5 Gallon Recipe Questions

[bmcwood]

A majority of recipes I have seen are for are 5 gallon batches. I am an all grain brewer and I want to sparge 6.5 gallons so after evaporation from boiling, trub loss, etc. I will have 5 gallons to keg. I was thinking of just sparging 6.5 gallons but if the recipe is calculating grain amounts for 5 gallons I would be sparging too much. Any ideas? Is there any way to calculate the increase from 5 gallons to 6.5?

 

[nebben]

5 gallon recipes are made for 5 gallons of "finished" beer. They are usually intended for 6.5'ish gallons pre-boil. You should be good to go!

 

[Hammy71]

A program like Beer Smith will allow you to easily change a recipe amount or convert a recipe from extract to all grain and vice-a-versa.

http://www.beersmith.com/

So, If you start with 6.5 gallons and burn off a gallon, and want to leave a 1/2 gallon in the bottom of the pot for trub etc. you can use a program to convert a 5 gallon recipe to a 5.5 gallon one. The boil off does not effect the recipe amount.

 

[devilishprune]

The recipes that you see are generally for how much beer you get at the end, ie. 5 gallon recipe is for 5 gallons out of the fermenter. You usually collect more than that (like 6 gallons) to account for the amount that you boil off.

 

[bmcwood]

Perfect! I guess I didnt realize it was intended for 5 gallons of finished beer. Thanks for the quick responses!