	34
Brown	10%	32
Carapils	08%	33
Chocolate	03%	34

Step 2: Determine the amount of each grain needed

In order to find the amount of each grain, we must first calculate the total extract from the grains.  Total extract is calculated with the following equation:

Etotal = GU x V

GU: Gravity units
V:    Volume

The total extract remains constant in the wort.  So, for example Etotal prior to the wort being boiled is the same as Etotal after the boil.  We happen to know the gravity and the volume post-boil (our known parameters above).

Etotal = 46 x 6.0 = 276

Now that we know the total extract from the grains, we can calculate how much each grain contributes to this total extract amount by multiplying the total extract by the percentage of each grain:

• Maris Otter = 0.66 x 276 = 182.16
• Crystal 60 = 0.13 x 276 = 35.88
• Brown = 0.10 x 276 = 27.6
• Carapils = 0.08 x 276 = 22.08
• Chocolate = 0.03 x 276 = 8.28

With the extract provided by each grain, we can now calculate the amount of grain needed to achieve the extract amount.  This is calculated with the following equation:

Grain Amount = grain extract total / (brewhouse efficiency x grain gravity points)

• Maris Otter = 182.16/(0.7 x 38) = 6.8 lbs = 6 lbs 13 oz
• Crystal 60 = 35.88/(0.7 x 34) = 1.5 lbs = 1 lb 8 oz
• Brown = 27.6/(0.7 x 32) = 1.2 lbs = 1 lb 3 oz
• Carapils = 22.08/(0.7 x 33) = 1.0 lbs
• Chocolate = 8.28/(0.7 x 34) = 0.35 lbs = 0 lbs 5 oz

Step 3: Refine the results
It seems we should be done now that we have the grain amounts, but the values need further tweaking.  Also, we have done nothing with hops to this point.  For this, I use the iBrewmaster iPad app.  The grains, grain amounts, hops and hop amounts are input into the iBrewmaster app.  The target volume and boil time are also input.  One of the coolest features of this app is that I can now set the appropriate style for the beer (Northern England Brown Ale) and check all the parameters against this style:

• ABV
• IBU
• Original Gravity
• Final Gravity
• SRM

If the beer is outside the BJCP range for any of these values, the app will let you know.  Here is an example where all the ranges are good:

If I choose a different style - Dry Stout, for example - you can see that I am not within the proper ranges (yellow means you are close; red means you are way off):

Typically, I seem to run into issues with the SRM value and I end up lowering the amounts of the dark grains.  Here also is where I refine my hop amounts and/or hop varieties used.

So this final step is really just about tweaking values until I am within the proper ranges.  Of course, no one says that you must be in these ranges.  Go ahead and brew whatever you want and feel free to experiment.  But, if you plan on entering your beer into a competition, you probably want to stay within the proper style specifications.

The technique outlined in step 2 was taken from Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.