Help needed scaling recipes

[andyg55]

Hello

I found a recipe for an 8-gallon Berliner Weissbier. Apparently 8-gallons is the amount of liquid going into the fermenter at the end.

The grain bill is:

30% Floor-Malted Bohemian Wheat (DE) (3 lb)
70% Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner (DE) (7 lb)

As I've not yet got into all-grain brewing, I'm currently a little bit confused about the amount of liquid I should be starting with. How would I figure out how much water to mash in originally to end up with 8-gallons going into the fermenter?

Finally, how would I scale this recipe up or down? Say, to end up with a 5-gallon batch, not 8?

Thanks,
Andy

 

[Clint]

You need some brew software to make it easy...

 

[RichardM]

Like Clint says, brewing software will help.
But as a rough guide multiply all the ingredient amounts by 5/8 to get the amounts. For liquor, allow roughly 3l per kg of grain for mashing, then sparge to get a pre boil volume that will mean you end up with the desired volume in the fermenter when you take in to account evaporation during the boil and any remaining volume in the boiler after you have transferred the wort to the fermenter.
Something like Beersmith with the right equipment profile selected will work it out for you

 

[Cyberjip]

I have never really used extract but from above this is the important bit

Like Clint says, brewing software will help.
But as a rough guide multiply all the ingredient amounts by 5/8 to get the amounts

So to get 5 gallons looks like

0.85kg Floor-Malted Bohemian Wheat (DE)

1.99kg Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner (DE)

As for water not sure depends on how much you boil off and how much gets left behind in your kettle.

On my system I need arround 25% more liquid at the start of boil than I transfer into the FV, but yours system could be very different.

 

[andyg55]

Ok I understand the calculation now, thanks. Although I'm confused by the recipe. It states 2 recipes, either the "Malt Version" or Extract Version." I described the malt version in my original post but it says "DE" at the end of each ingredient, and I presume that means dry extract. Would this not be what I would use if I was using all-grain?

 

[Drunkula]

I just threw in the numbers and presuming that's US gallons that gives you 30 litres. Using grain it only comes out at 3.4%, if you sub them for dry extract then it's 5.6% which seems about right.

Converting it back to grain for 23 litres at 5.6% using 75% for overall efficiency you'd have 3.8kg of pilsner and 1.6kg of wheat.

I did it in BeerSmith, you get 21 days for free so have a mess about with it or try some of the others.

 

[andyg55]

I just had confirmation that the "DE" stands for Germany, and not for "dry extract" as I thought. So the recipe is in fact:

1.36 kg Wheat
3.18 kg Pilsner

For a 30-liter batch.

Does this seem right to everyone? @Drunkula ... I guess this would end up being 3.4% as you calculated?

For reference, the recipe is at the bottom of this page...

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Berliner_Weissbier

 

[Drunkula]

I guess this would end up being 3.4% as you calculated?

Yeah, that's the right amount of grains. At 75% efficiency BeerSmith gives 1.036 starting gravity. The article says 1.035 finishing at 1.004 which would give you 4.1%. Ah, it says the recipe is based on 73% efficiency.

 

[andyg55]

Wow, I did not know the complex world of numbers and variables I was getting myself involved in! Haha.

 

[An Ankoù]

Wow, I did not know the complex world of numbers and variables I was getting myself involved in! Haha.

It's worse than you think when recipes are given in gallons. Are they US gallons of about 19 litres or imperial gallons of about 23 litres? You've got to sort of know what OG or hopping rate you would expect for the style and work back from that before you even start scaling.
As it's a European style with the weights of malt given in pounds, I would suspect American gallons.

 

[andyg55]

Yes, I'm actually a Brit who relocated to Canada about 5 years ago now. I can assure everyone back home that whenever gallons are mentioned, it's always US gallons (I've had to get used to all of this).

 

[andyg55]

Ok so I'm clearly not getting something here...

I just plugged in the recipe to brewersfriend.com (mash details, fermentables, everything...) to calculate how much mash water I would need for the grain bill. Taking the standard recommendation of 1-2 quarts per pound, the software is saying I would only add 3.7 gallons of water to the mash. But this is for an 8-gallon recipe?

I'm so confused.

 

[Zephyr259]

Ok so I'm clearly not getting something here...

I just plugged in the recipe to brewersfriend.com (mash details, fermentables, everything...) to calculate how much mash water I would need for the grain bill. Taking the standard recommendation of 1-2 quarts per pound, the software is saying I would only add 3.7 gallons of water to the mash. But this is for an 8-gallon recipe?

I'm so confused.

The 3.7 gal is for the mash, once that's done you sparge the grains with more water until you reach your pre-boil volume. If you have a 3 vessel system then you can keep track as you can see the level in the kettle. I have a grainfather so I can't (easily) check mid sparge.

Some numbers for example. I use a grainfather so I need 5L more than my fermenter volume to account for 2L dead space under the pump and 3L for the boil-off. So if I mash with 15L and want 28L pre-boil I have to sparge with 28 - 15 + 3.4 = 16.4 L. The + 3.4 is to account for the 0.8 L/kg my grain absorbs. So a 23L batch needs 31.4L in total to brew.

Does that help or just confuse you more?

 

[andyg55]

No I think I get it. I would have thought the calculators would have given both the volume of mash water AND the volume of sparge water needed, but it was only giving the volume of mash water.

I read somewhere else that some people do not like to sparge. What is the reason for this?

 

[Zephyr259]

No I think I get it. I would have thought the calculators would have given both the volume of mash water AND the volume of sparge water needed, but it was only giving the volume of mash water.

I read somewhere else that some people do not like to sparge. What is the reason for this?

To be honest I'm sure it used to but not used brewers friend in years.

From what I see sparging takes time and is generally done with hot water (high 70s Celsius for me) so needs a separate vessel. You can do full volume mashes if your system can take the volume, that's common with BIAB but I've not used that set up other than with 4 stovetop batches when I first started brewing.

What equipment do you use to brew with?

 

[andyg55]

I'm currently using my first extract-based system but want to upgrade to all-grain, so I'm doing my research now before I take the plunge. I'm thinking of going for the SS Brewtech 10-gallon mash tun and 10-gallon boil kettle. The mash tun seems to have fittings for both recirculation and sparge. Would both fittings be needed or just one?

 

[Zephyr259]

I'm currently using my first extract-based system but want to upgrade to all-grain, so I'm doing my research now before I take the plunge. I'm thinking of going for the SS Brewtech 10-gallon mash tun and 10-gallon boil kettle. The mash tun seems to have fittings for both recirculation and sparge. Would both fittings be needed or just one?

Ah right, so you just have a big pan currently? You could do BIAB with that if you get a bag. The SS Brewtech stuff is very shiny but I'm not familiar with the specifics, recirculation should keep a more even mash temp. Should be reviews available for that system as it's a big name.

 

[TimXJR1300]

Do you scale yeast additions in the same way?