Grain Weight to SG

[Andyhull]

Hi all,

Not sure where to look for this?
How do you calculate the weight of grain required to get a specific Starting gravity for the wort?
E.g. if i wanted an SG of 1045 how much Maris Otter would i need?
Sorry if this is a stupid question but im hopefully getting my grain bill together for my first AG outing next weekend 24/25.

Thanks

Andy

 

[calumscott]

You really want to get yourself some brewing software now!

Beersmith has a free trial period that will get you going...

 

[Hawks]

Try some software like Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine here

It will depend on volumes and the efficiency of your kit but this will give you a good starting point and as you do a few brews you can tweak the efficiency in the setting to match your set up. :thumb:

For 23 litres you will be looking in the region of 4 - 4.5 KG depending on your set up :thumb:

EDIT - beaten to it, but Grahams software is free :party:

 

[WelshPaul]

http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

 

[keith1664]

There are ways to work it out, but I'm afraid I rely on software.
As well as beersmith, brewmate is worth a look, and it's free.

 

[Andyhull]

Thanks guys,

Just downloaded the Graham Wheeler one.
I will have a look tonight when i get home from work.

Thanks again :

 

[evanvine]

Grains and adjuncts have a theoretical potential of 300 gravity points per Kg per litre.
EG if you sparge 1kg of malt to 10ltrs, your gravity would be 1.030 (assuming 100% BHE).
Sugar = 360/kg/ltr.
Crystal Malt = 240/kg/ltr.
I do my calcs with a pocket calculator, cant be arsed firing up the computer!

 

[PD]

I sit for an hour in front of the computer with brewmate ( free ) and a couple of bottles of home brew and play around......
then I usually browse a few beer recipe sites and pinch one of them....

 

[Andyhull]

I sit for an hour in front of the computer with brewmate ( free ) and a couple of bottles of home brew and play around......
then I usually browse a few beer recipe sites and pinch one of them....

This is one of the things im looking forward to as the choice from AG compared to kits (im not knocking kits by the way) is limited only to your imagination.

 

[pittsy]

I sit for an hour in front of the computer with brewmate ( free ) and a couple of bottles of home brew and play around......
then I usually browse a few beer recipe sites and pinch one of them....

This is one of the things im looking forward to as the choice from AG compared to kits (im not knocking kits by the way) is limited only to your imagination.

i would copy a recipe for your first brew then move on to your own after wards , (btw you will be knocking kits after you taste the difference )
Good luck with it , hope it goes well when you do go for it :thumb:

 

[Andyhull]

I thinkk i'll be doing a smash for my first brew.
5kg of Maris Otter
150g of cascade
And "maybe" 250 of crystal

Not too sure yet :hmm:

 

[wilsoa1111]

-me being cheap i try to get 500g of quality sugars into the mix to bump the mix up to the 5% while keeping a 4kg total grainbill,

also i recommend using a gd bit of speciality malts incase you struggle to hit you mash temps and it all goes a bit too fermentable.

Also to save even more quid ive taken to using a high alpha bittering hop (possibley with a bonus flavour) at first wort before the wort starts to heat while sparging to really save on the hops (worth doing for the flavours alone) - leaving hops free for dry hopping (dry hopped hops and lightly used late hops can also apparently be reused in the nxt brew for bittering)

i also find when starting the boiloff can be random so i do a extra short sparge (while boiler getting up to temp) to get another 3l min as spare (can be added as long as will boil for 30-45mins) - and u can extend boils to 90mins without drastically changing orginal early hops bittering as 60mins extracts majority -to compensate

i also recommend beersmith (free trials are gd) and it has some extra recipe packs u can download from it that are gd for seeing what pros do

 

[Stihler]

How do you calculate the weight of grain required to get a specific Starting gravity for the wort?

It turns out that I happen to have a webpage devoted to just that sort of thing.

Here is the URL: http://www.mosquitobytes.com/Den/Beer/Hmbrewing/Recipes.html

I'm currently working on a similar page for computing IBUs.

Software is available to do both SG and IBU computations but it is good to see where how it is done. After doing a few of these calculations you will really appreciate the software.

I used to hate it when my college professors spouted such dribble and now I understand where they were coming from.

When I first started brewing such software was not available or at least not widely available. You did the calculations on your calculator or used an spreadsheet (Lotus 123?) to do the computations.

Of course, that was a very long time ago. Way back then the periodic table consisted of earth, wind and fire and calculations were done in Roman numerals on an abacus. :mrgreen:

At any rate, let me know if you have any questions. I'm afraid all of the units are in pounds and U.S. gallons.

- Scott

 

[Andyhull]

Thanks for that Scott,

Very indepth and informative, i'll give it a read tonight :thumb: