BJCP written exam prep and question

[fansr0731]

Greetings from Texas,

My name is Vence Sie, and I'm currently preparing for the BJCP written exam to advance to the National or even Master Judge level. This might not be a fully relevant topic for homebrew, so please feel free to remove it if it’s not appropriate here.

I’ve been using Al Boyce’s BJCP Exam for Dummies (2019) as my study guide. It’s a great resource, but there are some parts I struggle to understand since I don’t do homebrewing myself. I believe these concepts might be straightforward for seasoned homebrewers like you. I would greatly appreciate your insights on the question below:

One of the exam tasks is to create a recipe for a specific beer style, including target parameters, raw materials, and the brewing process. The guide recommends writing a recipe for a 5-gallon batch. For some styles (e.g., Weissbier, Märzen, American Porter), the guide suggests using a total of 10 lbs of malt and 9 gallons of water. However, for styles like American IPA, Double IPA, Doppelbock, and Tripel, those amounts increase to 15 lbs of malt and 13.5 gallons of water. Unfortunately, the guide doesn’t explain the reasoning behind this difference.

Could anyone explain why these adjustments are necessary? The guide includes some simplified formulas that work well for the other beers but don’t seem to apply to these four styles, where the numbers are increased by 50%.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards,
Vence Sie

 

[lumpher]

The increased water and grain is because IPA's, Doppels, Tripels, etc, are stronger, so need a higher concentration of sugars. The increased water is because more grain absorbs more water.

 

[AlexKay]

Those numbers don’t make sense to me — you’re adding 5 pounds of grain … but then using 4.5 gallons more water?! An additional pound of grain will soak up 0.05-0.1 gallons of water, so this doesn’t seem right at all.

 

[fansr0731]

Thank you so much for your prompt reply!

This is the formulation and number he provided in the guide

(also built-in in this Sparge Water Calculator: https://www.morebeer.com/content/sp...EXlWsVd7EklzBxK35_gb1LvU4-tjWG1PNKRzZrWRa2SS5)

It works well for the 9 gal case but not for the high OG ones...so I guess for those beers, somehow wort shrinkage rate and/or boil-off rate are higher?

Thank you!

The increased water and grain is because IPA's, Doppels, Tripels, etc, are stronger, so need a higher concentration of sugars. The increased water is because more grain absorbs more water.

 

[fansr0731]

Those numbers don’t make sense to me — you’re adding 5 pounds of grain … but then using 4.5 gallons more water?! An additional pound of grain will soak up 0.05-0.1 gallons of water, so this doesn’t seem right at all.

Thanks as well.

I guess Al created this guide just for simplicity and for the test purpose. It might be all made up somehow.

A friend of mine shared his doppelbock recipe with me. For a 4 gal batch, he used 14.2 lb of grains in total but only used 5.51 gal of strike water and 1.25 gal of sparge water, pretty far from what was given in the guide.

 

[lumpher]

It is too much water, but those are the judges, so they must be right... I use about 8 gallons for a 5 gallon brew, but only about 10.5 for a big beer, and have a little left over.

 

[fansr0731]

It is too much water, but those are the judges, so they must be right... I use about 8 gallons for a 5 gallon brew, but only about 10.5 for a big beer, and have a little left over.

Lol. I guess the guide is specifically for non-homebrewers like me to have a chance to advance, and those are just made-up and oversimplified numbers.

Thanks again! But I'm still curious why the calculator's default parameters were set for those light beers.