Lazer Wolf Brewing
Well-Known Member
Hi,
I jumped into brewing head-first and purchased a Grainfather. I have yet to brew a batch of beer, but I'm gearing up. I feel quite stupid trying to use this software and figure out how to come up with the correct numbers.
I chose to use Brewer's Friend over Beersmith as I heard it may be a bit easier to use for a newbie like me. I have chosen my first recipe, Skeezer's zombie dust clone, and I am trying to input it into Brewer's Friend so that I can scale down from 6 gallons to 2.5 gallons.
Skeezer's recipe: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/5916/zombie-dust-clone-all-grain
I copied the recipe exactly into Brewer's Friend and marked it as a 6 gallon batch. I then used the Grainfather water calculator app, input batch size 6, grain bill as 14.38 gallons, and that spit out a total mash+sparge volume of 8.70 gallons. I put 8.70 gallons as "Est. boil size" in Brewer's Friend. I then scaled the recipe down to 2.5 gallons, but when I input the resulting batch size and grain bill (brewer's friend spits out 6lbs after i scale) into the grainfather water calculator, its showing different numbers than brewers friend.
Brewer's Friend says my total boil volume should be 5.2 gallons, and the grainfather app says Mash (2.87 gallons) + Sparge (1.53 gallons) = 4.40 gallons. I thought if I input the correct GF-provided numbers into the original 6 gallon recipe, and scaled to 2.5 gallons, that the water amounts should be the same from both apps.
Should I just use the grain/hop amounts that Brewers friend gives me, but ignore their water amounts and use the grainfather app amounts instead? Sorry this got so long, any help to a virgin brewer is much appreciated!!
I jumped into brewing head-first and purchased a Grainfather. I have yet to brew a batch of beer, but I'm gearing up. I feel quite stupid trying to use this software and figure out how to come up with the correct numbers.
I chose to use Brewer's Friend over Beersmith as I heard it may be a bit easier to use for a newbie like me. I have chosen my first recipe, Skeezer's zombie dust clone, and I am trying to input it into Brewer's Friend so that I can scale down from 6 gallons to 2.5 gallons.
Skeezer's recipe: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/5916/zombie-dust-clone-all-grain
I copied the recipe exactly into Brewer's Friend and marked it as a 6 gallon batch. I then used the Grainfather water calculator app, input batch size 6, grain bill as 14.38 gallons, and that spit out a total mash+sparge volume of 8.70 gallons. I put 8.70 gallons as "Est. boil size" in Brewer's Friend. I then scaled the recipe down to 2.5 gallons, but when I input the resulting batch size and grain bill (brewer's friend spits out 6lbs after i scale) into the grainfather water calculator, its showing different numbers than brewers friend.
Brewer's Friend says my total boil volume should be 5.2 gallons, and the grainfather app says Mash (2.87 gallons) + Sparge (1.53 gallons) = 4.40 gallons. I thought if I input the correct GF-provided numbers into the original 6 gallon recipe, and scaled to 2.5 gallons, that the water amounts should be the same from both apps.
Should I just use the grain/hop amounts that Brewers friend gives me, but ignore their water amounts and use the grainfather app amounts instead? Sorry this got so long, any help to a virgin brewer is much appreciated!!
