Beer Recipes to Try
- Classic Beer Recipe
- Birubi Bitter
- Ulinga Lager
Notes on Beer Recipes
Some home brewers use recipes that have been passed on to them by
friends; recipes which are so bizarre and complicated that they resemble
witchcraft.
Occasionally, these recipes may produce good beers. More often, the
results are terrible, but somehow the home brewer becomes used to it and
professes to like it.
The recipes given here are simple and will produce good beers with a
clean taste that will suit most people. However, after making a few
brews you may wish to follow our previously described aim: to
experiment, and to formulate a beer to suit your own taste.
Unless you keep a record of what you have done, experimenting is
useless. It is a good practice to give each brew a number and to record
in a notebook the recipe that you used, where the ingredients came from,
and the date of bottling. This number can be written on the caps with a
felt marking pen.
Weighing and measuring must be accurate if the results of the
experiments are to mean anything. Your technique will have to be clean
and systematic so that the results will be repeatable.
With your experimenting, try to obtain an understanding of the effect
of each ingredient in the recipe and its contribution to the total
flavour. Change proportions in a basic recipe. Substitute different
ingredients; for instance dried malt for liquid malt. Try different
brands of ingredients from different sources. Remember though, do not
make too many changes at once or you will not know what effect each
change actually did have.
Try to visualise your aim. Then after some experimenting you should
be in a position to start formulating your own beer.
Keep the following in mind when brewing your own beer:
- Quantities: If more, or less, beer is required, the quantities
of the ingredients in each recipe may be increased or decreased
proportionately. But remember: You can experiment by changing the
proportions of the ingredients.
- Sugar: The type of sugar is not specified in each recipe. After
one or two brews your experimenting will determine this for you.
However, it is suggested that you commence with equal parts of white
and brown sugar. These proportions can be changed in later brews,
and perhaps some raw sugar may be introduced.
- Water hardeners: Half to one teaspoon of either plaster of Paris
or Epsom salt, or both, may be added to each recipe should a water
hardener be necessary.
- Colouring: One teaspoon or more of Parisian Essence or Caramel
colouring may be added to each recipe should you desire a beer
having a darker colour.
Notes on the recipes
- In the Basic Recipe, a bottom fermenting (lager) yeast can be
used. If so, then use either a closed carboy
fermenter, or cover the
top of your 'open' fermenter with sheet plastic.
- The recipes can be made in concentrated form. Use the same
quantities of ingredients but only 14l of water. After
fermentation, syphon the contents into 24 bottles, each containing 1
teaspoon of sugar and 170ml of water. Alternatively, syphon
the beer into a vessel containing 170ml of sugar dissolved in
4.5l of water, then syphon into the bottles.
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