converting AG recipes to PM

Ok, good peeps.

I got myself all excited when I was in the Depot last month because they had a great sale on electric turkey fryers; before I knew it, I was loading my new toy into the car. All psyched because I thought I could move up to AG, but after just a short period of reflection I realized that the fryer isn't quite bit enough for full boils. It holds seven gallons, pretty much to the ounce. Figure that's probably big enough - if I'm quick with the spray bottle - to boil 4 gallons, not five. Grr.

Doing 4 gallon batches is not going to happen - too much work for too little beer.

The plan, therefore, is to try and get 75% or so of my fermentables through grain, the remainer through a couple pounds of DME added to the boil. Total boil size will be 4 - 4.5 gallons, I'll top off a gallon or so in the fermenter. So, I'm looking for help being able to convert an all-grain recipe to a mostly-grain recipe.

Specially, I'm looking at starting with something straightforward, like Papa Charlie's Good Life Pale Ale. Grain bill is 9# pale ale-type malt, 1.6# Munich malt, 0.5# crystal 20L. How would I go about converting this? Just cut the pale ale- and Munich malts back by 20% or so, then add some light DME? How much DME? Is there a general conversion formula to go from grains to malt?

How about the hops? I know the utilization will be different going from 5 gallons to 4, but enough to worry about making adjustments?

Anything else I should be thinking about? I'm still in the process of making/building an immersion chiller. The lauter tun is itchin' to go. I still need to learn some of the mechanics of perfoming the mash, lots of stuff to get straight in my head, but I know I can do this - just need some help with the recipes!

Much thanks!

I just ran it through ProMash. How does this look? You will end up with a little over 7 pounds of grain. After you mash and sparge them you should have roughly 5 to 5 1/2 gallons of wort in your pot. You can top off to 5 gallons in the fermenter.
I wouldn't worry about changing the hops. I'm no expert but I can't imagine you will get much difference in utilization between a 7 or a 5 gallon boil.

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 9.60
Anticipated OG: 1.063 Plato: 15.44
Anticipated SRM: 7.7
Anticipated IBU: 0.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
26.0 2.50 lbs. Generic DME - Light Generic 1.046 8
52.1 5.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3
16.7 1.60 lbs. Munich Malt Great Britain 1.037 6
5.2 0.50 lbs. Crystal 20L America 1.035 20

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Yeast
-----

I do 5gal batches in a 7gal pot all the time. All I do is boil a bit longer and top up the kettle with collected wort as I go. Like you said you always have to be vigilant during the boil-over phase but it's easy once you get the hang of it. Just make sure you stop adding wort at least a half hour to forty-five munutes before the end of the boil to get hot break out of the new stuff.

Cool, thanks. Suppose I need to invest in ProMash at some point; I downloaded the demo version and have some questions, which I'll post in a new thread at some point. I was considering what you proposed as well, Cheyco (topping off the boil as I go), but I'm still a little nervous about having 5 gallons in that pot.

Give me another year, I'll be kickin' it propane-style!

No balls, no blue chips!

Go for it, just make sure you go easy on the HB until well into the boil!

Perchance, has anybody done this particular recipe (the AG version?) Looks like a pretty straightforward pale ale. I've got a couple more unusual things under my belt, I'm looking tor a little bit lighter, dailer-drinker kind of brew.

In "Designing great beers" it is always recommended to start from total gravity regardless of AG or PM. For instance you want to make 5 gallons of 1.050 wort. It means you need 5 * 50 = 250 Gravity Units (GU) total. Let's say that you can only handle #7 of grain. And you want it to be #5 of pilsner, #1.5 of Munich and #0.5 Carapils. All of them I think have potential extract 35 GU per lb (you need to look for these numbers for other types of malts). Also you know that you system has 70% efficiency. Therefore 35 * 0.7 = 24.5 GU per lb. Since you have #7 of grain: 24.5 * 7 = 171.5. It means 171.5 GU will come from grain and the rest should come from DME or LME. I usually use light DME. DME gives you 46 GU per pound. Now, 250 - 171.5 = 78.5 GU need to come from your DME. 78.5 / 46 = 1.7 lb of DME will give you that gravity. Now you can stick you numbers in that example...

BTW, in general what do you think of this electrical fryer, I'm looking at it in my Home Depot $66 on sale. It's tempting.

I just did my first AG in a pot the same size. I did what the Chairman said and add more wort as it boils off. It only took me an hour do get it down to 6 gallons so I could start my hop schedule. The boil over wasn't bad I just reduced the temp for a few minutes until it settled down. Other than the facted that I added to much black patent it went well.

AdIn said:

BTW, in general what do you think of this electrical fryer, I'm looking at it in my Home Depot $66 on sale. It's tempting.

Click to expand...

Have not tried it out yet owing to my lack of an immersion chiller (and shock at how much copper coil was going for at the Depot). Damn cooler will end up costing me more than the fryer! I really like the fact that it's electric and that I'll be able to brew inside during the winter, but I really, REALLY wish it was 6 quarts bigger.

Note that the fryer, at least my model, doesn't have a spigot, and it looks like it'd be a PITA to install one because the liner is removable (and I want it to stay removable). So, CFCs are probably out of the question unless I also invest in a pump (that's what I'm getting an immersion chiller instead of the far cooler CFC).

Where do you live? If I lived someplace with half-assed decent winters, I'd probably buy a propane burner and a big stockpot (or one of those converted kegs), but I'm too much of a wuss to hang around outside for hours in the bitter cold. I'll still probably buy one in a year or so, maybe I'll toodle around this winter in the basement building a stand.

I live in WA, it's not that during winter cold (relatively speaking) but rains a lot. Electric would be very convenient, hands down. If you buy a bigger pot why would you not able to put heating element from this fryer in to it and solve the boil size problem?

Not the way that it's set up. The heating element comes off, but has to plug into the base to work (it's not a fully indepentent unit). It's not a separate pot, per se, it's all an integrated unit with a liner that comes out.