How to scale ABV in ESB

[Douglefish]

I was reading the thread regarding BierMuncher's Red Hook ESB clone and it brought up a question. He mentioned that he wanted a beer a little less in alcohol and would make up for the mouth feel lost by increasing the mash temp. That roughly makes sense to me. My question is if you have a recipe that takes X lbs of base malt and you want to either increase or decrease the ABV, what do you do with the specialty grain? Would you scale that by the same percentage? I know that there is no tride and true answer, just looking for general recommendations.

Thanks!

 

[barleynhops]

I would simply scale it up or down on a percentage basis.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

You cannot scale back the O.G. and still end up with the same beer. It can come close, but it won't look anything like the original grist ratios.

 

[david_42]

I don't scale the specialty grains or the hops. If you just change the base grain 10-15%, you'll have a very similar beer. However, if you are talking about moving the ABV 20% or more, then you're into a totally different beer.