Adjusting recipe for efficiency

Hi guys!

I want to make a recipe (all grains) that is based on 70% efficiency. However, I'm usually around 75%. I'm wondering what is the conventional way of scaling the recipe for the new efficiency. Actually, I'm seeing three possibilities:

1- Do the recipe as per 70% and add some water before fermentation to dilute the mash to the coorect OG. Problem: I will have to adjust the hops amount to compensate the larger volume.

2- Adjust all the grains to get the correct OG after the boil. Problem: putting less crytal malts, which don't add much to the OG, will certainly affect the color and the taste.

3- Adjust only the base malts. Seems to be right way...

So, I think of going with option 3. Is there anything I missed here ? Is there a better or standard way to do this kind of conversion ?

As long as you are keeping batch size the same, adjust only your base malt. Half a pound of crystal in 5 gallons is still half a pound of crystal in 5 gallons, as for all other specialty malts.

You're going to be getting the same percentage of sugars from your base malt with 75% efficiency as the brewer who adds more malt at 70% efficiency, so your specialty malt percentages will still be the same. This may not be properly represented in something like beersmith as it just tells you the percentage of base vs specialty malts regardless of efficiency.

i usually scale eveything back ... maybe I'm doing it wrong, but the beer is good ..

For minor corrections, I would just adjust the base malt. If your changing the amount of base by more than a lb, and certainly more than 2 lb, then I would scale all the grains.

L

I use Beer Smith and it easily does all the calculations for me.
I'm sure most of the other brewing software will too.

#3

I tend to look at recipes more in percentages of malts rather than a lb here or 8 oz there... So when I adjust a recipe for my efficiency (which is usually crazy high, like 90, for anything up to 1.060) I scale every malt back to keep the same percentages. Though with some malts keeping the same percentages just wont do, i.e. Acid malt for me, seems to not contribute as much with such high efficiency. I brewed a Gose a while back with 10% acid malt (turned out to be about a lb in a 6 gallon batch) and it ended up being only a slightly tart beer (I used untreated RO water).

skibb said:

I tend to look at recipes more in percentages of malts rather than a lb here or 8 oz there... So when I adjust a recipe for my efficiency (which is usually crazy high, like 90, for anything up to 1.060) I scale every malt back to keep the same percentages.

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Me too. If a recipe is 85% two-row and 15% crystal malt, it doesn't matter if you've got 75% efficiency or 55% as long as you scale for your desired OG. The percentages should be what doesn't change- the amount of each grain will. You should scale all grains, except those used for pH adjustments or to prevent stuck sparges (ie acid malt or rice hulls).