Modifying beer recipes

When I brew a batch of beer I sometimes start from scratch, formulating the recipe myself to achieve specific goals or to match an established style guideline. More often, I'll start with a recipe that has proven itself in the past, and I'll modify it to try to come closer to my vision of beer nirvana. Sometimes I'll make ingredient substitutions that I think better match up to competition criteria, other times I'll change the process or amounts of ingredients to tilt the flavor balance in a different way.

The recipes in this article are all good, solid recipes that performed well for myself or other brewers, but that I think can sometimes be modified to achieve different flavors or to strengthen their chances in homebrew competitions. For every recipe, I'll discuss these modifications and the reasons for making them. All of the recipes are drawn from the homebrew recipe book Homebrew Favorites, which Karl Lutzen and I compiled about three years ago and which is available through Storey Publishing.

Pale Ale

Since most brewers enjoy pale ales, let's start out by looking at a pale ale recipe. The following beer was brewed by David Nesbitt of Columbia, MD. Dave has been brewing for quite a long time and is currently president of the Chesapeake Real Ale Brewers homebrew club. I've tasted Dave's version -- which is quite good -- and have also brewed batches using his recipe as a basis, but with my own twists.

The hop varieties that he uses give the beer a nice English hop signature and make the beer a strong contender in competitions in the English pale ale (bitter) categories. I like his hop choices, and leave those alone. But I think his gravity might be a bit high for style. When I've brewed it, I've cut back on the malt, shooting for a starting gravity in the 1.040 to 1.047 range. I think this range is more appropriate for the style guidelines used in competitions, although Dave's starting gravity of 1.056 is closer to what most homebrewers like to drink. The recipe that appears below is Dave's recipe exactly. The way I brew it is to cut down the pale malt to 8 or 9 pounds. Of course this affects the hop utilization slightly, but I somehow manage to suffer through the slightly hoppier taste that I get.

Paladin Pale Ale
Recipe for 5 gallons

Fermentable materials 11 pounds 2-row pale malt
1 pound crystal malt
1/2 pound cara-pils malt
1/2 pound light brown sugar

Hops
2 ounces Fuggles hops, in boil 75 minutes
1 ounce Fuggles hops, in boil 30 minutes
3/4 ounce Kent Goldings, steep 5 minutes
3/4 ounce Kent Goldings, dry-hop in secondary

Yeast: Wyeast #1098 British ale yeast

Procedure Notes:
Mash at 156 degrees F for 75 minutes. Sparge with 170 degree F water, collecting about 6 gallons. Add brown sugar and 2 ounces of Fuggles. Boil 45 minutes and ad 1 ounce of Fuggles. Boil 30 minutes and turn off heat. Add 3/4 ounce of Kent Goldings and steep 5 minutes. Chill, aerate, and pitch yeast. Ferment 5 to 7 days at 65-68 degrees F. Rack to secondary fermenter, dry hop with 3/4 ounce Kent Goldings and let rest for 7-10 days. Prime with 3/4 cup corn sugar and bottle or keg as usual.

Barley Wine

Winter nights were made for barleywine. The heavy body, higher alcohol levels, and rich, complex malt profiles cry out for sipping by a fireplace. There are several barleywines in Homebrew Favorites, and I think the best is probably Robert Grossman's "Olde Kortholt", which won him a first place ribbon in the AHA National Homebrew Competition and third in the Dixie Cup. His recipe is just too good, and I can't bear adulterating his perfection, so I decided to pick a different recipe to work with: "Gnarlywine" by Steve Hannon of Muncie, IN. I thought Steve's recipe was a bit unbalanced with too much sweet, syrupy malt character and too little bitterness to balance it.

Gnarlywine
Recipe for 5 gallons

Fermentable materials
12 pounds 2-row pale malt
4 pounds Munich malt
2 pounds light crystal malt

Hops
1 ounce Chinook hops (13% alpha), boil 60 minutes
1-1/2 ounces Northern Brewer hops (8% alpha), boil 30 minutes Other Ingredients:
1 teaspoon gypsum
1 teaspoon Irish moss

Yeast: Wyeast American Ale yeast (1056), started ahead of time

Infusion mash at about 155 degrees F for one hour. Mash out at 170 and sparge to collect 7 gallons. Boil 30 minutes, then add Chinook hops. Boil 30 minutes, then add Northern Brewer hops and Irish moss. At end of boil, remove from heat and add Saaz. Chill to 65 degrees and pitch yeast. Ferment 5-7 days. Rack to secondary fermenter and ferment another 2 weeks. Prime and bottle using 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming as usual.

As I mentioned, I would boost the hopping to at least 2 ounces of Chinook in the boil, and more likely 3 ounces. High gravity beers can take quite a lot of hopping, and need it to balance their sweetness. Because my own tap water is already fairly hard, I would drop the gypsum altogether. In an effort to increase attenuation, I would also do multiple yeast additions with a strain that has fairly high attenuation. I do this to avoid the sticky syrupy body. I would also like complexity in the sweetness, so I will add a bit of brown sugar. The following recipe is my own modification to Steve Hannon's recipe, reflecting my own opinions as to how a barleywine should be done. I have changed the recipe from all-grain to extract as well.

Gnarlywine Too
Recipe for 5 gallons

Fermentable materials
4 packages Northwestern gold malt extract (13.2 pounds, total)
1-1/2 pounds Munich malt
1-1/2 pound medium crystal malt
1 pound dark brown sugar

Hops
2-1/2 ounces Chinook, Nugget, or other high-alpha hop (13%), boil 75 minutes
1-1/2 ounces Northern Brewer hops, 8% alpha, boil 30 minutes
1 ounce Cascade or Centennial hops, steep

Other Ingredients: 1 teaspoon Irish moss

Yeast: Yeast Lab A05 Irish ale yeast, in starter

Procedure Notes: Bring 6 gallons of water to steaming. Put the Munich and crystal malt in a grain bag and steep for 10-15 minutes. Stir in the extract and brown sugar and bring to boil. Add the bittering hops and boil for 75 minutes. In the last 30 minutes, add the Northern Brewer hops and Irish moss. At end of boil, remove from heat and add Cascades or similar American hop, and steep for 5-10 minutes. Force chill to 65 degrees F and move to fermenter. Aerate well and pitch yeast. Begin another starter. After fermenting for 3-4 days (when krausen drops), rack to a secondary fermenter and repitch yeast. Allow to ferment in the secondary for a week. A couple days before the end of the week, begin a third starter. Rack beer to another fermenter and repitch yeast. Allow to ferment another 2 weeks. Prime and bottle as usual. Age several months.

Raspberry Fruit Beer

Many homebrewers enjoy experimenting with different flavors to see which flavors work well in beer. The practice of adding spices dates back millennia, although fruit too can provide interesting flavor combinations in beer, even though its use is less widespread in brewing history. If we take our cue from the Belgian lambic brewers, then the fruits that best marry to the flavors in beer are probably raspberries and cherries. Certainly there are an awful lot of recipes using both fruits out there in homebrewers' log books! Many other fruits work well too, and homebrewers never feel confined to doing something exactly the same way as someone else.

The recipe below is a raspberry wheat beer called "Himmel Bier" that was brewed by Anthony Marx. I suspect that the small addition of chocolate and crystal malts gives him good malt complexity, and it probably marries quite well with the raspberries. I would suggest modifying this recipe to make the raspberries stand out a bit more. To do this, I would drop the specialty malts, switch the yeast to an American ale yeast, and increase the raspberries to 5 pounds. Take a look and see what you think.

Himmel Bier
Recipe for 5 gallons

Fermentable materials
6 pounds Northwestern weizen extract
1/8 pound chocolate malt
1/2 pound crystal malt
3/4 pound pale malt
4 pounds raspberries

Hops
1 ounce, Mt. Hood hops, in boil 60 minutes

Yeast: 1 package Wyeast Bavarian wheat yeast

Put grains in 6 quarts of water and heat to near simmering. Remove grains from water before boil. Add extract and bring to boil. Add hops. Boil 60 minutes. Add 3 gallons cold water to fermenter. Strain in wort. Add raspberries and mix. Pitch yeast and mix again. Ferment about 4 days, then rack to secondary fermenter. Prime and bottle after about 10 days.

Conclusion

While each of these recipes point out ways that modifications to a recipe can change a beers character, making it a unique recipe, they really represent only the tip of the iceberg. Myriad changes can be made to any given recipe, changing the character of the beer. While most of the changes that I've discussed here have been changes in ingredients, changes in process can also vitally affect the flavor of a beer. For example, using identical ingredient lists, but different mashing regimens, such as infusion mash and decoction mash, can produce dramatically different results. The possibilities are endless.

Mark Stevens, along with Karl Lutzen, is the author of two books about homebrewing: Homebrew Favorites and Brew Ware, both published by Storey Publications.