How to follow these recipes
Beer recipes come with their own code, one of gravities, yields, times, weights and percentages. Once you understand how they correspond to what you actually have to do at home, they’re simple (and you can start writing your own!).
All beer recipes are created with efficiencies and equipment in mind – the same ingredients could lead to different results on different sets. So consider your first brew a test. Keep records. Equipment is just as important as ingredients, as is taking accurate measurements, hitting targets, experimenting, practising and consistency. The recipes in this book were created by pro brewers; if you can’t recreate a particular mash schedule or fermentation profile, adapt, but keep the principles intact!
When laid out in steps, homebrewing seems simple enough. But delve a bit deeper into the science and it can become a bewildering mass of figures, percentages, weights and measures. Like most hobbies, you can get as geeky as you like. Don’t be alarmed: dive in, figuratively speaking, and before long a beautiful calm will descend over your brewing. The relationships between ingredients and their properties will be revealed. Efficiency and consistency will move within reach. Your equipment will become an extension of you and you’ll be at one with the malt, hops and yeast.
Or, at least, you’ll get the hang of it. Either way, great beer is the result. There are good homebrew calculators online and in app form, but to get to grips with the science underpinning the art will lead to better beer. You only need a basic understanding of maths to brew, and if you don’t have that, are you sure you’re even old enough to be drinking beer?
ABV target
Alcohol by volume. This is a pretty vital figure – will you end up with a breakfast beer, or one you need to clear space in your diary to drink? ABV is a target, not a guaranteed figure, though. To calculate it, you’ll need OG and FG readings (see here), which are also targets. A simple homebrew formula is:
ABV = (OG–FG) × 131.25
Use specific gravities with a point (ie 1.054). The relationship between gravity and ABV is not linear, so this formula is never going to be completely spot-on, especially at higher ABVs. Use software or an online calculator for increased accuracy.
Yield
All the recipes in this book are to a homebrew batch size of 20L/5 gall. That’s the amount you’re aiming to get into the fermenter, although even after that, some liquid may be absorbed by yeast, dry hopping, dead space etc. Water, malt, hops and yeast can be scaled up or down effectively to make more or less beer, should you want to. The yield figure is also a target – if it’s higher or lower, your gravity and ABV might be awry.
OG and FG targets (original gravity and final gravity)
The two most significant targets in a homebrew recipe are original and final gravity. Not only do they allow us to calculate ABV, but they’re an indication of how efficient a brew was, and also, the FG will tell us when fermentation is finished. When brewers talk of ‘brewhouse efficiency’, they’re referring to the ability to which their system can extract potential fermentable sugars of the grains from start to finish. Due to differing ingredients, efficiency can’t be considered uniform across brews. All the recipes in this book assume a 75% efficiency, which is not a bad target. As you become a better brewer you’ll want to take efficiencies into account and measure your own. A good software like Beersmith is invaluable.
Grain
All recipes in this book suggest grain weights as well as percentages. Basically, if you don’t want to concern yourself too much yet with efficiencies, use the weights; if you have a clear idea of how your equipment performs and what efficiency you can hit, use the ratios and the results will be more accurate.
Mash
Mashing is, simply put, grain plus water. Mash water is split into two volumes – strike water and sparge water – and you’ll have to know how much to use of each. To calculate strike water we firstly calculate mash thickness, ie the ratio of water to grain. A standard ratio is 2.6L of water to 1kg of grist (1.25 quarts to 1lb). To then calculate the sparge water, we have to allow for losses to, among other things, grain absorption, trub absorption (see here), hops absorption (boil and dry), all vessel dead space and boil evaporation. You’ll only really know how much your system is likely to lose after a bit of trial and error. (Boiling water for an hour in your kettle, volume measured before and after, will reveal your evaporation rate.) You can assume that 1kg of malt holds on to 1L of water (roughly 1lb/1 pint). So to work out total liquor, add lost volume on to target yield; to get the sparging volume, simply subtract the mash volume from this total. As a guideline, you’ll probably need to be putting around an extra 7L/1.5 gall above final yield into the boil kettle.
Hops
Some breweries in this book specify alpha acid percentages in their recipes. Alpha acids are compounds extracted from hops in the boil which provide bitterness in beer. Bitterness is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBUs). AA and IBU are related: more AA leads to higher IBU; a greater weight of hops or a longer boil time also leads to a higher IBU. Alpha acids in hop varieties vary from crop to crop, so to achieve exact IBUs, hop weights will need to be adjusted.
If you need to adjust a hop weight to your own packet AA%, get your calculator out. Here’s a formula:
Original AA% × original hop weight / AA% of new hop = weight of new hop
And as with grain, you might not always be able to get the hop variety specified in a recipe, especially in times of agricultural shortage. Alternatives abound.
Yeast
Many breweries use a house strain: the recipes here suggest commercial strains and, again, you can find substitutes in case of unavailability. Choose something similar.
Fermentation
Stick to this temperature as closely as possible till FG is reached and fermentation has finished.
Carbonation
Introduce the correct weight of priming sugar to give the finished beer the correct amount of fizz. This varies according to temperature, volume and style of beer, so it’s always easiest to use an online calculator.