Converting Extract to All grain

I have a partial mash recipe that I used to do before going all grain. Now I'd like to covert it to all grain. Here is the current grain bill and extract. Could someone help me convert this to all grain? This is for a 5 gallon batch.

1# Carapils
1# Munich
1.5 # Wheat
4# Super light extract
2# Wheat extract

Here's what I'm thinking:

1# Carapils
1# Munich
8# 2 Row
5.5# Wheat

My concerns with this is that the starting gravity is way to high, suggested by Promash @ 1.085. The color is way off to around 5.7 SRM and it should probably be around 7.0 - 7.5 or so. I'm thinking I need to get ride of some of that 2 row and bump the carapils or the munich but don't know which one. Also this beer should be around 5%.

Edit: New Grain Bill I think gets me what I want.

2.5 # Carapils
4 # Munich
1.5 # 2 Row
2 # Wheat

Puts my SG @ 1.054 and my SRM @ 6.5.

Let me know your thoughts.

Don't worry about SRM. Extract is MUCH darker than grains because of the way it's made. If you want the same flavor, you won't have the same color. Don't drop any of your specialty grains at all. All you really want to do is sub the extract for it's equivelant grain. With your wheat malt...what was the ratio? Was it 50-50, 60-40, etc?

Your extracts should convert to around 5lbs of pilsner malt (to replace super light) and 1.2 lbs of 2-row/1.2 lbs of wheat (to repalce wheat extract). That's assuming your wheat extract was a 50/50 mix.

I'm not sure why you would increase the cara-pils any. It's used to add body, mouthfeel, and head and is highly unfermentable so using 2.5# in a 5 gal batch would leave you with a very high FG. I wouldn't adjust that one at all. Is the extract dry or liquid in your original recipe? The "super light" leads me to think dry since I've not seen that in liquid form, but the 5% comment leads me to think liquid, since that much dry extract would have a pretty high OG. Either way, you really just want to convert the extract into equivalent base grains and leave everything else the same. Wheat extract into wheat malt and 2-row, and super light extract into pilsner malt. How much of each is dependent on whether you're converting from liquid or dry and what your brewhouse efficiency is.

I step away to re-fill my beer and get beat to the reply.

Thanks for the replies! The ratio is 1/3 Wheat 2/3 Pilsner. Yes I'd rather have the flavor than the color so I will drop that Idea right now. Both of the extracts were in liquid form, so if you can help me with the conversion from there I'd appreciate it.

dmbGator said:

Edit: New Grain Bill I think gets me what I want.

2.5 # Carapils
4 # Munich
1.5 # 2 Row
2 # Wheat

Puts my SG @ 1.054 and my SRM @ 6.5.

Let me know your thoughts.

Click to expand...

It won't get you what you want at all. Convert the extract to their corresponding base and crystal malts in the appropriate proportions instead of pushing random malts to match the color of the extract. If you want more color, you can always use a touch of Carafa Special III, Blackprinz, Midnight Wheat, Chocolate Wheat, Sinamar, or Black Malt extract powder.

7lbs pilsner malt
2.5lb wheat
1lb carapils
1lb munich

That should get your gravity in the right spot, and match your original beer the best.

Thanks for the input. Any way you can educate me on the conversion process?

Well...it really depends on your extract.

Basically, you want to take the base of your recipe and replace it with an equivalent base malt. In your case, I replaced super light extract with pilner malt since pilsner is as light as you can get with grain. I replaced your wheat extract with 33% wheat and 66% pilsner since that's what it was originally made from.

When converting from liquid extract to grain, just divide the amount of extract by .75

So...4lbs of super light would be 5.3lbs of pilsner malt.
2lbs of wheat extract would be .9lbs (33%) (I rounded to 1lb) wheat and 1.8lbs (66%) pilsner malt.

If you were using dry extract, you would do the same but divide the extract by .6

This is the most simplistic way of converting your recipes. It's not 100% accurate, but it gets you close. If you were to convert a pale, amber, or dark extract, it gets a bit trickier. You'll need to try and find out what the extract was made from (% of malts) and then replicate it. For instance...a dark extract is mostly made of pale malt and chocolate malt. You'd want to figure out the percentage of each and match it. A pale or amber extract would be pale malt and crystal, with amber having a few other things.

Hope this helps.

Oh...you should also make sure the hops in your recipes match up. You can't just add the same amount unless you did a full boil with your extract beer. You need to match the IBUs.