Dark Malt Extract to All grain

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Tiffhoward

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I am wanting to make a cherry stout but I would rather use all grain than a dark malt extract. The recipe calls for 6.6lbs dark malt extract and 1lb plain dark dried malt extract. Anyone suggestions on my grain bill to achieve all grain?
 
BeerSmith will tell you what to use, if you enter the recipe in and then ask it to convert from extract to all grain. You'll want to enter the complete recipe so that it can also factor in hop changes and such. You can do this with the free trial version if you don't want to purchase it yet. I use BeerSmith for all my recipes. Including the cloud aspect of it so I can pull down the recipe (easily) when not in front of my computer. If you purchase it, you can install it onto two [of your] systems for use. I have it on my desktop/tower and Windows tablet.
 
1lb grain = 0.75lb LME = 0.6lb DME

It is difficult to give you an exact grain bill as the dark extract has several malt components. If you have the manufacturer you may be able to visit their website to find out what it's made of and percentages. You may also want to visit the recipe wiki and look at recipes of stouts in all grain to get an idea of the type of grains people are using. I don't brew stouts so I can't help you with that.

+1 to Golddiggie's suggestion as well that Beersmith will help you with the conversions as well:)
 
Yes I would love to get Beersmith but I have an old computer and a old phone so I am doing things old school.

Sucks to be you then... IF your system is THAT old, you have other things that need to be addressed. BeerSmith 2.0 will run on XP (SP3). It might run slow on your old dino of a computer, but unless you're still on Windows 95, 98 or 2000, you can run it.

Otherwise, you'll have to hunt around for info on what's in the malt extracts you're looking to convert into an all grain recipe. Or just look up other recipes and try modifying those.
 
You don't have to buy a software, there are a few on line that are free sites as well as some apps.

You can look through the forum on HBT in the software threads for some recommended ones as well as google:)
 
You will want to use a pale malt as your base, either 2 row or maybe British Pale like Maris otter. Take your 6.6lbs of LME x about .75 like duboman said. Then, your color, roast flavor etc will come from your specialty grains. Generally with a stout, that is roast barley, chocolate malt and some crystal. You're probably looking at about 75% base malt, about 7-10% caramel, 7-10% choco and 3% roast barley. I'd suggest you read 'Designing Great Beers' by Ray Daniels. It has a wealth of info on how to calculate gravities, converting from extract to grain recipes and how to build beers in just about all the styles, good book to have around. By playing around with the percentage numbers, you can adjust sweetness, dryness or roast flavor. I agree with the above post as well, Beersmith is a great tool to have for creating and tweaking recipes. HTH.
 
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