Help With Recipe Formulation

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ramusiq

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Fairly new to home brewing here. Took the leap and started with AG rather than extract brewing. Have a few nice AG batches of under my belt made from some AG kits. I'm looking to take the plunge and start exploring some of the ideas that I have in my head but have a few questions.

I have been researching hop and malt flavor characteristics and think I have certain of each in mind. But my biggest question, which I've been unable to find an answer to as of yet, is where to start with the actually weight of grains to use. I've got ideas on percentages of each grain, but how much total grain am I shooting for in a 5 gal batch? Is there a rule-of-thumb that I missed somewhere? Most recipes that I have found use anywhere from 9-13 lbs of total grain weight. Any pointers here? I may have a few other questions, but would really appreciate some guidance on this milestone.
 
The amount of grain to be used is based roughly on two things: the target OG and your conversion efficiency percentage. Most published recipes are written for a conversion % of about 75%. If your brewery is different from that, simply adjust the grain quantity up or down to hit the recipe's target OG. For writing your own recipes the concept is similar, use the weight of grain based on your conversion % to hit the desired OG.
 
A software program such as Beersmith will really help you determine the grain amount for an particular OG once you know your efficiency. You can adjust the amounts and see how each addition affects your recipe, color and bitterness. Well worth the investment for an all grain brewer.
 
Blender said:
A software program such as Beersmith will really help you determine the grain amount for an particular OG once you know your efficiency. You can adjust the amounts and see how each addition affects your recipe, color and bitterness. Well worth the investment for an all grain brewer.
Click to expand...

What this guy says... Beersmith is awesome. I've only got the trial addition which is good for me for about another week or so then I'm getting it. As you add grains to your recipe it shows the the percentage of each grain your recipe is using. Also the nice thing is that when your adding grains you can mouse over the type of grain and a text box will pop up that describes what flavors/mouthfeels it attributes and gives you an approximate max percentage that the grain type should take up in a recipe. So grains like 2-row it recommends up to 100% of the recipe where as grains like black patent it maxes out at 10% of your recipe. Check it out.... it's free to try.
 
+1 to BeerSmith. Play with the free trial and I guarantee you will buy it.

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels is an invaluable resource for understanding what is happening during the process of brewing and how different ingredients work together (or don't work together). You can get as in depth or as superficial an understanding as you want or as you can process at one time. Means there is always new info each time you go back. Really helps with understanding styles as well.
 
+1 for BeerSmith. Also, give http://hopville.com/ (web-based) a try. While not as full-featured as BeerSmith it's free and available anywhere.

For me, the biggest break-thru was in realizing the significance of PPG (Points per Pound per Gallon). Basically, 1 Lb of grain with a PPG of 36 will increase the specific gravity of a gallon of water from 1.000 to 1.036. To bring 5 gallons to 1.036, you'd need 5 Lbs of that grain.

Or, to put it another way, a pound of fermentables contributes 1/5 of its PPG to a five-gallon batch.

With a Flavor/Color/Syle ("rich chocolaty porter"), Batch Size ("5.0 gallons") and Original Gravity ("1.060") in mind, you can then work to create a recipe using specific quantities of grains to achieve your goal.
 
Read "Designing Great Beers."

The software will help with the instant gratification of writing a recipe. Search for "brewing software" on HBT and you'll find a bunch of threads that explain the pros and cons of a lot of different softwares.

The book will help you understand the how and why behind the recipe. I read a lot on the topic and this is one of my favorites.
 
Remember, when we talk about the percentage of each grain, that does not refer to the weight of each grain compared to the total amount of grain. It's the percentage of the total sugars.

The difference is subtle, but it has big implications when you realize how different the PPPG is for each type of malt. Black patent only has 25PPPG while Pils malt has about 37PPPG. To get the same sugar percentage from each of these grains, you'd be using two-thirds as much Pils malt.

You really need to read Designing Great Beers to get the crash course in all this. Instead of buying a brewing program, I just created a spreadsheet using Daniels's information. I have it setup so that I can enter everything in terms of percentages instead of weight. I hate the way that people are introduced to homebrewing thinking that everything is typically measured in quarter pound increments. All of my weights are to the hundreth of a pound, but my percentages are usually whole numbers. This makes more sense to me when you're scaling recipes up or down.
 
kanzimonson said:
You really need to read Designing Great Beers to get the crash course in all this. Instead of buying a brewing program, I just created a spreadsheet using Daniels's information. I have it setup so that I can enter everything in terms of percentages instead of weight. I hate the way that people are introduced to homebrewing thinking that everything is typically measured in quarter pound increments. All of my weights are to the hundreth of a pound, but my percentages are usually whole numbers. This makes more sense to me when you're scaling recipes up or down.
Click to expand...

Do you mind sharing your spreadsheet? I use BeerSmith but some things regarding conversions and weight are frustrating. If you have it set to use pounds it won't use pounds and ounces for smaller amounts of specialty grains
 
I sort of agree with designing great beers, though its not exactly an easy read by any means, there is some good info in it. I also definitely agree with a brewing program. especially if you are planning to try a comp or 2 down the line. I have all Macs and I use Beer Alchemy. terrific program and very user freindly. After plugging all my old recipes in that I just created in my head, I discovered most of them missed a BJCP style guidline point or 3. The nice thing about the software is it tells you these guidlines and will automatically let you know if you hit the points or missed them. then you can tweak the recipe and it will show in real time what those tweaks do to change every aspect of your recipe, from IBU, color, starting gravity, finished gravity, Alcohol percentage, etc.
 
I hope this attachment works (you'll have to download to use it).

I entirely designed it around the way that I brew so I make no apologies for the way it's arranged. You'll notice that I consolidated several of the malts, just so I don't have a mile long list of all the different malts available to brewers. It will tell you the amounts of each grain you need in pounds and kilograms. If I'm using a malt in quantities less than a half pound, I'll measure it in grams.

At the bottom are tabs for hop and water adjustments. You have to individually enter the info for each hop addition and it will calculate the IBUs with the Rager formula. I know from experience that with late hop additions, the calculated IBU is higher than the perceived IBU... just something I've learned along the way.

The water tab is taken directly from Palmer, and the Source Water is what I'm using. There are a lot of equations scattered throughout the entire spreadsheet and my best advice is to fully complete the spreadsheet in this order: grains, mash, hops, water. This will make sure you don't end up with any "#DIV/0!" errors.
 
kanzimonson said:
I hope this attachment works (you'll have to download to use it).

I entirely designed it around the way that I brew so I make no apologies for the way it's arranged. You'll notice that I consolidated several of the malts, just so I don't have a mile long list of all the different malts available to brewers. It will tell you the amounts of each grain you need in pounds and kilograms. If I'm using a malt in quantities less than a half pound, I'll measure it in grams.

At the bottom are tabs for hop and water adjustments. You have to individually enter the info for each hop addition and it will calculate the IBUs with the Rager formula. I know from experience that with late hop additions, the calculated IBU is higher than the perceived IBU... just something I've learned along the way.

The water tab is taken directly from Palmer, and the Source Water is what I'm using. There are a lot of equations scattered throughout the entire spreadsheet and my best advice is to fully complete the spreadsheet in this order: grains, mash, hops, water. This will make sure you don't end up with any "#DIV/0!" errors.
Click to expand...

Much obliged! :mug:

I will check it out and see if I can use it or modify it. Also nice to be able to give something to new brewers who might not be in a position to run out and buy software.
 
Thanks for all of the advice here. I went ahead and purchased Beersmith. Definitely helps, however I am going to go purchase the advised book this weekend. I'm of the mindset that I work best when I fully understand how AND why something works, so the more information I get the better.
 
Beersmith is AWESOME! It has been great when designing beers, figuring out your yield, IBU's, a host of other things it does.
 
TANSTAAFB said:
+1 to BeerSmith. Play with the free trial and I guarantee you will buy it.

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels is an invaluable resource for understanding what is happening during the process of brewing and how different ingredients work together (or don't work together). You can get as in depth or as superficial an understanding as you want or as you can process at one time. Means there is always new info each time you go back. Really helps with understanding styles as well.
Click to expand...

Thank you again TANSTAAFB for this book recommendation. I purchased yesterday. This is EXACTLY what I have been looking for. I will recommend this to everyone in the future.
 
Glad I could help! I am just starting to work with recipes myself, trying to understand what contributes what. Nothing substitutes for experience but Ray makes the science of brewing accessible to the layman (layperson?!?!?...laity...whatever) without having to try to get through a brewing textbook.

I love the ratios for everything. They allow you to experiment a little and choose where you want to be in the style...squarely in the middle, out on the fringe, or out in left field.

Nothing wrong with left field, just nice to know when you are there!!! :tank:
 

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