5 Gallon Recipe's....5 drinkable gallons??

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jacobyhale

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OK, so something sort of perplexes me about recipe formulation. Are most recipe's written to give you 5gallons in the primary? Not taking into consideration trub loss? I'd really like to get 5 drinkable gallons everytime I brew. Do I need to adjust a majority of recipes to 5.5 gallons or even 6?
 
A 5 gallon recipe is suppose to give you 5 gallons drinkable.

It can be tricky when looking at recipes if the person did not specify full boil or partial and top off.

I start with 6+ to end up with 5 gallons for the primary.
 
TheJadedDog said:
I aim for 5.5 in the primary and usually end up with around 5 drinkable.

I think most recipes that say 5 gallons are aimed at ending with 5 gallons in the primary.

I usually shoot to have 5.5 gallons in the kettle at the end, and transfer about 5.25 or so to the primary.

So I adjust recipes accordingly.
 
I usually shoot to have 5.5 gallons in the kettle at the end, and transfer about 5.25 or so to the primary.

So I adjust recipes accordingly.

And how exactly do I do this in Beersmith? I can't seem to figure out how to just adjust the batch size and have it adjust my ingredients? Is this possible?
 
5.5 gallons in the primary.

I use Beersmith and plug in the 5.5 gallons (or in my case, 11 gallons for my 10-gallon batches) and then I'm assured that I'm not futsing around with the recipe.
 
Above your recipe is a few buttons (add to inventory, add to list, convert, SCALE, etc).

Press scale and adjust your recipe down/up to your required amount. Be aware that it will end up doing just the math and come out often with 3.16 pounds of something that might not be easy to measure. I usually go back and try to trim it to the nearest 1/8 or 1/4 pound and hope it doesn't change too much in the end (which it usually doesnt).
 
And if you use a lot of leaf hops in the kettle and fermentor (like a pound), you need to account for that. I have lost over 1 gallon just that way.....
 
I always want as much beer as will fit in my kegs and so shoot for 12 gallon batches. There is some loss when you siphon from the carboys etc.
 
And how exactly do I do this in Beersmith?

Take a look at the brewing equipment (click the "Details" button to the right of "Choose"). It allows you to set the boil-off amount, top-up amount, etc. In the details, there is a check-box labeled "Calculate Boil Volume Automatically"; if checked, as you adjust the top-up amount, evaporation rate, and loss to boil trub it will show you the boil amount based on the batch size. Once the equipment is set, if the box labeled "Set Boil Volume Based on Equipment" is checked on the main page then the boil amount shown will yield the amount needed to achieve the batch size you have entered in the "Batch Size" box -- assuming, of course, you have the evaporation rate correct, the loss to trub correct, and you use the amount of top-up water listed.

You can preset all of this for various equipment sets and then it will automatically give the correct amount when that equipment is chosen.

At least, that's the way it appears to work to me.

Rick

edit: fix quote tag
 
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