[BrewBama]

In my quest to brew smaller beers, I have been seeking out recipes.

I ran across a 60/- from MoreBeer that includes 15% medium crystal and 7.5% dark crystal. 20+% C malt.

I think I am going to brew it to see how it turns out.

That beer is only 1.032-1.035 OG, and it's only 1.5 lb of C-malt for a 5 gallon batch. Using percentage of the grist as a rule of thumb for an upper limit on Cara malt usage becomes a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison for low gravity beers rather than a typical beer in the 1.050-1.060 range. I bet that recipe makes a tasty beer. As a matter of fact, I might brew a take on it when my ale tap is next in the pipeline.

I think that’s an important point. I get fixated on percentages a lot, but for some malts the total amount in a recipe is more important.

I reread something today that made me think of this concept.

In Brewing Classic Style, JP and JZ when discussing higher vs lower ABV beers say this: “…there is no need to change the specialty grain amounts, unless you are making a larger or smaller volume of beer.”  They discuss only adjusting base malts.

[denny]

In my quest to brew smaller beers, I have been seeking out recipes.

I ran across a 60/- from MoreBeer that includes 15% medium crystal and 7.5% dark crystal. 20+% C malt.

I think I am going to brew it to see how it turns out.

That beer is only 1.032-1.035 OG, and it's only 1.5 lb of C-malt for a 5 gallon batch. Using percentage of the grist as a rule of thumb for an upper limit on Cara malt usage becomes a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison for low gravity beers rather than a typical beer in the 1.050-1.060 range. I bet that recipe makes a tasty beer. As a matter of fact, I might brew a take on it when my ale tap is next in the pipeline.

I think that’s an important point. I get fixated on percentages a lot, but for some malts the total amount in a recipe is more important.

I reread something today that made me think of this concept.

In Brewing Classic Style, JP and JZ when discussing higher vs lower ABV beers say this: “…there is no need to change the specialty grain amounts, unless you are making a larger or smaller volume of beer.”  They discuss only adjusting base malts.

My experience totally disagrees with that. When I do it that way I get a different beer.

[BrewBama]

Maybe they’ll write an update based on your experience.

Edit: I think it’s important to note that the BCS recipes are written for specialty grains to be steeped for 30 minutes.  These recipes could produce a significant difference if mashing the entire grain bill vs mashing the base malts and steeping the specialty malts. This could account for the reason some say the BCS recipes don’t work for them.

[tommymorris]

Maybe they’ll write an update based on your experience.

So, are you going to brew the 60/- beer from morebeer?

[BrewBama]

I think so.

[denny]

Maybe they’ll write an update based on your experience.

Edit: I think it’s important to note that the BCS recipes are written for specialty grains to be steeped for 30 minutes.  These recipes could produce a significant difference if mashing the entire grain bill vs mashing the base malts and steeping the specialty malts. This could account for the reason some say the BCS recipes don’t work for them.

Can't imagine why they'd do that any more than I'd update one of my books if someone disagreed with me.