The savant brewing genius whose every batch and experiment turns out perfectly is a myth. Real brewers know just how hard it is to nail down a recipe, either to learn a new style, sweep a competition, clone a commercial favorite, or just hit the right balance for our own palates. This is the first of two articles about upping your brewing game. Here, we’ll cover adjusting your recipe and process to transform a decent beer in your arsenal into a solid 10. In the next article, we’ll take it to the next level, where you can reproduce that beer and prove it’s not a fluke.
The idea is to fine tune a recipe following a cycle of brew, assess, plan, and brew again. Process management calls this process “continual improvement,” and it works just as well for brewers as for industry. It requires an analytical mindset, but the discipline pays off twofold: In addition to improving the specific recipe, you build experience with ingredients and process that will make you an all-around better brewer.
Step 1: Brew
If you don’t already have an initial recipe, your starting point can come from a trusted book or fellow brewer, one of the great recipes from this website, or you can just make up one based on your knowledge of the target beer you want to make. Don’t get hung up on trying to get too close right out of the gate. The key is to take a shot and then, during the assessment stage, figure out what worked and what needs to change. Even if you’re starting with one of your own recipes, it’s worthwhile to go ahead and brew it as usual, so you can taste it with a fresh, attentive palate.
Step 2: Assess
First off, we’ll assume that your basic process is solid; there are other resources to address beers marred by typical off-flavors and sanitation problems. Instead, focus on identifying how the beer misses your target. If you’re aiming for a particular commercial beer or an official style, taste yours side-by-side with the “model” beer for comparison. Treat this step as if you were judging a competition: make good notes about the aroma, the appearance, the flavor, and the mouthfeel. Find specific elements that take your beer away from the ideal.
In the first pass through the cycle, it’s best to focus on the malt-hops balance, alcohol level, and body to build your foundation. Ask yourself whether the malt should be more roasty or have less caramel, whether the hops have too much of a resinous edge, whether the yeast is giving you the right mix of esters and spicy phenols, or whether the body is as light as you want it. You’re collecting the information you’ll need for the next step. In later iterations, as you get closer to your target, you can pay more attention to the special character of the ingredients.
Step 3: Plan
The planning stage can seem overwhelming, especially if you find a lot of differences in the assessment step. Address the biggest issues first, especially working on the disparities in the recipe foundation. Those may require adjusting the proportions of ingredients—such as the ratio of base malts to specialty malts, or process details—such as mash temperature, boil time, or fermentation temperature.
Once you get the baseline beer in the right ballpark, you should do some research. The BJCP Guidelines are useful for identifying specific ingredients that a given style of beer usually includes, as are the numerous style guides on beerandbrewing.com. The BJCP Study Guide is useful for learning more about the characteristics of specialty grains and hops varieties, as well as subtleties with water chemistry and wort production. Your investigation might provide the tip that a decoction mash will give you the melanoidin malt character you’re looking for or that Zythos hops might lend the right pineapple/tropical fruit balance to your beer.
Use this information to make your blueprint for the next time around. As you get closer to your goal, your changes will likely become more nuanced.
Step 4: Repeat
Now, it’s time to close the loop and implement the ideas you came up with in the planning phase. Hopefully, your next batch will be a better match, but don’t be discouraged if an idea doesn’t pan out. Each attempt is a learning experience, and the next cycle of tasting and adapting will build on that knowledge. Along the way, don’t forget to take plenty of notes on what you’ve tried and the details of your process changes. That will set you up for the next article about reproducing your success once you’ve achieved it.