Beer Planning

I recently read a book about brewing Belgian beers. And now, of course, I want to brew some. In my head I’ve developed a schedule for the year for experimental batches, that would help me come up with a recipe that I can use to make a big batch for sharing.
 
Last night I began. I figure this batch will be ready in mid to late April. I’m experimenting with different malts. Belgian beer usually uses a pilsner for the base malt and then different types of malt can be added. I brewed four beers using my OJ containers that will yield about four bottles each.

​The first is uses just the pilsner base. The others use the pilsner base but added one different malt. One was Munich malt, another was Caravienne, and the last was Abbey malt. Other than that, the beers are the same, so any differences will be due to the malts. When they’re ready to drink I can do a taste test and compare. That will help me decide what malts to use. I may get fancy and mix two of the beers together to see how they taste.
 
After that I’ll pick my malts and brew again sometime around the beginning of May. That batch will be testing some more grains and sugars. That would mean another taste test in June.
 
That would be followed by brewing at the beginning of July and testing various hops. Tasting in August.
 
Then, at the beginning of September I would brew with different yeasts and taste test in October.
 
Finally, I would brew a larger batch in November.
 
That’s the plan. But then again, we all know how often life goes exactly according to the plans we try to make. : ) #retroemoji
 
I’ll keep posting about my experiments and what I come up with for a final recipe as I go along.