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Author Topic: Adapting Home Brew Recipes  (Read 1099 times)

Offline Backwoodsj

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Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« on: November 13, 2015, 02:41:00 pm »
Hi!  I am relatively new to home brewing.  I have brewed a couple of ready made(kits) recipes with good success, but want to branch out into recipes where I purchase the ingredients separately.  My question, and i know that this has been discussed here somewhere, is that I brew in 5 gallon batches.  How do I adapt a recipe to my 5 gallon size.  any help would be appreciated.  In advance, THANKS!!!

Offline Joe Sr.

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2015, 03:18:16 pm »
Most recipes I've seen are for 5 gallon batches.

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RPIScotty

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2015, 05:33:06 pm »
Typically you could just scale everything linearly. Divide the recipe volume by the desired volume to get a scaling factor and divide all of your ingredients by that.

Offline pete b

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2015, 06:28:42 am »
Yep there's nothing magic, just basic math. The only thing other than that is that a small batch recipe like 2.5 gallons might directly pitch a package of liquid yeast as is but you would want to make a starter for a 5 gallon batch.
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coastsidemike

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2015, 08:57:04 am »
It helps to use brewing software.  Brewer's Friend, Brew Pal, BeerSmith, et cetera; they offer scaling and then you can additionally adjust ratios and hop additions for what ingredients you have available.

RPIScotty

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2015, 09:37:58 am »

It helps to use brewing software.  Brewer's Friend, Brew Pal, BeerSmith, et cetera; they offer scaling and then you can additionally adjust ratios and hop additions for what ingredients you have available.

Or Excel. Most people already have it on their computer.

Offline Stevie

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2015, 09:39:52 am »
A linear scaling will get you in the ball park, but you may need to adjust the volumes for your system. Kettle loss, dead space, and boil off vary from system to system.

Offline The Professor

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Re: Adapting Home Brew Recipes
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2015, 09:56:05 am »
It helps to use brewing software.  Brewer's Friend, Brew Pal, BeerSmith, et cetera; they offer scaling and then you can additionally adjust ratios and hop additions for what ingredients you have available.
This. 
I'm not a luddite by any stretch of the definition, but I resisted using brewing software for a long time... but the right application really does help a lot.  I was able to try them all (since a Mac will run both Windows and MacOS with equal power and minimal fuss) and can only say, as I have in previous postings,  that if you are considering a software solution and happen to be running MacOS, it really doesn't get any better than Beer Alchemy

These sorts of brewing apps generally have similar degrees of accuracy with regard to calculations and the like, but off all of them, Beer Alchemy has the best and most intuitive and friendly user interface of them all.  And I find the accuracy of it's various calculations to be amazingly spot-on.

I'm not connected in any way with the developers of the application...just a very satisfied user, for almost five years (after having tried all of the others).
AL
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[499.6, 101.2] Apparent Rennerian
Homebrewer since July 1971