Section 4 – Recipes, Experimenting, and Troubleshooting
Introduction
In this section, we learn how to design, improvise, experiment, and troubleshoot.
You may not realize it, but I am an engineer. I attempt to put boxes around things, given them definitions, and come up with reasons for why things didn't turn out right. They aren't excuses, they're explanations!
Good Brewing!
In this chapter I present several of the most popular beer styles and my basic recipes for them. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who cook by adding a pinch of this and a handful of that, so I rarely brew the same beer twice. Recipes are presented from an extract and specialty grain basis, with options for all-extract and all-grain.
In this chapter I attempt to convey how easy it is to develop your own recipe—it is just like making your own sandwich. I also present information on using brewing sugars, honey and toasting your own malts. The intent of the chapter is to encourage you to try new things and tweak the things you are currently doing, without going overboard and fermenting everything in sight.
Naturally, it follows that the final chapter is titled, Is My Beer Ruined? This is a frequent cry for help on the Internet brewing forums. In this chapter I will try to coach you through some of the most common problems by examining the symptoms and their possible causes. Hopefully this chapter will be very useful, but rarely needed. Right?
The original cover for the self-published How To Brew, 2001.