Reddit reviews Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew
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Paperback book80 award winning recipesGreat reference for the home brewer
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Great-Beers-Ultimate-Brewing/dp/0937381500
Holy smokes! I almost didn't send my Dunkelweizen in, because I didn't think it was very good.
Here are all the details about the two winners, in case anyone is curious (I can also post this somewhere else, too):
Anyway, the recipes:
Walla Walla, Wallonia (Saison)
Fermentables:
Hops/Boil:
90 min mash at 147F
60 min boil
Yeast: Danstar Belle Saison
Water Profile: Bru'n Water Yellow Balanced
Der Onkel (Dunkelweizen)
Fermentables:
Hops/Boil:
60 min mash at 152F
60 min boil
Yeast: Safbrew WB-06
Water Profile: Bru'n Water Brown Full
If anyone has any questions, let me know. What a great competition!
Jimmy
Get yourself a copy of Brewing Classic Styles - it's full of tried and tested award winning beers.
I like Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff, provides some good baseline recipies to build upon and refer back to.
Brewing Classic Styles
or pick up a recipe kit. I like Austin Homebrew's kits.
I think a good way to go about crafting your own recipe is to learn a bit about what makes a particular beer style unique. There are tons of guidelines that differentiate one style of beer from another. It has a lot to do with the amount and types of malt that are used as well as the hops and yeast.
Books like Brewing Classic Styles give you a good "baseline" recipe for each beer style as well as what types of ingredients (and in what proportion) are used to create that style.
You can also use some online recipe database like Brewtoad. There are loads of recipes on there all labeled by style.
One thing that I like to do is pull up 3-4 recipes of a style that I'm shooting for and take a look at the average ratios of each type of malt and hops. Then, I kinda wing it from there based on qualities I want in my beer (higher/lower gravity, lighter/darker color, particular hop varieties, etc...)
The real answer to your question though, is to try a lot of pre-made recipes that work well. The American Homebrewer's Association has tons of great recipes, many of which have won awards. After brewing a lot and paying attention to the ingredients, you'll get a pretty good handle on things you like/dislike about different beer styles and recipes.
Brewing classic Styles has some great info and recipes.
I'm going to give a little balance to what /u/brock_lee said.
It is very easy to make good beer. It is really hard to make great beer. Doing a partial volume boil with extract and some steeping grains, using top-off water to chill it and then tossing in some dry yeast and setting it in a closet to ferment is how most of us start. Brewing that way produces good beer. The initial beer you make should make you happy.
Many of us however aren't happy with just good beer, we want to make great beer. Like the sauce example above, while making tomato sauce using paste is good enough for most people some people want to go above and beyond, selecting the right type of tomatoes, boiling them down and doing everything with more care and attention to detail.
So in the pursuit of great beer: we set up fermentation temperature control; grow our yeast with yeast starters; use RO water that we control the mineral additions to; switch over to an all-grain brewing method; put everything in to kegs to better control carbonation; use conical stainless steel fermenters; setup electronic brewery controls to better control variables during brewing; crushing our own grain to better control the sugar extraction during mashing. All of these things produce better beer so most of us still have that "one last upgrade" to make to the brewery before we are "done". So like many hobbies there is plenty of enjoyment out there for cheap and a deep dark well of effort, technique and polish out there if you decide to develop your hobby into a craft on a never ending journey for the perfect beer.
Oh, and for a great collection of recipes starting out I would recommend Brewing Classic Styles. A nice wide range of recipes that all have both extract and all-grain versions.
Check out the book "Brewing Classic Styles" to learn more about recipes and beer styles. Designing Great Beers is another helpful book.
In most cases, using a secondary vessel for fermentation isn't required and in fact increases your chances of infection or oxidizing your beer. You can read more in the wiki here.
On my bookshelf:
Hands down, the best "single" place for recipes is Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff
Well, you found a great spot here already! Also Brulosophy, John Palmer, American Homebrewers Association, Homebrew Talk Forums are all good starting points for websites.
For books, definitely How to Brew is recommended (there may be a newer edition out if I recall), followed by Brewing Classic Styles, Water, Yeast, and, of course, American Sour Beers written by a user on this form by the name of u/oldsock who also has a great site.
For now, work on the process of making beer. Take a look a little later on into something called Beer Smith as it will really help you with dialing recipes in.
Brewing Classic Styles
it will thoroughly explain to you how to brew a classic example of most styles of beer. all the way from grain/hop selection through fermentation temps.
How to Brew - John Palmer
Designing Great Beers - Ray Daniels
Brewing Classic Styles - Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer
Brew Like a Monk - Stan Hieronymus
Clone Brews - Tess and Mark Szamatulski
Yeast - Jamil Zainasheff and Chris White
Beer Captured - Tess and Mark Szamatulski
Radical Brewing - Randy Mosher
Brewer's Association Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery - Randy Mosher
My favorite extract kit is a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/sierra-madre-pale-ale-extract-kit.html
Also, the book Brewing Classic Styles has recipes for most styles you would care to brew, in both extract and all-grain options: http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew
Cannot recommend this book more! Includes excellent recipes and descriptions for all BJCP styles.
Yep, Designing Great Beers is the one you want. You might also find Brewing Classic Styles useful, since it'll give you a couple recipes per style with a write-up.
Brewing Classic Styles is very good. It has extract and All Grain recipes for every BJCP style, the style guidelines as well as giving a quick run down of how to tweak the recipes while staying in those guidelines. If you're looking to adhere to specific styles, this is a great place to start, but it is pretty set on the styles.
 
As /u/Mazku pointed out, John Palmer's How to Brew is the standard. If you are a science major, honestly I can't think of a better place to look. The link I provided is to the free edition Palmer offers and it isn't a trial, it's packed with in depth information. There are newer editions available for purchase, but free is for me.
check out the book Brewing Classic Styles. It has example recipes and a general rundown of all the different beer styles and sub-styles, how they should be characterized flavor/aroma/color-wise. And advice about what types of ingredients are appropriate for each style.
The standard ones: The Brewmaster's Bible by Stephen Snyder
How to brew by John Palmer
Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels
Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff & John Palmer
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian
Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus
Yeast by Jamil Zainasheff & Chris White
(= I own this book)
Brewing Classic Styles is awesome too, it has a ton of great example recipes.
Yeast. Highly recommended.
Brewing With Wheat. Great book, but you'll get the most out of it if you feel comfortable taking some basic parameters and building a recipe yourself.
Radical Brewing. Lots of weird stuff, but I thought it was surprisingly strong on the basics, too.
Brewing Classic Styles. Good resource for tried and true recipes. One or two recipes for each BJCP style might be either a strength or a weakness, depending on how varied your brewing interests are.
The classic go to's are How to brew and brewing classic styles, in my opinion.
I like brew like a monk because I'm a belgian freak.
How to Brew is pretty widely excepted as the must have piece of reading material. There is an online version, but it is pretty outdated. Definitely spend a few bucks and buy the most recent edition. It is totally worth it. Other than that I think Brewing Classic Styles is great to have around as well regardless of skill level.
Brewing Classic Styles has always been a great reference for me. The Belgian Pale Ale recipe is pretty solid.
I'll second Brewing Classic Styles. I use it as a starting reference for just about any style I brew. I then will make changes to his recipe based on what I want and info i've found primarily searching through homebrewtalk and r/homebrewing.
This is my full list of books from /r/homebrewing but it includes pro level books:
New Brewers:
Continued Learning:
Specialty/Advanced/Other:
Business Books:
Technical Readings (Textbooks might be expensive):
I would also recommend Brewing Classic Styles
Primarily from Brewing Classic Styles. Every recipe I have brewed from that book has been solid (so far). If I'm trying to brew a clone I will just google "<insert beer here> clone recipe" and typically find some thread on HBT, and judge it based on the forum feedback.
https://www.amazon.ca/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
Because everyone I have ever heard talk about it only says great things.
I gave this post to someone else asking a similar question:
How I started was an extract kit and simple brewing kit that included a couple of buckets, 5 gallon carboy, cleaning brushes and cleaning and sanitizing solutions. Plus some air locks and other stuff you need. It was like $75 or at most $100. Kinda like this kit but without the kettle and it had a glass carboy. That kit is better than the one I had but the same brand. I had a turkey frying kit my brother had bought me like six years earlier but I had never used so I used the kettle and propane burner for brewing instead. Worked pretty well for a while. I did like six or seven extract batches batches my first couple years. Then I moved to all grain and built a mash tun from an igloo drink cooler and using a stainless steel braided line like this but I made my braid into a circle to avoid crushing it with the weight of the grain. For two years after I moved to all grain I just brewed recipes from Brewing Classic Styles twice a month till I felt like I had my process down before messing with doing my own recipes or doing more difficult styles. Hope some of that helps you get a start.
Just look at More Beer, Adeventures in Homebrewing or some other online homebrew store if you don’t have a local store and buy any extract kit that is an IPA and follow the instructions.
Brewing Classic Styles is a great reference for basic recipes to match almost any style. I like to take those, then tweak them as I want for the flavors of characteristics I want.
If you're looking to really just replicate a style, you can't go wrong with a Jamil Zainasheff Recipe.
If you are looking to match to style frequently, I'd recommend buying his Classic Styles book. The guy is a genius when it comes to homebrewing, and is very particular about style guidelines.
I've been making some beers out of Brewing Classic Styles (https://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468538316&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=brewing+classic+styles) recently. I've found that I usually have to reduce the amount of grain slightly, since efficiency with the GF tends to be a little higher than whatever he's getting in that book.
I also second getting a copy of Beersmith or something similar like Brewer's Friend, which is what I use. Even for making someone else's recipe, they're really, really helpful for keeping notes on each brew day as well as what OG/FG to expect with a recipe on your system.
You may want to think about these two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Great-Beers-Ultimate-Brewing/dp/0937381500
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410207249&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=brewing+classic+styles
Brewing Classic Styles is also often recommended. Especially for an extract brewer converting to all grain, as the recipes are presented initially for extract or extract + steeping specialty grains and then every recipe has a section on what grains and amounts should replace the extracts for an all-grain brew. That gives you an empirical feeling for how grains and extracts relate.
If you can, talk to your local brew shop. Get a starter kit with an > 8 gallon brew pot if you can. Read How To Brew; and get a copy of Brewing Classic Styles, which I couldn't recommend highly enough.
And if you have any specific questions, post them in this sub!
Best advice is to take an existing recipe that is known to be a good example of the style and start there. This is why Brewing Classic Styles is such an ubiquitous book in most homebrewer's libraries. There are other sources too like the AHA Recipe Archive (although some are locked behind membership), Brewers Friend, or Beersmith. Starting with a good, known recipe helps you learn the style as well as the nuances of the brewing methods for it.
Second piece of advice: Avoid the kitchen sink problem. With big, bold beers like this it is soooo tempting to start adding "all the things" and then you end up with a muddled, murky thing. I've had a lot of Imperial Stouts that have this issue. Especially Xmas stouts with every single spice in the cabinet thrown in. (Not that any of my brews have ever had this problem, nope!) Just focus on learning the style and a couple of main flavors. I just brewed one yesterday that's targeting chocolate and cinnamon as "high points" with some minor other ingredients to play support (a pinch of vanilla for example to augment the chocolate).
Finally, don't be afraid to make less in either ABV or volume. When you have limited space (I'm in this boat as well) it's important to get rid of the "I must make 5 gallons!" mentality. Consider making a half batch at 8% ABV instead of trying to force a full batch at 12%. Big beers in a BIAB set up can be tricky to accomplish.
Have fun, be sure to post results! Cheers.
I'm fairly inexperienced as a homebrewer, but I can tell you where to find some good information. Most people seem to love Jamil Zainasheff's recipes. Here are some samples with links to his webcast and there are more in his book, Brewing Classic Styles, that he wrote with John Palmer, author of How to Brew (for the updated edition, you have to buy the book). How to Brew is the best book for starting out, imho, but there are some other great books, too, particularly if you move to an all grain setup and get more comfortable with brewing. There are also solid recipes in Zymurgy, the American Homebrewers Association magazine, and Brew Your Own is a pretty good magazine, too. HomeBrewTalk is a friendly, knowledgeable and active community and they're always up for sharing and helping out. There are a lot more websites out there, of course.
Anyway, I'm sure that some redditors have some good recipes to share.
If your LHBS doesn't have it, you can buy quantites of Pale Chocolate Malt down 1/2 pound at Midwest Supplies. Buy a bag and even if you use a couple ounces of it. It's cheap enough that if after a couple months of not using it, you can throw it away.
like /u/THATS_A_EGG said, Brewing Class Styles by Jamil Zainescheff is a great book that includes recipes for both extract and all-grain.
Either:
or
For this style of beer, Light DME is going to be Pilsner malt and Amber LME is going to be Munich malt.
Percentages of the total grain bill for each vary by brewer, but if you use a quick calculator like this you can figure out how much actual grain you need.
I don't know anything about melanoidin malt, but there is a quick explanation before this exbeeriment.
A legit Maarzen is going to be a lager yeast and actually lagered. But since its the last week of september and I'm assuming you want this in the next few weeks, I'd just use US-05.
Brewing Classic Styles recommends WLP820, W2206, or S-23.
Brewed a sweet stout from the Brewing Classic Styles book.
Tasted it prior to going into the fermenter, tastes pretty sweet already, nice coffee / chocolate notes. Hopefully it comes out well. Woke up this morning and found my carboy covered in krausen, quickly cleaned it up and got a blow-off tube inserted.
My plan is to take a gallon of it and try to make a coconut milk stout in a small secondary.
3- I really enjoy "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer. It's a great transition book for beginners who want to get their feet wet. They go through all the different types of beer, tell you about the styles, and then give you a recipe to make it. The recipes are all listed in extract, but they also give conversions for all grain if you decide to go down that road after you get a few more batches under your belt.
Extract, partial or allgrain?
Id recommend Jamil Z's Dubbel out of Brewing Classic Styles
I would always recommend people start with 'The Compleat Meadmaker, by Ken Schramm'. This has been the meadmaking bible for a very long time. You can find supplementary information about staggered nutrient additions, pH buffering compounds, new sanitizers, etc online in various articles and forum sites. Of course, understanding your ingredients can also be very good for any brewer, and water is a huge ingredient. So besides the other element series book 'Yeast' by Christ White and Jamil Zainasheff I highly recommend 'Water' by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski. For those of us making mead in Ferndale, our water is a very key ingredient which comes to us from an underground aquifer treated by the city of Ferndale, and is of very high quality (even compared with the high quality water from the City of Detroit). Understanding honey is a huge area of study. There are many classic textbooks on honey and honey-hunting by Eva Crane that are considered primary sources (but these can be prohibitively expensive for most mazers, and honestly, Ken's book does an awesome job of summarizing her contributions, as well as other historical information about meadmaking, honey, etc). I feel a basic understanding of beekeeping can be highly instructive for meadmakers, and so I recommend that you get your hands on some beginner beekeeping books, e.g. 'Beesentials' by L.J. Connor and Robert Muir and/or the 'Beekeeper's Handbook'. A solid background in wine or beer-making doesn't hurt, either, and there are multitudes of books I can recommend to you on the subject of beer specifically (this is my homebrewing background). My two absolute must-haves for beer brewing are 'Designing Great Beers' by Ray Daniels and 'Brewing Classic Styles' by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff. Learning to brew beer can help you if you decide you want to try your hand at braggots.
Meh... already done (2007) and done better
http://homebrewer2005.blogspot.com/2011/12/bcs-hop-flavor-wheel.html
http://beermeabeer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hop-wheel2-231x300.jpg
Page 20 if you've got Brewing Classic Styles: http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
https://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Great-Beers-Ultimate-Brewing/dp/0937381500/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=TKTBXHX5PXA5KM2XJRBT
How to brew is worth reading to learn good process, recipe is really not that important in the grand scheme of things that can (and usually do) go wrong with novice homebrewers: https://www.amazon.com/How-Brew-Everything-Great-Every/dp/1938469356/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=TKTBXHX5PXA5KM2XJRBT
I have found Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainashelf to be a really good resource for extract brewing recipes.
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417282851&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=extract+brewing+style
The recipes in it are for LME instead of DME but you can easily convert these quantities. (1 lb of LME = 0.8 lb of DME).
Look up "Brewing Classic Styles". I have that book, and almost every recipe is extract.
Brewing Classic Styles has "80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew" and they're all extract recipes, with all-grain options.
It really depends on what he already has. Is he doing extract brews? How large of a kettle does he have? And, as NeoMoose mentioned, there are tons of books that anyhomebrewer would love to have. Brewing Classic Styles is a great book that provides simple, but tasty recipes for each beer style. Radical Brewing provides more unusual recipes, as well as a bit of brewing history.
Another good one is Brewing Classic Styles. This is more of a recipe book, but they are "tried and true" recipes that make a good starting point for any beer.
I have a lot of books but I mostly refer to Palmer's How to Brew which has already been mentioned and the classic styles books. The other 2 I use when building recipes are:
Designing Great Beers
Brewing Classic Styles
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
You should check out the book "Brewing Classic Styles - 80 Award winning recipes" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer.
All the recipes are extract with an all grain option. I made the Blonde Ale from there to give to my friends, as that is an easy to like style for people not very familiar with craft beers. They all approved :)
Amazon Link
Here is the recipe for the Blonde Ale
I hate to say this, really I do because I don't want to be the guy who tells you to start on extract, but get yourself an equipment starter set from one of the big brewers supply places like Northern Brewer or Midwest and a kit beer for your first go round. Caribou Slobber and Dead Ringer are good Northern Brewer kits that anyone can make without fucking it up.
Now, go spend the rest of your investment money on a refractometer (measuring the SG of hot wort accurately is the shit, $25), a couple 5 gallon and 1 gallon paint strainer bags from Lowes/Home Depot (BIAB starter set, $2.48 and $3.98 depending on size at HD), and the book Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Z(fuck if I can spell his last name).
Once you've decided that; yes, you and your friend are going to be amazing brewmasters some day (I really miss the boundless optimism of my first few brews before I learned to taste the imperfections), read the book cover to cover. Pick out a style you enjoy, brew the next beer based on the recipe in the book (use the all grain recipe and use the strainer bags with Brew In A Bag techniques). Be amazed that you did this!
Next time, screw with the recipe from the book a bit and make it your own. Change the hops to something different. Use a different Specialty Malt. Use a different yeast... Little changes make huge differences so do one at a time.
Kiss your disposable income goodbye.
to piggy back this. You can steep the Crystal Malts, but not the 2-Row.
Just for reference I looked up this style in Brewing Classic Styles and they have the steeping grains as: 1/2lb Crystal 120, 3/4lb Crystal 40, and 1/2lb Victory 28. Again this is just a starting point and not meant to be gospel. It's your recipe and can experiment as you wish. That is the beauty of homebrewing. But your on point with having roughly two lbs of steeping grains.
American Wheat, American Pale Ale, Irish Red. Recipes from Brewing Classic Styles: https://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/ref=asc_df_0937381926_nodl/?tag=hyprod-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=266431122409&amp;hvpos=1o2&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=2665485936419906793&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=m&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=9007866&amp;hvtargid=pla-435593711721&amp;psc=1
How about home brewing. It may take you a few times to get the hang of it, but you can make some pretty awesome belgians if you take your time. There are a few really good books out there that will give you clone recipes so you can recreate your favorites without starting from scratch. Watch out...it's a rabbit hole :)
Clone Brews
http://www.amazon.com/CloneBrews-Homebrew-Recipes-Commercial-Beers/dp/1580170773
Brewing Classic Styles
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926
Belgian Ale
http://www.amazon.com/Belgian-Ale-Classic-Beer-Style/dp/0937381314/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344644397&amp;sr=1-6&amp;keywords=belgian+beer
Here's a recipe database. If you have an extra $16 after you buy equipment, this is a great buy.
+1 on reading howtobrew.com
This.
My take on this idea is to get a nice Alum pot online and maybe a bucket based homebrew kit then get this book
http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/
Pick out a recipe from that and either order ingredients or get them from a LHBS.
Soak and scrub with oxyclean (be sure its oxyclean free, no fragrances or additives) or use PBW (powdered brewers wash) and store bottles upside down in boxes to keep debris and nopes out. Then sanitize on bottling day before use.
I love "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil, plus it has some great basic recipes you can build off of.
Buy a copy of Brewing Classic Styles. I am also a fairly novice brewer - 10 batches in the past 6 months and it has helped me immensely. So far I haven't ventured into all grain, but all of my batches have been partial mashes with steeped specialty grains and extract. Will venture into all-grain soon - just don't have the equipment yet. All of these brews have turned out beyond my expectations.
These books are great resources:
Designing Great Beers
Brewing Classic Styles
I'm hoping that as time goes on, I'll get better at everything including malts . I have heard that bace malts dont add before, but its not believed by all.
So.. many of the extraxt brews in Brewing Classic Styles have a base extract plus 1 pound of Maris otter extract. Who has two types of Extract? So I asked my local brewing supply store about this, and one of the employees suggested to steep the grains.
I'm not going to suggest that it will do as much as an all grain brew, but I want to believe it does something.
Hey, that might be an example of a future show, thanks
Pick up brewing classic styles by Jamil.
Janet's brown ale is my favorite. It's hopped to IPA levels. You'll find the recipe in Brewing classic styles along with other brown recipes. This is an excellent book, can't recommend it enough.
Between the Caramunich and the Caramel60 that's a massive amount of caramel malts. I'd dial that down by at least half, probably more.
For comparison the milk stout in Brewing Classic Styles uses 0.75 pounds of crystal 80.
A few months ago I scored some WLP885 Zurich Yager Yeast that was generously given to me by /u/GirkinFirker. I decided to put it to good use and brew a maibock using a recipe from Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles book.
Recipe
I personally don't care to see this recipe. A honey ale by extremely amateur brewers... I think I'd rather have a recipe from an accomplished brewer.