Weighing Grain

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zac

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Another noob question:

I visited my LHBS (which is 2 hours away) and purchased a belgian trippel kit & I think the recipie sheet they gave me with it is WRONG!!! The sheet shows only 7.6 lbs of grain & the bag is HEAVY, so I'm thinking its more than 7 pounds, but have NO SCALES!!! (im new to this). Anybody got ideas? I know I could wait till the LHBS opens up & call & ask, but the don't open up for 2 more hours & I wanna brew :mad: I know water weighs 8.2 lbs a gallon, reckon I'm capable of being my own spring scale & getting close enough to make good beer?

Anything to do other than wait? Normally, I'd just brew something else first, but alas, I have only one empty carboy, and I really want to get this puppy cooking.

thanks
zac
 
Naw yooper, no bathroom scales or anything. my mom/freidns do, but we're talking 30 minute drive anywhere.. grrrr!!!

I've googled the crap out of this, I'm turning up blanks!
 
Mike,
Yeah, that's why I balked when I started this morning. Looking back to recipie, I've got bigger problems. They gave me the fargg*ing extract recipie. *edit* the kit was AG but the sheet reflected extract*

6.6 lbs Briess Golden Syrup
1 lb Briess Pilsen DME
1 lb Light candy Sugar
1 lb Pilsner malt

only 3 oz hops, I have 5oz ready to go.

I ended up with a BIG bag of grain & 1lb of hard rock sugar & I'm stuck.

Is there anyway to convert this to AG & be somewhere close to the ballpark so my mash & sparge aren't totally off?

thanks
z
 
Sounds like he converted that extract recipe to all grain for you. You will have to calculate the mash using Beersmith or something like that and follow the hop schedule you were given.
 
This doesn't help you now, but I think a kitchen scale purchase is in your future. :D

I use ours all the time, not just for brewing (baking, etc.)
 
I typed out a big long response & it dissapeared on the electron highway...

I did some calculating:

6.6 lbs Briess Golden Syrup= 14.85 lbs grain
1 lb Briess Pilsen DME= 1.875 lbs grain
1 lb Light candy Sugar= added to boil
1 lb Pilsner malt=1 lb grain (duh)

I came up with 17.725 lbs grain. I think I'll run with this unless somebody wants to take pity upon my soul & run it through beersmith or something.

DaveyBoy, a kitchen scale is going to be ordered with my next round of supplies. I wanted to wait till I got some stuff to store grain in, but I guess I got bit.

Here I go thinking again: The LHBS will be open in an hour, might as well just wait, but if somebody wants to run the numbers for me, at least I'll know my calculations are correct.

thanks again,
z
 
Called the LHBS, all is well & the sparge is in process. All is good. bout time to crack open a Fat Tire clone. (New Begian brewing & I'm brewing a Belgian trippel, i thought that'd be nice)

Thanks for all the help. A set of scales will be on the next order.


Zac
 
zac said:
Called the LHBS, all is well & the sparge is in process. All is good. bout time to crack open a Fat Tire clone. (New Begian brewing & I'm brewing a Belgian trippel, i thought that'd be nice)

Thanks for all the help. A set of scales will be on the next order.


Zac

SO what did they tell you? Did they convert an extract to your grainbill? How many pounds of grain did they give you?
 
Got a gallon sized plastic jug? It should be about 8.3 pounds when full of water, make a balance just to see.
 
Revvy,
they *told* me 11.75 pounds of grain, but I went with my original calculation of 17 + lbs & brewed anyways. (After lifting the bag, I was thinking anything above 15 i'd believe) 5.5 mash & 8 gals sparge, collected about 9 gals of wort & boiled down to around 6 gals into the carboy. This brew smelled great & tasted soooooooo sweet. It was my first brew with the rock candy, that was interesting.......Also my first time with Saaz hops. they smell great.

Did they convert? yes, they had to convert extract to AG for me in the store. They just found the cut sheet and told me over the phone. They aslso followed up with an e-mailed copy of the AG instructions & a nice e-mail thanking me (not the trash can type either.) I'm really impressed. I like these guys.

I finished brewing in a little under 5 hours, had the kitchen cleaned up, 3 loads of laundry & the dishwasher cleaned out by the time SWMBO got home. She was a happy camper!!! She likes when I actually get a day off.

Now, I have 20 gallons fermenting, no kegging system, and less than a gallon of empty bottles, so I'm working on creating dead soilders. Already had my Fat tire Clone, a Lost Coast Downtown Brown & a New Castle Clone, so my empty bottle collection in incerasing by the hour! SWMBO is pitching in with a hard cider & my peach wheat that she loves!

Malt monkey: we have a town trip tommorow, might check out & see what wall-hell has to offer.

thanks
z
 
zac said:
I finished brewing in a little under 5 hours, had the kitchen cleaned up, 3 loads of laundry & the dishwasher cleaned out by the time SWMBO got home. She was a happy camper!!! She likes when I actually get a day off.

Now, I have 20 gallons fermenting, no kegging system, and less than a gallon of empty bottles, so I'm working on creating dead soilders. Already had my Fat tire Clone, a Lost Coast Downtown Brown & a New Castle Clone, so my empty bottle collection in incerasing by the hour! SWMBO is pitching in with a hard cider & my peach wheat that she loves!

Malt monkey: we have a town trip tommorow, might check out & see what wall-hell has to offer.

thanks
z

Glad it turned out! And quite a productive day you had...Brewing and laundry! I can see how swmbo's be happy. Enjoy killing off those soldiers!
 
Should you find yourself in this type of predicament again.

Water weighs 8.35#/gallon OR approx 1/2# per cup (0.52# per 8oz). Make a hanging balance beam and use a big zip lock baggie to hold your water. You needed ~14 cups, 2oz to balance 7.4# of grain.
 
might be too late to catch you, but Bed Bath & Beyond has a pretty good selection of kitchen scales. I have a nice digital Salter that I got for about $50 I think.
it gets used for normal kitchen cooking, weighing coffee beans I roast, weighing out hops, grain, etc...

Definitely get one that does ounces, lbs, and metric. sometimes I find metric recipes and its easier to just go by those values than converting everything.
It also needs to be accurate, as .25 ounces of hops is only about 8grams.
 
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