Pisty_Pete

Recipes 

Hi All,

I'm interested in making some of my favorite recipes more "sessionable" and was wondering how this might be best accomplished.

Would you suggest simply scaling all the grist down (maintaining the same percentages) to get a lower OG?

Or, is it best to only reduce the base malt and maintain all of the specialty malts at the same weights as the original recipe? The volume being brewed is not changing, so I'm thinking this may be the way to go.

I'd like to keep them just as flavorful, only not quite as strong.

Thanks,
p

carrotmalt

Recipes 

I'd think you would keep the specialty grains close to the same and lower your base grains. You might also want to lower your IBUs accordingly to keep a similar IBU:GU ratio.

That's just my guess. I'm anxious to see what somebody with more experience has to say.

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Pisty_Pete

Recipes 

good point - maintaining the IBU:SG ratio. thanks, had overlooked that...

nealf

Recipes 

I would lower everything, specialty grains, base grain, and hops to keep the wort fermentability, color, and bitterness the same.

Do you have an example recipe you are looking to drop sessionize?

Pisty_Pete

Recipes 

Sure, an example would be this Alesmith IPA clone below (found it at brew365.com). It's a 1075 beer and I would probably like to drop it down to the 1055-1060 range, which should lower the abv by ~2-2.75%.

All Grain Recipe - Alesmith IPA ::: 1.075/1.017 (5.5 Gal)
Grain Bill (75% Efficiency assumed)

14 lb.- 2-Row Pale malt
2 oz. - 15L Crystal malt (15 L)
2 oz. - CaraPils malt
2 oz. - Munich malt
2 oz. - Wheat malt
1 oz. - Honey malt

Hop Schedule (72 IBU)

1/2 oz - Columbus hops (First Wort Hop)
1/2 oz - Simcoe hops (First Wort Hop)
3/4 oz - Columbus hops (60 min)
3/4 oz - Amarillo hops (30 min)
1/2 oz - Simcoe hops (15 min)
1/2 oz - Columbus hops (10 min)
1/2 oz - Cascade hops (5 min)
1/2 oz. - Columbus hops (dry)
1/2 oz. - Amarillo hops (dry)
1/2 oz. - Cascade hops (dry)
1/4 oz. - Simcoe hops (dry)
1/4 oz. - Chinook hops (dry)

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001) - 1800 ml starter

Mash/Sparge/Boil

Mash at 153° for 60 min.
Sparge as usual
Cool and ferment at 65° to 68°

david_42

Recipes 

You have so few specialty grains, I'd just leave them as-is. If they were 10-15% of the bill, I'd scale them back. My Bent Rod Rye is a 2/3rds clone of Hop Rod Rye and almost 1/3 of the bill is specialty grains, so they got scaled.

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nealf

Recipes 

+1 my post was more related to if you were aiming to make a beer with several pounds of specialty or with a specific color (brown or reddish?). There isn't enough in there to make a difference IMO.

I would probably only drop the FWH and 60 minute additions... I would be inclined to leave the 15 minute and under hopbill intact.

Pisty_Pete

Recipes 

Cool, thanks for all the insight!