recipe adjustment for volume

is it possible/accurate to adjust recipes for volume just by using simple ratios or does one need to use some sort of beer tools software? for example if i have a recipe that has everything based upon a 5 gallon volume and i want to make a 6 gallon volume, can i just multiply everything by 1.2?

No it doesn't exactly work like that. If you're just getting into brewing, this is the best $20 you can spend. Your beer will be better and just messing around with it will help you learn how beers are put together.

http://www.beersmith.com/

I'd recommend beersmith as well. It helped me a lot on my first batch scaling a NorthernBrewer extract kit up to a full boil and gave me some of the important numbers to hit that weren't in the recipe. It's also an easy way to take notes and adjust recipes based on the results (good or bad) of your batches so you know what to repeat or avoid doing in the future.

I'll third the recommendation for Beersmith...it has all kinds of handy tools for beginners up to commercial brewers.

madgaffler said:

is it possible/accurate to adjust recipes for volume just by using simple ratios or does one need to use some sort of beer tools software? for example if i have a recipe that has everything based upon a 5 gallon volume and i want to make a 6 gallon volume, can i just multiply everything by 1.2?

Click to expand...

it more or less works that way, but not with everything. your yeast and malt will work like that and your late hops will too, but your bittering hops won't be exactly like that.

ok great, i can handle the $20, so i consider it an investment worthwhile. thanks all for the input.

Curious what makes you guys think scaling a recipe isn't just a simple ratio?

Granted, beersmith can do some clever things like scale between all-grain and extract, or convert between different brewing systems, but for a simple scale on the same system, all it does is a simple ratio conversion.

I guess I misread and I thought he was also asking about scaling down a recipe. Not just by volume. Obviously you're correct if we're talking just volume.

I just know that a common question that beginners have is can they for instance take a 1.080 recipe and just use the same percentages for every malt in the grain bill and get the same result, and that isn't the case. You have to adjust base malts and specialty grains differently.

Either way, you will never regret getting Beersmith.