I been doing AG for about 8 months and i have about 14 brews behind me.Out of the 14 I probably have 3 that i really like and the rest i might as well pour it down the drain. I have tried light beer which i love and i know u dont want to hear that, I like amber beer and bock beer. Im looking for a smooth , malty, med ABV, low IBU beer that was a great beer for YOU. PLESE SHARE WITH ME
Ouch, it sounds like you success rate is not very good, maybe we can do something about that. Generally, I would tell new folks to stick with ales and really British or American beers are probably the easiest to make from a technical standpoint. Since it sounds like you dislike hoppy stuff I would think that British beers would work better for you. Before we start getting into recipies I guess the first thing I would try to figure out is why so many of your attempts ended up poorly? Do you have problems with infections or maybe the beer has a solvent type flavor due to high temperature fermentation? Although British ales will tend to be more bitter than say Coors (or in your case maybe Dixie) in the grand scheme of things they really are not all that bitter, especially when compared to their American cousins.
When new people get into this hobby they tend to want to brew American pilsners because that is what they are used to (I know I did). The problem with beer like that is that lagers are more difficult to brew and light lagers are even harder because there is just nothing to hide screwups behind. British bitters and brown ales are easy drinking beers and probably the easiest to make. I have been brewing since probably the early 80’s and to this day my favorite style is still British bitters although I make all kinds of different beer. Name a few commerical beers you enjoy and maybe somebody on these forums can suggest a good recipe which also has a high chance of sucess for you. By the way, our host here sells many different all grain kits and you can view the kit contents, that should give you a place to start. Oh and have fun, this is a great hobby. 
+1 I started with a cream ale and the first 2 beers i opened i thought this is bitter to start but after the first case i had developed a taste for my brew, now i have a hard time drinking more then 2 BMC. I would look at what beers you like to drink (ie sam adams) and find clones of that beer. Cheers
:cheers:
Ok , here we go. I never meant it to come out like the beers i made came out poorly. What i said was i didnt like the taste at all and to my taste buds it was like crap. I went back to my brew book and got the list of what i brewed in the past. I have made 2 creme ale that I drank every once on tap. I made one belgium ale that i bottled and drank every bottle. i have tried 2 red ales 1 brown ale, amber bock,california common , and several different recipes i was given online by different people that had great success and all were to me not drinkable. My favorite beers are shiner bock, fosters, landshark,and coors banquet. I have all the equipment needed to ferment at any temp and any process. Equipment is definitley not my problem. I have never tried a bitter maybe cause the word bitter threw me off. I never had a failed batch cause of virus or contamination . All the brews that i mentioned above have came from NB. I have had a problem with grain particle getting in my boil, and it was quiet a bit. I wasnt compacting the bed enough. Im sure that was linked to some off flavors. So now u know what im aiming for as for as taste so hit me some recipes and ill give em a try.
I think you will like Ken Lenard’s recipes. I would start with the Bases Loaded Blonde, British Blonde, Cabana Lager, and Memory Lapse Pale Ale. His website is:
J
Well, if you have the equipment to do it I suggest just going ahead and making some lagers. If you got the right gear and don’t like other beer there is no real reason to keep making beers you’re not crazy about.
Lagering requires a lot more though so read up. Controlled fermentation at a lower temp. A crap ton of yeast so a yeast starter is a must. Time; you need to lager at a cold temp for months at a time before drinking. Cleanliness; there is less to a clean lager so there is less to hide mistakes. In general there’s just more too it but if you want to go that route I’d say look into it if you have a way to control fermentation temp and the cold lagering capabilities.
[quote=“inhousebrew”]Well, if you have the equipment to do it I suggest just going ahead and making some lagers. If you got the right gear and don’t like other beer there is no real reason to keep making beers you’re not crazy about.
Lagering requires a lot more though so read up. Controlled fermentation at a lower temp. A crap ton of yeast so a yeast starter is a must. Time; you need to lager at a cold temp for months at a time before drinking. Cleanliness; there is less to a clean lager so there is less to hide mistakes. In general there’s just more too it but if you want to go that route I’d say look into it if you have a way to control fermentation temp and the cold lagering capabilities.[/quote]
Thanks, im gonna definitley try Kens recipes. When u say crap load of yeast, Will safale 23 work? I know its a dry yeast but can a starter still or must be made.?
[quote=“shawn2974”][quote=“inhousebrew”]Well, if you have the equipment to do it I suggest just going ahead and making some lagers. If you got the right gear and don’t like other beer there is no real reason to keep making beers you’re not crazy about.
Lagering requires a lot more though so read up. Controlled fermentation at a lower temp. A crap ton of yeast so a yeast starter is a must. Time; you need to lager at a cold temp for months at a time before drinking. Cleanliness; there is less to a clean lager so there is less to hide mistakes. In general there’s just more too it but if you want to go that route I’d say look into it if you have a way to control fermentation temp and the cold lagering capabilities.[/quote]
Thanks, im gonna definitley try Kens recipes. When u say crap load of yeast, Will safale 23 work? I know its a dry yeast but can a starter still or must be made.?[/quote]
This is why I say to do some reading. This is a good website for calculating the right amount of yeast. You need more for a lager than an ale. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
[quote=“shawn2974”]When u say crap load of yeast, Will safale 23 work? I know its a dry yeast but can a starter still or must be made.?[/quote]Starters should never be made for dry yeast - just pitch another packet if you don’t have enough. Aeration/oxygenation of the wort with lagers is critical, too.
For a simple recipe that will let you test out your techniques and learn a bit about grain and hops, you can’t beat a SMaSH (single malt and single hop). Use a quality 2-row, mash in the mid 150s, and shoot for 1.040 - 1.050 on the OG and 30 - 40 IBUs with something like Columbus or Centennial or if you want it milder use Goldings or Perle, get half the IBUs from a 60-minute addition, the other half in the 5-20 minute range, and dryhop with an oz. If you want to use dry yeast, US-05 is good. I like WLP007 for a nice dry finish, too.
Well given the beers that the original poster enjoys are all very low in hops, I would think that 30-40 IBU’s would be considered way over the top by him. I guess my suggestion then would be to brew what essentially would be a cream ale and pay very close attention to brewing procedures. They are a bit harder to make well than say a brown ale but we all are after all slaves to our personal preferences. Once you can make a light, low bitter ale then you should for sure learn to do lagers. If you read any of the Great Jamil’s stuff you will quickly learn that brewing is all about fermentation control and everything that entails and yes, he is exactly correct. You will also find that if you surf Mr. Lenard’s site he stresses this as well because your lagers will absolutely suck until you learn to “love your yeast”.
A previous poster insinuated that your taste in beer will change as you get into this hobby more and he is also exactly correct. I remember back to the dark days when I thought the epitome of beer drinking was BMC type beers; very pale and not very bitter. Well, after 25+ years doing this hobby I start salivating like Pavlov’s dog at the thought of hops and I think drinking a well made brown porter is an erotic experience. The thing is, just because I wax poetic about German wheat bier with chunks of yeast swirling around in it doesn’t mean you should brew it if you don’t care for that style. After all, what the hell do I know?
[quote=“Barley Water”]Well given the beers that the original poster enjoys are all very low in hops, I would think that 30-40 IBU’s would be considered way over the top by him…A previous poster insinuated that your taste in beer will change as you get into this hobby more and he is also exactly correct.[/quote]Palate changing is what I was aiming for - 30-40 IBUs is a bare minimum for enjoyment so I was trying to get him started in the right direction!
The evolution of my palette and taste in beers happened so similarly its crazy.
I made a New Years resolution to try out homebrewing. I went into my LHBS and told the proprietor I didn’t like hoppy beers. She suggesteed a brewers best kit for an Imperial Blonde. 4 weeks later, it was AWESOME. Also, during the boil of my first beer, the hops smelled weird to me. It was a good weird though…an intiguing weird. The next beer I brewed was a DFH 60 minute clone as I wanted to explore hoppy beers. Then my palette never looked back. Now I like to think I can enjoy ANY BJCP style if it is well-made.
To the OP, i would suggest taking your previous batches to someone with a trained palette. Any BJCP judges you might know, or potentially a LHBS proprietor. They can tell you with some certainty whether you have process flaws (like acetaldehyde, fusels, etc.), or technical flaws which basically mean a beer is not ‘to style’, OR if there are no flaws at all and you simply don’t like this kind of beer! Sounds like it may be the third choice.
For me this hobby is about creating something I can’t get in the store, exactly the way I (I should say, “my tastebuds”) want it. Sometimes, not often, my tastebuds want a Miller Lite. On the off-chance that happens, I just buy a Miller Lite and don’t drive myself bats#!t crazy trying to make it.
Actually what I found changed my idea of good beer more than anything was falling in with a bad crowd. What the original poster should do is join a brewing club. That will do a couple of things for you; first, you will meet people with more experience you can learn from and two; they will feed you a different variety of beers which eventually will influence your idea of quality. It really is amazing, I remember several years ago thinking to myself “who would be interested in making sour beers?” Now I have a solera of the stuff going all the time plus a bunch of Saison which I dosed with Brett, go figure?
[quote=“shawn2974”][quote=“inhousebrew”]Well, if you have the equipment to do it I suggest just going ahead and making some lagers. If you got the right gear and don’t like other beer there is no real reason to keep making beers you’re not crazy about.
Lagering requires a lot more though so read up. Controlled fermentation at a lower temp. A crap ton of yeast so a yeast starter is a must. Time; you need to lager at a cold temp for months at a time before drinking. Cleanliness; there is less to a clean lager so there is less to hide mistakes. In general there’s just more too it but if you want to go that route I’d say look into it if you have a way to control fermentation temp and the cold lagering capabilities.[/quote]
Thanks, im gonna definitley try Kens recipes. When u say crap load of yeast, Will safale 23 work? I know its a dry yeast but can a starter still or must be made.?[/quote]
Get your hands 34/70. It’s a good lager yeast. Buy two packs for Ken’s lager recipe.
:cheers:
To pietro and barley water
I think u guys are very correct on the issue that the beer i have made was probably some good beer, i just dont like the taste because im so use to coors, bud ,miller and stuff like that. I absolutely love homebrewing and i see myself 20 years from now still brewing. The Thing is there is not a brew club within 80 miles of me. Thats why i depend on u guys for help. Im gonna try Ken Leonards recipes and start trying new things and see if i cant change my taste buds a little. I wish i did have a way for someone who homebrews to taste some of the batches ive made and give me some advice. I also make wine and i have to admit i make some kickass wine. Thanks guys for all the help. Im gonna try one of these recipes this weekend and ill keep u posted
Start one up and shepherd the uninformed through the valley of crappy beer!
Good luck this weekend and let us know how it comes out! Forums like this are great, but sometimes you just can’t know until someone else tastes your stuff. You can always drop a few bottles in the mail to go to a competition (google BJCP sanctioned competition for a list of upcoming comps.) You will get some solid feedback from trained judges (and in some cases, weak feedback from judges who don’t know what they’e talking about!)…or send one of us (a few of us) a few!
2 or 3 time a year there is a beer exchange here on the forum. You say you want to enter and someone draws your name and you send them 2 or 3 bottles of your brew(s). Likewise, you get some from someone. For me it was great to taste a couple other home brews and to get feedback on mine.
I love this beer. I’ve brewed it with quik oats in it too, but I like it like this.
for 5.5 US gal at then end of boil.
5.5 lb Pilsner Malt
3.5 lb Wheat Malt
1 lb Vienna Malt
mash at 150*F for 60 min. @ 1.5 qts per lb.
90 min boil
75 min- 20 grams of Perle Hops or = to 15 IBU
20 min- 14 grams of Spalt Hops or = to 2.5 IBU
0 min- 14 grams of Spalt hops
Wyeast Belgian Ardennes 3522 or Wyeast Belgian Wheat 3942.
pitch in at 66 let rise to 74 hold until finished. leave in the carboy for 2 weeks in the low 60’s to drop most of the yeast out. Keg or bottle. I drink this right away after kegging. I’ve even put a 2 inch slice of vanilla bean in the fermenter after it was done. Let it go for a week or so before kegging.
