Converting 5 gallong recipe to 2.5 gallon

[althea]

Is it as easy as halving all the ingredients, with the exception of the yeast?

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

For the most part. Hop utilization will go down with a smaller batch so if you just halve the hops your beer will be slightly less hoppy at 2.5 than at 5 gallons. It's probably fine to just halve it but if you toss up the recipe I'm sure somebody can scale it for you.

 

[Mills]

If you use promash, just click on scale recipe to batch size and it will take care of it for you.

Mills

 

[cg17]

Beersmith or Promash are great tools. If youre getting into all grain you should really consider purchasing one of the two. Not sure about promash but Beersmith is only about 20 bucks

 

[Mills]

Beersmith my be the way to go because promash is a dead program, while beersmith is alive well and updating their product. That being said i use promash.

Mills

 

[JuanMoore]

Is it as easy as halving all the ingredients, with the exception of the yeast?

If you halve all of the dry ingredients (including the yeast) it will get you very very close. The only thing you don't halve is the water, since you'll boil off the same amount no matter how large or small the batch is (assuming you're using the same equipment). This means that if you normally start with 6 gal and boil off 1 gal to end up with 5, you'll need to start with 3.5 gal (not 3) to end up with 2.5.

For the most part. Hop utilization will go down with a smaller batch so if you just halve the hops your beer will be slightly less hoppy at 2.5 than at 5 gallons. It's probably fine to just halve it but if you toss up the recipe I'm sure somebody can scale it for you.

It's actually the other way around. The reason is that the boil-off amount remains constant regardless of batch size (assuming the same equipment), so the proportional starting volume is higher for a smaller batch. This means that the wort has a lower SG to start with, and thus slightly higher hop utilization. Using half the hops in a half size batch will result in a slightly hoppier beer, which IMO is never a bad thing.