Specialty grain percentages when moving to All grain

So I recently started converting my recipes from extract with specialty grains to all-grain BIAB in BeerSmith. The main question I have about the conversion though is should you keep the grain percentages the same or should you keep the amount in oz/lbs the same for specialty grains and just increase/decrease base malts to hit target values.

Keeping the percentage the same makes sense from the stand point of the recipes as a whole but keeping the specialty grain amounts the same makes sense from the stand point of amount of flavor contributed by specialty grains to the same volume of final beer.

For example if an old recipe for simplicity sake was
8.5lbs (85%) Pale Extract
1lb (10%) crystal 60
.5lb (5%) roast barley

and I moved it to BIAB at 65% eff

would it become

Percentages the same:
6.66lbs (85%) Pale 2row
12.7oz (10%) crystal 60
6.3oz (5%) roast barley

or

Specialty grain amount stay the same and base changes:
6.375lbs (81%) Pale 2row
1lb (12.5%) crystal 60
.5lb (6.5%) roast barley

taking it one step further if I were to change the crush on the grain and the efficiency increased would I again alter just the base or should I also alter the specialty grains?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

Something doesn't look right. If you were previosly using 8+ pounds of extract you are going to need over double the amount of two row, especially at 65% efficiency.

Niether...Roughly speaking specialty grains would remain the same, and you need to achieve the same amount of fermentables from the base grain. % extract will not be the same as % base grains based on weight as they contribute different amounts of fermentables...this is based on PPG's or gravity points per gallon...off the top of my head, a lb of LME is roughly equal to 1 1/2 pounds of 2 row. Of course this all depends on the extract, DME is about 20% more PPG's than LME, and 2row PPG's all depend on your efficiency.

Very roughly speaking, sub about 1 1/2 times base grain for LME extract (20% more for DME), and specialties remain the same...now to complicate matters more, some extracts contain specialty malts of unknown percentages, in this case throw all the data out the window and follow your pallet...cheers.

The amount of base grain required will be the amount needed to achieve similar gravity wort b/w the AG and the extract recipe, and this is figured by the PPG's and efficiency of AG.

Jrems sorry bout that I screwed up the swap on the equipment in beersmith.

Thanks wilserbrewer

so it should be

12lbs 2row (89%)
1lb crystal 60 (7.4%)
.5lb roast barley (3.7%)

and not something like

11.5lbs 2 row (85%)
1lb 6oz crystal (10%)
10.9 oz roast (5%)

The thing that throws me off is that a lot of ingredients make claims about the taste the specialty grain gives based on the % that you use like with all of Briess's specification sheets. They should list it more as amount per 5 gal batch or something similar.

Yea, I like #1 better, but I still have no idea if your extract was LME or DME so it is still a shot in the dark??? You need to use enough base malt to get your fermentables and gravity, w/ specialties added for flavor...and also a bit of gravity.

Play around w/ the brewbuilder at brewmasters warehouse to get an idea of how much base malt required for a certain gravity...???

Whatever the gravity of your extract batch, the AG should be similar w/ similar amounts of spec. grains "I believe" haha and cheers

Not an all grain brewer so maybe this is not quite correct, but in partial mash you're just subbing base malts with ME, so wouldn't specialty grains be unaffected?

rhinoceroceros said:

Not an all grain brewer so maybe this is not quite correct, but in partial mash you're just subbing base malts with ME, so wouldn't specialty grains be unaffected?

Click to expand...

yes, more or less I guess

Use the same amount of crystal as you did in your extract recipes. What you are converting rather is the grains replacing the extract itself.

*edit - missed that Wilserbrewer already answered this. So yeah, what he said.

Rev.

I disagree. I say the % should remain the same. If you lose eff% you are losing runoff. Likewise you are losing an equivalent % of the nonfermentable sugars.

"I disagree. I say the % should remain the same. If you lose eff% you are losing runoff. Likewise you are losing an equivalent % of the nonfermentable sugars."

No, generally you are just not getting good conversion. You are essentially steeping the crystal for an hour and you will get the same basic contribution from it even if your conversion stinks.

Just think of it this way. If you put the crystal in and got zero efficiency from the base grain, you would be at exactly the same point as if you just steeped in water.

You will lose "some" to the various inefficiencies of your system - eg any liquid left in the tun.

the ratio of the carmelized sugars, dextrines, lactose, and maltose is going to be changed by the ration of the specialty malts.

That change in ration carries through to the runoff. What does not result in the sparge is not because it did not convert, but rather because it was not rinsed free from the grain.

Yes, in the same nature you really are just steeping, but steeping grains do not result 100% in the boil as the sugars adhere to the kernel.

That "some" that you speak of continues to remain in ratio with the rest.

That just isn't true. The sugar is going to wash out of crystal. It just is. You don't have to do anything special. You can throw uncrushed base grain in with crushed crystal. You will get essentially zero efficiency from your base grain and 100% efficiency from they crystal.

And, your loss ratio from the tun is not the same as your net efficiency. It should be only a small portion - eg a cup out of 7 gallons. Instead of 100% efficiency from your crystal, you might get 95%.

so if I took 5 lbs of 2-row and converted it and sparged I get 70% eff evident in PPG. What you say says that I would get 100% eff if I did the same with specialty grain.

@cockybiz - it's not about percentage because the weights of extract and grains to reproduce what was had from the extract in a recipe will be different. And with a difference in weight you have a difference in percentages. I started with extract and have now been doing all grain for a year and have converted my recipes. I keep the same amount of specialty malts and only make up for the extract with grains and my beers have all been fine.


Rev.

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. Based on what folks have said thus far I think the best way is to think about it is what amount of a specialty grain contributes what types of flavors you are looking for. If I have a extract recipe already made that I like then it would be best to just convert the extract to a base grain and leave the specialty.

To make a new extract recipe it would almost make sense to start by making an AG recipe and converting it since the folks at briess and other companies are probably not trying to determine the flavor contributions of their grains using extract as their base (although I suppose they could be). So basically to create a new extract recipe one might create an AG recipe with 80 or 85%(?) eff and determine the specialty grain amounts to hit the percentage listed in their spec sheets then convert the base malts to extract while leaving the specialty grains (assuming none of them need to be mashed).

Or I'm just over thinking it as always

I am sure they have been fine, but the physics behind it does not change. I answered the question that was asked.

To believe that you can put specialty grains in a mash and get 100% in the pot, while you only get 65% from the base grain isn't logical. The problem is the adhesion of the sugars to the kernel. The same principles of adhesion is what makes things sticky. All of the sugars, including those from the specialty grains get sticky when they get wet.

I understand that you are not trying to convert the sugars in the specialty grains-- however the sugars in 2-row are going to be fully converted in a hour's mash. The problem is getting those sugar molecules to come free from the surfaces inside the mash tun to which they cling. The maltose and the other complex sugars from the specialty grains remain homogeneous in solution. Likewise, they will remain a loss in the system in a homogeneous ratio as well.

"I am sure they have been fine, but the physics behind it does not change. "

Actually, it certainly does. The physics of simple sugars dissolving in water are dramatically different than enzymes in solution interacting with big starches bound to other materials.

...and an iodine test will provide proof that you no longer have starches. There is good evidence that starches are all broken into sugars with as little as 20 minutes into the mash.

Once again we are talking sugars vs sugars. When my sparging techniques get 90% and my neighbor gets 65% it is not because of enzymatic activity but the efficiency of the sparge. Did you bother reading anything more than the first line of my previous post?

An iodine test will only show that there are no starches in solution, not that you have 100% conversion of the starches in the grain.

cockybitz said:

When my sparging techniques get 90% and my neighbor gets 65% it is not because of enzymatic activity but the efficiency of the sparge.

Click to expand...

Right. Starches in the kernel... that don't exist because they are going to be converted.