Got Published in BYO

Yesterday I went to the mail box and found the newest copy of BYO (Jan-Feb). Started reading thru the readers mail and found they used my emailed question.

Reason to celebrate!!!

I was asking about how they formulate PM's. They will call out a recipe like this.
For this example just the fermentables, because that's my issue.


I'm like WTF!!! Who will attempt to weigh out the LME & DME. The DME isn't so bad.

If you are formulating a recipe why wouldn't you go with 3.3lbs of LME, or increments of 1 & 3 of DME, and then reduce the amount of 2-row to get the gravity/color right? Malt extract is mostly sold in package qty and grains are bulk packaged to exact order qty.

The people who sell kits manage to figure this out. I can do it too in Promash.

Their answer was BS "We do to this to make good quality beer." They go on to say you can't go to whole amounts of specialty grains and hops. Duh!! I wasn't talking about anything other than DME & LME!!

The people who do the conversions are AG'rs (nothing wrong with that) but they don't think of how to make it easy for people who do anything less.

Look at the PM recipes and Extract w/ grain recipes you can tell they came from AG because the only thing in whole amounts are the base grains. (2-Row or 6-Row)

I'm just annoyed they don't realize this. Maybe they don't care?

If you saw this or agree please comment. Thanks!!

Excellent! Now, if only Wired would publish me...

I don't read BYO regularly (and I usually don't pay much attention to partial mash versions of receipes), but I see exactly what you're saying and it makes all the sense in the world. Start with a "whole number" amount of extract (especially with LME, since you can more-easily measure out DME and save the extra), make up the difference with the base grain to get to the target gravity.

Sounds like they just didn't understand what you were asking....

I understand what you're saying, and I agree completely with your argument when it comes to LME. However, I've measured very specific amounts of DME on multiple occasions for varying reasons. When I brewed extract, I kept quite a bit of the stuff on hand, so measuring an "odd" quantity down to a tenth of an ounce wasn't really that big of a deal.

Congrats on getting published...bummer that the answer to your question seems a little bogus. Care to post the entire text?

First, let me qualify this by saying that I am a relative noob and have zero PMs or AGs under my belt. Also, I have never read BYO. I understand your issue with this and it makes sense. However, what I figure they are doing is starting with their choice of PM grist and giving you the LME/DME additions they required to get to their target OG. Thus, the recipe takes into account their brewhouse efficiency. Granted, the LME/DME amounts aren't very practical, or the easiest/most convenient to measure by the average homebrewer. If this is the case, it would be nice if they indicated that in the recipe instructions and only used DME for convenience. It would make it a lot more user friendly to the average homebrewer if they stated the basic grain bill for the PM and instructed you to add DME to hit an SG of 1.xxx. They should provide their efficiency and LME/DME additions for a reference. Am I way off base here?

I have to buck the trend here, and say that I don't have a problem with their answer. My biggest concern is the final quality of the beer, and if that is what was calculated to give me the best recipe possible, then that is what I will follow.

Regarding DME, I buy it in 1# and 3# bags from my LHBS, and if I only need part of one of those, I can always save the rest, or turn it into "starter wort". I just keep a digital kitchen scale with my brewing stuff, and I can measure out extract, hops, etc, just how I want it.

Regarding LME, I buy in bulk from my LHBS, so they weigh me out exactly how much I want, and there is no problem there either. I guess if the only way that you can get it at your LHBS is in pre-packaged cans, then you would have a problem, but all of the shops around me carry it in bulk, and weigh it out for you when you buy it.

Seems fairly stupid to have pounds and ounces of LME and fractional pounds of DME. Round the LME down to the pound (or can as the case might be) and adjust the DME up.

That recipe would work with anything from 1-3 pounds of 2-row, so there really isn't any excuse to not adjust the 2-row.

I agree with you Shlenkerla, it should just be rounded. I am a PM'er and I have to scale the extract recipes up or scale the AGs down. I never measure the DME out to the fractional oz (I don't have a scale) I usually scale the recipe to get it so that I have an even amount in pounds of DME. Do people really measure out the LME? My LHBS only sells it in the 3 or 3.5 .lbs cans, but I don't use it anymore anyway...

You've got a pretty good point.

Congrats on getting published too, thats pretty cool.

They beat the bush around the question all the time. They should just come out and say, "We use X software to formulate the recipes. Then we use its conversion tool and don't really care about the results." I would never use a PM or even an extract recipe from them because I doubt they test them.

You should follow up with a question on how to measure out 5.2 oz of LME.

I just read the question and response. Excellent question as I have always wondered the same thing when reading their recipes.

IMHO, their answer was reasonable and comprehensive...including why they structure the recipes as they do, how the recipes are typically created and the following item that has been left out of this discussion so far:

"If an ingredient amount seems odd or inconvenient to measure out, you can always round it off to the nearest convenient unit."

There answer wasn't all bad but they danced around the main point. Its obvious that the main recipe was from AG and if you are trying to pass on recipes so people can make "good beer" make it so people can measure it easily or so the LHBS can package it up for them.

Rounding up and down too much will mess up the bittering balance. Its not something I encourage a noob to do. As people venture away from kits and experiment they should post a recipe that can be assembled with relative ease. It makes someone more willing to try something different.

I can reconfig their sometimes botched recipe formula with Promash but not everybody is gonna take the time to do it or has the ability. They'll most likely make it different than whats printed. So why bother putting it down in print?

I'm glad they used my email thoughl!!

They seemed more concerned about using a fixed size for the PM than with using convenient LME sizes. I think given the direction they are heading they should specify the extract as something like:
"6.2# DME or 7.4#LME"
instead of mixing LME and DME in unusual quanties. Depending on your LHBS you may have easy access to 3.3# LME cans, 6# LME jugs, bulk LME, or various sized bags of DME. There is no one size fits all solution.
I always use Beersmith to adjust the recipes for my efficiencies and occasionally for slight differences in available ingredients. I think brewing software is an excellent recommendation for any brewer.

Craig

Kevin Dean said:

Excellent! Now, if only Wired would publish me...

Click to expand...

Sorry to go OT, but I read Kevin's blog, and he's spot on. If I traded my refrigerator with someone would I be depriving Kenmore of their intellectual property? Same exact thing.

adx said:

They beat the bush around the question all the time. They should just come out and say, "We use X software to formulate the recipes. Then we use its conversion tool and don't really care about the results." I would never use a PM or even an extract recipe from them because I doubt they test them.

You should follow up with a question on how to measure out 5.2 oz of LME.

Click to expand...

That is what I was thinking. They are making beer on the computer, not in the brew house ( real world ).

Instead of try to measure all of the odd quantity of grains and liquid malt just use even numbers and adjust the water to fit the recipe.

I honestly don't get why they suggest using DME and LME. Any recipe I've used that required both I adjust for only DME to match the SG. Correct me if I'm wrong but any clones I've made using this have been very close. If its for color only shouldn'tt your specialty grains take care of that?

johnnyc said:

I honestly don't get why they suggest using DME and LME. Any recipe I've used that required both I adjust for only DME to match the SG. Correct me if I'm wrong but any clones I've made using this have been very close. If its for color only shouldn'tt your specialty grains take care of that?

Click to expand...

Unless you are making a very pale beer (like 5 SRM or less) I can't imagine the color difference between the lightest DME and LME really matters.

I think it would suffice to say that you need X points from extract and then go ahead and parenthetically mention what that would be in all LME and all DME.