Problem with LHBS recipe. Anyone have this kinda stuff happen?

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Anthony_Lopez

Anthony_Lopez

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So this weekend we brewed a Kolsch from a shop we haven't used yet. They were a little closer than our brew shop and about the same prices.

The recipe for the Kolsch called out an OG of ~1.045 based off the ingredients for the recipe. Using the beer calculus page, we put in our ingredients and got a ~1.056. To me this seems like quite a gap between his recipe OG and our OG. I don't believe there is any other way to get the gravity readings except the basic math involved in the ingredients.

We used:
3.3 lb Light LME
3 lb Light DME
1 lb Pilsner

1 oz Tetnanger Bittering Hops at 3.5% for 60 minutes
1 oz Hallertau Aroma at 4.5% for the last 10 minutes

We also had 1 bag irish moss that was in the boil for the last 20 minutes.

It was a 5 gallon batch with a 10 minute mini-mash at 160 degree F for the pilsner grain. 60 minute total boil with the above ingredients.

Our OG came out to exactly where we wanted to be with the beer calculus page. ~ 1.052.

Anyone else have trouble with calculated recipes from stores compared to beer calculators? The guy didnt really seem to have his act together, and had some equipment at outrageous prices.

Sorry for the essay! :mug:
 
NoClueBrewMaster said:
So this weekend we brewed a Kolsch from a shop we haven't used yet. They were a little closer than our brew shop and about the same prices.

The recipe for the Kolsch called out an OG of ~1.045 based off the ingredients for the recipe. Using the beer calculus page, we put in our ingredients and got a ~1.056. To me this seems like quite a gap between his recipe OG and our OG. I don't believe there is any other way to get the gravity readings except the basic math involved in the ingredients.

We used:
3.3 lb Light LME
3 lb Light DME
1 lb Pilsner

1 oz Tetnanger Bittering Hops at 3.5% for 60 minutes
1 oz Hallertau Aroma at 4.5% for the last 10 minutes

We also had 1 bag irish moss that was in the boil for the last 20 minutes.

It was a 5 gallon batch with a 10 minute mini-mash at 160 degree F for the pilsner grain. 60 minute total boil with the above ingredients.

Our OG came out to exactly where we wanted to be with the beer calculus page. ~ 1.052.

Anyone else have trouble with calculated recipes from stores compared to beer calculators? The guy didnt really seem to have his act together, and had some equipment at outrageous prices.

Sorry for the essay! :mug:
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the answer to your question....Try running the same numbers through tastybrew, just in case beer calculus was off...

You added an entire bag of Irish Moss in your boil? Generally you use only 1 tsp per 5 gallon batch.
 
Is this by any chance a 6 gallon recipe as opposed to a 5 gallon recipe, this is important to know, a high OG is usually because it is not diluted enough.
 
no, by one bag of moss, i meant tsp, sorry for the confusion.

As far as batch size goes, this guys recipe was for a 5 gallon recipe. Seems a little high of an OG for a kolsch. We bought this kit on a whim without doing a lot of research and I guess that was kinda our fault in trusting this guy and his recipes.

I'll check out tastybrew. thanks for the link
 
Tasty Brew gave me the same calculations as Beer Calculus. I even tried playing around with the attenuation to see how close I could get to his numbers... 50% doesnt get us even close to his "planned" recipe. Still way off. Obviously I'm not going back to this shop again. I was just curious if others have found some brew shop's recipe calculations to be this far off... This guy's shop was supposed to be a great brew shop. I'm really disappointed.
 
NoClueBrewMaster said:
Tasty Brew gave me the same calculations as Beer Calculus. I even tried playing around with the attenuation to see how close I could get to his numbers... 50% doesnt get us even close to his "planned" recipe. Still way off. Obviously I'm not going back to this shop again. I was just curious if others have found some brew shop's recipe calculations to be this far off... This guy's shop was supposed to be a great brew shop. I'm really disappointed.
Click to expand...


The closest thing I heard was on here....The LHBS recalculated an AG recipe into an extract w/ special grains for a customer, but didn't give him a sheet for extract....He called the store and they gave him the numbers on the phone....which were slightly different because it was an extract.
 
I would not discount the shop just for this. I can think of a couple reasons why this could happen:

1. Their calculations are actually right and somehow your measurement was off (bad hydrometer, not well mixed, etc.).
2. They are right given a different brand of extract. The gravity potential for each brand of extract varies. You should take this in to account when using some type of beer program too.

Might not hurt to ask them too, maybe it is an oversight on their end, they might appreciate the input.
 
I put those ingredients into BeerSmith and got an OG of 1.045 for a 5.5 gallon batch. Changing to a 5 gallon batch gives an OG of 1.050. So, I don't think that LHBS was as far off the mark as you might think. Maybe give 'em another shot?
 
yeah, i was thinking maybe they made the recipe for a 5 gallon YIELD and just didn't have the best instructions?

no reason you can't go back to the place. i wouldn't judge a store just by their kits...have them help you create a beer and see how knowledgeable they are ;)
 
I honestly don't see what the big deal is about the OG. I don't think I've ever considered what the OG of a recipe is unless I'm looking for a big beer style. You know, there is another way to calculate the OG. I've heard of these hydrometer things.... So what, you ran it through your beer calculus page and got different numbers. I ran it through promash and got 1.054 as an OG. Sounds about right for a 5% beer. I'd just leave it be and not worry about it. In fact, I'll bet it's quite easy to accidentally type 1.045 instead of 1.054.
 
I don't need an excuse not to go back. Your responses are exactly what I was looking for, so I don't think there is any need to throw "trash" into my backyard. I was asking a simple question and got the answers I wanted.

As far as the hydrometer goes, it has been cal'd at 60 degree F at exactly 1.00. The beer was mixed for about 5-10 minutes and aerated before the reading was made. I don't think a mixing issue is the problem here.

For more background, we talked to this guy for about 40 minutes about the recipe and where it came from. It was specifically made for a 5 gallon extract recipe with the pilsner mash. It's quite possible that he made a mistake, and I'm not going to say what shop it was or who this guy is. In that regard, I don't think I'm publicly attacking this shop or the employees. I'm fine with a higher ABV yield, however this batch was a "calibration" batch for us, as it was a clone recipe for a very specific brewing company and it's kolsch recipe.

Thanks all for the feed back!
 

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