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Make Your Best: Essentials of Recipe Design and Revision

  • Speaker: Dr. Josh Weikert
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2022
  • Pittsburgh

Establish basic guidelines for recipe design that considers both ingredients and process; Develop recipe formulation skills that incorporate new and atypical ingredients; Incorporate tasting feedback into a recursive process that keeps recipes fresh and improving


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The IBU Lie and Striving for More Accurate Predictions

  • Speaker: Sam Loader
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2021
  • Online

The History of International Bitterness Units (IBU's). The development of formulations to calculate IBU's past to present, their limitations, what this means for the homebrewer and is it possible to truly predict the final IBU of a beer?

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Brewing up a Non-Alcohol Beer

  • Speaker: Kara Taylor
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2020
  • Online

Non-alcohol beer has become an increasing trend in the beer market. Different techniques to remove alcohol exist with specialized equipment, but how can we achieve low alcohol through fermentation?


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More Smoked Beer! Using Oak-Smoked Wheat Malt for More Than Grätzer

  • Speaker: Larry Reuter
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2019
  • Providence, RI

Do you enjoy smoked beer? Have you tried smoked beer? In this session, you’ll try five different beers brewed with oak-smoked wheat malt. Sample a saison, an oaked English pale ale, an American barleywine, a doppelbock, and a peach Berliner weisse, all brewed with oak-smoked wheat malt. This malt is…

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Better Brewing Through Data Science and Machine Learning

  • Speaker: Justin Revelstoke
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2018
  • Portland, OR

Join Justin Revelstoke as we analyze hundreds of thousands of homebrew recipes and uncover hidden trends. Create, modify, and refine recipes with a live artificial intelligence (AI) brewing assistant and taste the results. Discuss the data science challenges inherent to the brewing industry as we explore the exciting new ways…

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Designing Beer

  • Speaker: Dr. Brad Smith
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2018
  • Portland, OR

This seminar offers an up-to-date look at beer recipe design, including recent techniques and findings. We’ll discuss how to design new beer recipes from scratch, brew beers to style, understand ingredient contributions, and apply brewing techniques to achieve a desired flavor profile. Recent innovations in brewing techniques will be highlighted.

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Flavor Profiles and Recipe Formulation

  • Speaker: Rodney Kibzey
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2018
  • Portland, OR

In this presentation, accomplished homebrewer Rodney Kibzey discusses how ingredient flavor profiles can affect the development of a beer recipe.

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Specialty Malt: Extreme!

  • Speaker: Aaron Hyde
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2018
  • Portland, OR

Let’s take specialty malts to the extreme and create new brewing techniques, beer styles, and bold flavors! Ever wonder what a beer made with 50 percent caramel malt would taste like? Trying to figure out how to make the chocolateiest beer possible? We’ll cover the basics of specialty malt, guidelines…

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Designing Beer Recipes

  • Speaker: Dr. Brad Smith
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2017
  • Minneapolis, MN

Recipe design and techniques have evolved rapidly the past few years. Brad shares what he’s learned by brewing and by interviewing the top homebrewers and commercial brewers from around the world. He explains different approaches used by top brewers with a focus on understanding ingredients and applying techniques to drive…

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Recipe Development with Dangerous Man

  • Speakers: Alxndr JonesJohn LeingangRob Miller
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2017
  • Minneapolis, MN

Join the staff of Dangerous Man Brewing as they delve into the myriad ways to build a recipe. Whether it’s a nod to tradition, a twist on an old favorite, or a completely unique approach to an ale or lager, Rob, John, and Alxndr will offer their insights. Challenge your…

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Crafting Quality: Fine-Tuning and Creative Brewing

  • Speaker: Brian Trout
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2016
  • Baltimore, MD

Want to eliminate the dreaded “homebrewed” taste from your brews? Learn from a multi-award winning homebrewer how to fine tune and creatively modify your beers, meads and ciders. This seminar will focus on transforming your brewday by giving you the tools you need in the form of easy and often…

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High Gravity Brewing: Hitting A Target Gravity With Precision and Quality

  • Speaker: Chris Leonard
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2016
  • Baltimore, MD

Have you ever wanted to brew that 24 Plato Imperial Stout? Have you thought of making a 1.120 O.G. Quad but didn’t know where to start? We’ll talk about ingredients, process, and fermentation to help you make high gravity beers with precision, repeatability, and, most importantly, quality.

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How Specialty Malts Influence Foam

  • Speaker: Robert Hansen
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2016
  • Baltimore, MD

An in-depth look at how specialty malts can be used to influence beer foam stability and color.

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Modern Homebrew Recipes

  • Speaker: Gordon Strong
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2016
  • Baltimore, MD

Gordon Strong will take an advanced look at recipe design, discussing the creative process and technical approach to building new homebrew recipes. Practical examples will be given, including a look at styles from the 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines. Trace ideas from concept through execution, including adjusting for balance, brewing to…

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Wild Alaska, Wild Ingredients

  • Speaker: Goeff Larson
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2016
  • Baltimore, MD

Alaskan Brewing co-founder Geoff Larson shares tips and tales from using local and unique ingredients in the brewing process. The seminar will cover selecting ingredients and the base beer, how flavors can manifest, and methods for adding non-traditional ingredients. Examples include spruce tips in Winter Ale, alder-smoked malt, berries, herbs,…

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A Contrast and Comparison of the Many Variations of India Pale Ale

  • Speaker: Mitch Steele
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2015
  • San Diego, CA

A review of brewing techniques, ingredients and traditions related to the many styles of IPA, including historical IPA, English IPA, East Coast and West Coast American IPA, double/imperial IPA, black IPA, session IPA and more.

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Bringing the Brewery Home

  • Speaker: Warren Haskell
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2015
  • San Diego, CA

Scaling and cloning recipes is challenging, whether trying to clone your favorite craft brew or taking your favorite homebrew from five gallons to 50 barrels. Warren and Jason will discuss recipe scaling and method and equipment use in the process. Raw ingredients, brewing method, fermentation control and packaging will be…

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Crafting Cellarworthy Beers

  • Speaker: Patrick Dawson
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2015
  • San Diego, CA

An in-depth look at how to design and brew beers that have the makeup to improve and mature over years in the cellar. Optimal beer styles for cellaring will be reviewed, along with expectations and recommended time frames.

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Modern Homebrew Recipes

  • Speaker: Gordon Strong
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2015
  • San Diego, CA

Gordon Strong, author of Brewing Better Beer and the forthcoming Modern Homebrew Recipes, will discuss using modern techniques to formulate recipes, particularly for new styles from the 2014 BJCP style guidelines, as well as how to interpret and adapt recipes to your system and how to select ingredients and techniques…

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40 Things in 40 Minutes: 40 Tips, Tricks, Techniques & Tweaks to Improve your Brewing, Meadmaking & Cidermaking

  • Speakers: Barry MulsoMichael Spears
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

We will show you 40 tips, tricks, techniques and tweaks in 40 rapid-fire, interactive minutes. Don't blink as Barry and Mike tackle rescuing failed fermentations, brewing resources, ingredients, beer styles, DIY, networking, competitions, hopping techniques, gadgets and technology, software, blending, off-flavors, clarifying, carbonating, homebrewing laws, clubs, brewing techniques, fun adjuncts,…

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Beer Recipes from the Inside Out

  • Speaker: Randy Mosher
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

Randy Mosher offers insights and practical tools for recipe formulation based on his long experience in homebrewing and more recently as a team member at two award-winning breweries. Each category of ingredient, especially malt and hops, has its own unique chemistry and vocabulary, and it is essential for brewers to…

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Brewing Consistency: Identifying and Controlling the Variables

  • Speaker: Mike "Tasty" McDole
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

Do you feel like you’re getting inconsistent results from brew to brew? Mike “Tasty” McDole is well known for expounding the benefits of brewing consistency and how consistency matters in making quality, recipe-driven homebrew. This seminar will identify variables that affect consistency and ways to remove or control them.

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Brewing with New Hop Varieties

  • Speaker: Nathan Smith
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

Homebrewers are gaining access to more and more new hop varieties such as Mosaic, El Dorado, Belma, Azacca, Saphir, Apollo and Galaxy. Many of these have an interesting signature hop potential that differs from what Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra have to offer. This seminar will discuss how to get more…

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Improving Clarity for Homebrewers

  • Speaker: Brad Smith
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

Cloudy beer got you down? Brad Smith, author and podcast host, presents the causes and solutions for this problem. We’ll discuss the many potential contributors to cloudiness in beer including proteins, polyphenols, tannins and yeast. Brad will also explain the full range of products and techniques to improve clarity and…

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Kosmicki Spills the Secrets

  • Speakers: Dave "Diamond" DeschaineJeremy Kosmicki
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2014
  • Grand Rapids, MI

How does Founders continue to invent new and exciting beers? Jeremy Kosmicki will discuss recipe formulation, unique ingredients and processes, and how the brewery pushes the boundaries of their beer while still maintaining a delicious balance of flavors.

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Beer Recipe Design

  • Speaker: Brad Smith
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2013
  • Philadelphia, PA

This talk offers a structured approach to beer recipe design, starting with a target style and walking through research, selection of ingredients and application of brewing techniques to create a great beer recipe. We’ll review examples of recipe design as well as cover some of the newer techniques brewers are…

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Gluten-Free Brewing

  • Speaker: Bob Hansen
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2013
  • Philadelphia, PA

Celiac disease affects roughly one percent of the U.S. population. Many of us know people who have this disease and are denied the basic joys of barley and wheat-based foods, including beer. Commercial constraints can hinder good gluten free beer being brought to market. The U.S. beer industry is again…

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Process Improvement and Beer Enhancement: The Nano Experience

  • Speaker: Andy Tveekrem
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2013
  • Philadelphia, PA

This seminar will address several topics of interest for advanced homebrewers, nano brewers and those pondering going pro at the nanobrewery level. In August 2012, the partners who own and operate Market Garden Brewery in Cleveland opened a new concept called Nano Brew Cleveland—a 24 tap beer bar and brewpub…

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Serving With Style

  • Speaker: Mike Lindel
  • Track: Recipe Formulation & Improvement
  • Homebrew Con 2013
  • Philadelphia, PA

The time has come. You have been honing your brewing craft, reading Palmer, Noonan and Zainasheff. You have tweaked your brews, entered the competitions to get guidance and pored through the forums. After brewing your best stuff, controlling your fermentation, lagering and aging, you are about to serve your pride…

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