5 votes
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How do you take ingredients from a brewer's website and make a recipe

It's impossible to look at a beers ingredient list and derive an exact recipe from it. You have to go through a process of trial and error, using any information you can get from the manufacturer ...
WaspWatcher's user avatar
5 votes
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Boosting a recipe for longer shelf life

'Do you think this will work with most recipes?' I think it will. The thing about intentionally stronger flavors is that they tend to mask other unwanted flavors that develop over time. Precisely why ...
Franklin P Combs's user avatar
5 votes

Doubling a mead recipe

Dry yeast packets are generally enough for 3-6 gallons. So with 1 gallon, about 1/4 of one pack is plenty for a commercial dried yeast such as Danstar Lallemand Nottingham Ale yeast. And you most ...
dmtaylor's user avatar
  • 3,417
4 votes

What ingredients contribute body to a cider?

Are you really looking for body when you say the flavor was empty? You may need a little acid blend in the final product to brighten the flavors. Cider as a beverage is normally pretty low on body. ...
brewchez's user avatar
  • 36.2k
4 votes

Boosting a recipe for longer shelf life

Adding to @FranklinPCombs's answer, if you have a CO2 canister, prefill your bottles with CO2 before filling them. That will guarantee that the head space contains no free oxygen and might buy you a ...
Henry Taylor's user avatar
4 votes

Red wine recipies

Recipe: Grape Juice Yeast Making wine is more about process than recipe. With the exception of quality ingredients. Standard table grapes don't really make decent wine. This becomes incredibly ...
brewchez's user avatar
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4 votes
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Reusing water from boiling corn cobs?

I wouldn't advise. Idk if the husk has tannins but I assume it does, because "corn hair" does. In any case boiling will extract tannins if the water isn't treated to be blow 6.0 pH. I'm sure if you ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
4 votes
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How is peanut butter flavor added to beer?

PB2 peanut powder is what a local brewery was using to make there peanut butter stout. It makes sense to use powdered VS regular, regular has a lot of fats and oils in it, that would be bad for ...
jsolarski's user avatar
  • 1,769
3 votes

Boosting a recipe for longer shelf life

The most important things for a beer to have a long shelf life is the quality of the beer to start with. Having a flawless beer will have nothing to hide and will age much better. One of the most ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
3 votes
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How to substitute liquid yeast in recipe

Ignore yeast in the recipe. If you can't get it, you can't get it. Look for dry yeast that meet what you need: Most yeast have "good for" style list. Choose one that's good for your style. Alcohol ...
Mołot's user avatar
  • 3,718
3 votes

How to increase sweetness without adding body?

You've covered most the bases so without going into too much "why" here are some suggestions. The Why The key to light body sweetness are simple sugars (monosaccharides) but these are the easiest for ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
3 votes
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Peaches in Cider

First off you are not crazy, adding fruit to alcoholic beverages is an age old process. You have a few options, you can add the peaches to the secondary, minus the syrup. If the peaches are straight ...
Mr_road's user avatar
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3 votes
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Potential Bitterness of Using 3 Pounds of Dark Grains

I don't really view the C120 or the Special B as being roasted malts that would contribute significant bitterness issues. So one pound of Roasted Barley seems spot on and not an issue as far as ...
brewchez's user avatar
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3 votes
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First brew - OK to substitute malt/hops, and how much water should I be boiling?

Your recipe look completely fine to me. Your malt bill looks OK. Your OG will be ever so slightly higher, and color may turn out very slightly darker but not enough to care about. "Finishing hops" ...
Mumble's user avatar
  • 318
3 votes

Adding Ingredients to an IPA Kit

In general, when it comes to modifying extract kits, you have a few options to make it better: 1. Add less water to increase flavor and alcohol content (ex: 20L instead of 23L) 2. Steep some ...
Philippe's user avatar
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3 votes
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Low ABV stout recipe

Scaling back just the base malts (fermentables) will lean a style to have more mouth feel body and make residual unfermentable sugars more noticeable without the alcohol to "cut" them down. These ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
3 votes

Formulating a recipe with birch sap

I've made birch sap wine before now and there was no real discernable difference between that and sugar-water wine. I have read that to make birch syrup you need to reduce 100:1. 1.005 in sugar ...
match's user avatar
  • 181
3 votes

saffron in home brewing - taste, aroma and colour

I once made a clone recipe of Dogfish Head's Midas Touch that called for a small saffron addition with about 15 minutes left in the boil. In that recipe in particular, the saffron replaced the ...
zeethreepio's user avatar
2 votes
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Where to put sugar during recipie editing on brewersfriend?

You'd want to do it as a late-addition fermentable. From the FAQ late addition entry: "Use this to exclude the fermentable from the estimated boil gravity used in the calculator." This means you'...
Franklin P Combs's user avatar
2 votes
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What are the best Android Apps for homebrewing

For BJCP Info, I use BJCP 2015 Beersmith (lite or full) is a good tool (but I tend to do everything on the PC, so I do not use the app that much). The app allows for recipe formulation, logs and ...
Atron Seige's user avatar
  • 2,466
2 votes

Help keeping Black IPA from becoming Imperial Stout

Current BJCP guidelines have Black IPA under Specialty IPA category. And it does have difference with American stout and porters defined: Not as roasty burnt as American stouts and porters, and ...
Mołot's user avatar
  • 3,718
2 votes

What ingredients contribute body to a cider?

You can make graff, or malted cider, as was already answered. Your other options are: Steep light crystal malt in juice to get sugars from it. Many (most?) are non fermentable. Especially malts like ...
Mołot's user avatar
  • 3,718
2 votes

What ingredients contribute body to a cider?

Malted Cider all the way. Basically brew a light beer wort to same gravity of juice then blend the juice and wort 50/50, ferment with a clean ale yeast like California Ale yeast. That's the gist of ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
2 votes
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Steep caramel malt in all grain brew?

Basically any roasted malt have little to no enzymes from the heat in processing the malt and have already had thier sugars converted internally from enzymes. Mashing them does nothing special for ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
2 votes
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Grape-like flavors in beer

Methyl Anthranilate is the compound that makes a grape flavor, it's found naturally in grapes and can be produced by some bacteria. Im not aware of any yeast that produce Methyl anthranilate. It's ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
2 votes

Big beer extract impact?

I would avoid option 3. You've already got plenty of Munich in the recipe, and it would likely alter the flavor too much. If you do go this way be sure to use your lightest Munich as the higher ...
BBS's user avatar
  • 933
2 votes

First brew - OK to substitute malt/hops, and how much water should I be boiling?

Basically you just have a 5.73% change. The difference in these malt types and weights. To scale your batch up so you use the 2.8kg of extract. Simply increase water and hop additions up 5.73%. ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
2 votes

Is taking the gravity reading of a commercial beer useful when trying to clone?

Obviously one place to look for any hints and tips are the various brew fora and recipe lists. Most commercial beers have a "guessed" list going on somewhere. The SG of the bottled beer (in most ...
barking.pete's user avatar
  • 5,631
2 votes

Is taking the gravity reading of a commercial beer useful when trying to clone?

In short yes, it helps With a SG reading from a hydrometer and a refractometer you can get the OG within 0.001 or so and obviously the FG, both are very useful in replicating an unknown recipe. ...
Evil Zymurgist's user avatar
2 votes
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Creating Brew Recipes

I'd suggest reading "Experimental Homebrew" by Denny Conn and Drew Beechum. It's all there. Another good source might be Brulosophy blog. There's nothing bad/boring at trying to create a "clone" btw. ...
Roman's user avatar
  • 1,498

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