Brewing Classic Styles Irish Red Recipe

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NewDecadeBrewery

NewDecadeBrewery

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Tying to convert the recipe in the book to all grain for the efficiency of my system, which is approximately 75%. 6 gallons calls for 11# MO and to get 4.1% of the crystal malts it calls for 8 oz. of crystal 40 and 120 respectively. The roasted barley that I get from my LHBS is more like the 500L variety not 300L as the book calls for so that would be 3 oz instead of the 6 oz JZ calls for to get the color of 17 SRM. So the questions that follow are: 1. Are the percentages of malts in the book designed around LME or do they translate to all grain? For example am I correct in trying to maintain the 4.1% value on the crystal malts for all grain or do those percentages just apply to LME? Will the extra 2 oz. of each crystal malt throw off the balance, since I come up with 8 oz. to maintain 4.1% and for the book 4.1% is 6 oz.? And what about the RB? Will 3 oz. instead of 6 affect the balance so significantly to push the recipe out of balance? Will i have not enough roasted/toasted flavors if I cant use the same percentage of RB due to color?I like to work in percentages more than weights but I don't know if the recipe percentages only apply to LME. I know they say in the book just use 11.25 lbs MO instead of the LME for all grain and basically keep everything else the same, but doesn't pale LME have carapils or some light crystal in it? How do you account for that?

I can anticipate some responses being RDWHAHB but I just want to get an idea of what people think about converting the recipes in the book to all grain at maybe a different efficiency than the one they use in the book and also how they think one should account for the inherent light crystal mixed in with pale malt extract. It may come down to just brew it and make the adjustments depending on how the beer turns out. I wish the book was designed around all grain instead of extract. Seems like it should be.
 
NewDecadeBrewery said:
Tying to convert the recipe in the book to all grain for the efficiency of my system, which is approximately 75%. 6 gallons calls for 11# MO and to get 4.1% of the crystal malts it calls for 8 oz. of crystal 40 and 120 respectively. The roasted barley that I get from my LHBS is more like the 500L variety not 300L as the book calls for so that would be 3 oz instead of the 6 oz JZ calls for to get the color of 17 SRM. So the questions that follow are: 1. Are the percentages of malts in the book designed around LME or do they translate to all grain? For example am I correct in trying to maintain the 4.1% value on the crystal malts for all grain or do those percentages just apply to LME? Will the extra 2 oz. of each crystal malt throw off the balance, since I come up with 8 oz. to maintain 4.1% and for the book 4.1% is 6 oz.? And what about the RB? Will 3 oz. instead of 6 affect the balance so significantly to push the recipe out of balance? Will i have not enough roasted/toasted flavors if I cant use the same percentage of RB due to color?I like to work in percentages more than weights but I don't know if the recipe percentages only apply to LME. I know they say in the book just use 11.25 lbs MO instead of the LME for all grain and basically keep everything else the same, but doesn't pale LME have carapils or some light crystal in it? How do you account for that?

I can anticipate some responses being RDWHAHB but I just want to get an idea of what people think about converting the recipes in the book to all grain at maybe a different efficiency than the one they use in the book and also how they think one should account for the inherent light crystal mixed in with pale malt extract. It may come down to just brew it and make the adjustments depending on how the beer turns out. I wish the book was designed around all grain instead of extract. Seems like it should be.
Click to expand...

He specifically says that you should just adjust the base grain quantities, and leave the specialty grain quantities the same (not the percentages but instead keep the weights the same).

In regards to the Roasted Barley, I'd keep it the same weight myself, and not try to adjust the amount in order to keep the color more exact - but maybe there's a middle ground to be had with that.
 
Where does the book say that? The only reference I see in reference to efficiency is on page 40 where he is talking about steeping specialty grains. He states that the recipes are based off of 70% and if you determine your rate is higher or lower, than adjust the grain amounts accordingly. Even if the book did say to only change the base grains, I wouldn't. Why would you do this? A beer recipe is proportional for a reason. To the OP....every recipe in the book has an All Grain version at the end of each recipe. To keep it simple for efficiency conversions you really should purchase a program like BeerSmith. You can easily scale a recipe's efficiency with a few clicks. Well worth the cash, especially if you are an all grain brewer. The difference between roasted barley of 300L and 500L, I really wouldn't worry about. 300L is really black, 500L.....I guess you can say is blacker. LOL. I would just keep the same percentage throughout. Also, remember the recipes in the book are based on 6 gallons.
 
On page 125 when discussing the Scottish Ale recipes Jamil says "The recipe below can be easily adjusted to make varying strengths of the same beer. The specialty grains remain the same; it is only the base malt and bittering that changes." He goes on to say that increasing the specialty malts makes an "over-the-top" version of the beer" instead of just an imperial version with the same flavor profile.

I had to look it up because I remember reading it and wanted to make sure that was his advice. He only mentions this in the Scottish Ale section so I'm not sure if this is because it is only relevant to the Scottish Ale specialty grains or if it would have been better to include it in the beginning of the book on general brewing techniques.
 
I'm pretty sure the percentages apply to LME, not all grain.

What I did is follow his directions for doing all grain and the shown amounts of specialties printed in the book. I then calculated the new percentages of malts and scale the recipe based on those.
 
I am in agreement with Hammy in that the ratios of the grains are important to the overall recipe, and you cant just throw more of one type of malt at a recipe without maintaining the ratios and expect the same beer. While I do realize that JZ does say to do just this and that to convert to AG just add 11.25 lbs MO. If you do that your crystal malts and RB are now at 3% each instead of the 4.1% listed in the LME recipe. I would think this would change the flavor profile of the recipe. Now will it be significant or "bad" that is another question.

Additionally, in thinking about LME if it is made/processed/manufactured with some light crystal already in it and your additional crystal addition is at 8.2% in the extract version, then you are significantly lower in the crystal malt portion of your AG version because your crystal malt additions only add up to 6% of the total grain bill and you are lacking whatever crystal was already a percentage of the extract.

I am possibly really splitting hairs here and might have to make some gut feeling type calculations when I brew/convert this to AG if I want to address what I see as a "ratio problem" in the AG conversion. I would imagine that if you just did what JZ says and add more base malt you would still end up with excellent beer.
 
neophilus said:
On page 125 when discussing the Scottish Ale recipes Jamil says "The recipe below can be easily adjusted to make varying strengths of the same beer. The specialty grains remain the same; it is only the base malt and bittering that changes." He goes on to say that increasing the specialty malts makes an "over-the-top" version of the beer" instead of just an imperial version with the same flavor profile.

I had to look it up because I remember reading it and wanted to make sure that was his advice. He only mentions this in the Scottish Ale section so I'm not sure if this is because it is only relevant to the Scottish Ale specialty grains or if it would have been better to include it in the beginning of the book on general brewing techniques.
Click to expand...

Thanks for looking that up/finding it. I thought it was in the introductory section(s). I believe what he is getting at is that minor adjustments in base grain won't cause a significant change in the flavors as compared to changes in the amounts of specialty grain when you're talking about a fixed volume. Perhaps he was saying this just to keep it simplified. However, it seems logical to me that you'd kept the percentages the same in order to keep the overall flavor profile consistent - and it is really easy to make those minor changes with brewing software -- perhaps JZ wasn't assuming everyone has access to those sorts of tools and would have to make the calcs by hand.

To the OP, as far as why he created the book based on extract recipes, I would guess that's because it'd be relatively harder for a (usually less experienced) brewer to go the other way in converting all grain recipes to extract recipes. It's fine with me because he provides the changes for all grain brewers in the one-liner paragraphs near the end of the recipes anyway.
 
Agree with Frodo. The vast majority of people that are going to buy the book, are probably beginners. I'm sure the vast majority of brewers are extract (or still do extracts while doing all grain also). If I was trying to sell a book, I'd do extract also. But, I'm happy he also gives the all grain recipes too.
 
What I think is that the recipes in the book are conversions to extract from AG. Most likely Jamil created/refined the recipes as AG originally and then when the book was being written or edited he came to realization that for it to be more popular it needed to be extract-oriented for the beginner / general crowd. The extract versions of the recipes are the derived conversions, not the other way around. Therefore his instructions at the end of each recipe on how to brew the all-grain version are the actual recipe he's brewed himself for the competitions he won. That is my theory and I'm sticking to it when brewing any of these recipes as AG.
 
neophilus said:
On page 125 when discussing the Scottish Ale recipes Jamil says "The recipe below can be easily adjusted to make varying strengths of the same beer. The specialty grains remain the same; it is only the base malt and bittering that changes." He goes on to say that increasing the specialty malts makes an "over-the-top" version of the beer" instead of just an imperial version with the same flavor profile.

I had to look it up because I remember reading it and wanted to make sure that was his advice. He only mentions this in the Scottish Ale section so I'm not sure if this is because it is only relevant to the Scottish Ale specialty grains or if it would have been better to include it in the beginning of the book on general brewing techniques.
Click to expand...

This is absolutely directed at just the Scottish ale recipe area. He's talking about how to make the same beer a 60+/-, a 70+/- and a 80+/-. His exact line is this: "Today the shilling number is still a relative indication of one beer's strength in relation to another. And because they are similar in character, they all share the same basic recipe. The only difference is the amount of basemalt, hop bitterness, and the amount of yeast needed for each substyle".

In other words, they are the same beer but with more basemalt for a bigger OG, more hops to balance the higher OG, and more yeast for the higher OG.

That does NOT translate over to all the recipes in the book!
 
I may be wrong but I think in that paragraph he is talking about other styles as well, but there is something there that I didn't catch before, in bold in the quote below: pg 125: "Many new brewers mistakenly think it is necessary to increase the level of specialty malts when making a higher-alcohol beer. That is incorrect, and doing so will make an over-the-top version of the beer. The increased base malt will add the additional body, alcohol, and some malty flavors and aromas, so there is no need to change the specialty grain amounts, unless you are making a larger or smaller volume of beer."

... so I always thought the word "level" meant by weight, perhaps he meant by percentage. He seems to indicate weight though in the last sentence "no need to change the specialty grain amounts"... I dunno. In theory it seems like it's the percentages that would matter, but when we're talking about a fixed volume, steeping a specialty grain will impart a given amount of taste/color to that fixed amount, but if you increase the amount of specialty grain then more taste/color would be imparted. It's funny to me that he refers to some "new brewers" think this and that and here I am wondering what he means. That just shows my level of experience. I do think he is talking about beer styles in general, not just the Scottish Ales.
 

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