Designing your own recipe

Start with the style spec

Find the style you want to brew. Note its target ranges: OG, FG, ABV, IBU, SRM. These are the goalposts you’re aiming at.

Choose a malt bill

The two questions:

1. What base malt? Match to style: Maris Otter for British, Pilsner for Continental, Pale Ale for American.
2. What specialty additions? Style guidelines and historical examples will tell you. Crystal 60 at 5-10% for amber colour and body; chocolate or roast for dark beers; a touch of Munich for malt complexity.

Aim for 80-90% base malt in most styles. If you’re using more than ~15% specialty malt, you’re probably making something other than the style you set out to make.

Calculate quantities

For a 19 L batch at 70% mash efficiency:

Grain weight (kg) = (Target OG points × Batch volume L) ÷ (Yield ppg × Efficiency × 8.345)

Easier: use a brewing software calculator (BeerSmith, Brewfather, etc.). The math is tedious but mechanical.

Choose hops and schedule

• Bitter to style spec. Use a Tinseth IBU calculator to back into bittering hop weight given your target IBU.
• Flavour/aroma additions per style. A British bitter wants 15 g of EKG at flame-out; an IPA wants 200 g of Cascade across multiple late additions.
• Dry hop only for hop-forward styles. Skip dry-hop for British ales, lagers, Belgians.

Pick a yeast

See yeast selection. Match strain to style family.

Water adjustments

See water chemistry intro. For a first recipe, don’t over-engineer this — get the malt and hop bill right, then iterate on water once you have a baseline.

Brew, taste, iterate

The first batch of a new recipe is data, not destiny. Take notes:

• Was the FG higher or lower than target? Adjust mash temp next time.
• Was the bitterness too sharp or too soft? Adjust hop schedule or water sulphate.
• Was the malt character thin? Add 2-3% Munich or a touch more crystal.

Three iterations with a single recipe will teach you more about your equipment and palate than ten different recipes brewed once.