Can someone piece together this partial mash recipe?

[Anthonie]

I attempted my first BIAB a few weeks ago by taking a left over grain that was handed to me mixed and crushed and adding some extra light DME with no hope of making a great beer, but it turned out to be almost perfect. However I have no idea how to figure out how much of what grain is needed to recreate this beer.

I brew three gallon batches and I used 1lb of the grain mixture. I know the mixture had carapills, Munich, and crystal (but am unsure if it was 40l,60l,etc). The rest of my recipe I have o the exact measure and it is as follows:
4lbs extra light DME
.6 citra 60min
.5 cascade 30 min
.7 Amarillo 10 min
.7 Amarillo 5 min

I did my mash at 150F for 45 min. I believe I mashed in just enough water to cover all the grains which was likely Around 2 gallons. I then added an extra gallon to the fermenter at the end to bring my total to 3 gallons. But the entire process was done with 2 gallons.

I am confident that someone can help me figure out how to get a solid recipe with this information. Thanks ahead of time.

 

[porterpounder]

You should ask the person who gave you the grain. That's not a lot of info to go on for re-creation.

 

[chickypad]

The DME gives 1.060. Cara malts have about 34 ppg, munich has about 37, I would just estimate and go with 35 ppg for your lb of malt. If you had enough diastatic power and got say 77% mash efficiency that would be 27 gravity pts or enough to raise the gravity of your batch 9 pts. So you can safely assume your beer is 1.060-1.069. Munich is the only base malt you have though, and it usually only has about enough diastatic power to convert itself, so you probably got a little less yield than that. You will of course get some from the caramalts even just steeping, I'd just guess middle of the road say 1.065-1.066 or so.

The mixture is going to be just a best guess. I'd say go with 0.5 lb munich and .25 each of a medium crystal and cara and see what you get next time. At least that would make a nice pale ale grainbill. Or better yet take out a lb of DME and add about 1.5-2 lb of 2 row to your mash.

 

[Anthonie]

Would your suggested grain amounts match an IPA profile? Also why add 2 Row? I don't know a lot about the different grains yet so I am curious. Do different grains match different beer styles?

 

[chickypad]

For an IPA I would cut down on the crystal - sometimes I don't use any. There will be some carapils in the DME so you can probably just eliminate that. So something like this:

1.5 lbs 2 Row 28.6 %
8.0 oz Munich 9.5 %
4.0 oz medium crystal 4.8 %
3 lbs Light DME 57.1 %

That would give about 1.064 at 75% efficiency in 3 gal. I added the 2-row because it seems a bit of a waste to me to mash just a lb or less. Also munich doesn't have a lot of diastatic power so if you want to get all you can out of other grains in the partial mash adding a base malt like 2-row or pale ale malt would help (not so much for this grainbill but in general).

 

[chickypad]

Here are some links you might find helpful. The first explains diastatic power and how to make sure you mash will convert. The second is the BJCP style guidelines that describe the ingredients in different styles. Some other good resources are Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels (an oldie but goodie) and Brewing Classic Styles by Palmer and Zainasheff.

diastatic power

BJCP style guidelines

 

[kh54s10]

If you don't know the exact amounts of each of the grains and don't know the Lovibond of the crystal, there is no way you can recreate the recipe exactly....

You can make your best guess.. It will be similar but not the same.