Converting extract recipe to all-grain--am I on the right track?

[mongoose33]

I want to do an all-grain brew next weekend; I've bought my grain mill (Barley Crusher), have a water report coming from Wards, PH meter on the way--I'm ready. I did an all-grain 2 weeks ago w/ grain crushed and specified from my LHBS, but now it's time for me to try my hand at it.

So--here's a recipe I brewed out of extract in the hope of approximating the Potosi Cave Ale recipe--the old one. I want to convert it to all-grain, maybe moving a bit more toward an English Bitter which is what Cave Ale is.

Original recipe:

Malt Extract............................All-Grain
3.3 lbs Maris Otter LME.................6.5 lbs Maris Otter Malt
1.0 lbs Wheat DME...................... 2 lbs Wheat malt
3.0 lbs Light DME...................... 3 lbs 2-row Barley Malt

Steeping grains:
.50 lbs Maris Otter.....................In base malt
.25 lbs Pilsen Malt.....................(.25 lbs Pilsen Malt
.25 lbs Wheat Malt......................In base malt

1.0 oz Challenger Hops (60 min)
2.0 oz Goldings Hops (5 min)

Safale -04 dry yeast

Actually the hard part is guessing/calculating what the equivalent in grain is for the extract. I'm going to assume 75 percent efficiency, if I fall short I'll make it up w/ DME.

I'm aiming for an OG of about 1.063-1.065.

Does the above look reasonable, i.e., is the grain bill a reasonable approximation of the extract recipe?

Thank you--this is remarkably addictive.

 

[slym2none]

Wheat DME is mostly wheat malt with some base malt, I am guessing (WAG) 60/40. You need to adjust for that, if you want. With 1 pound, it probably won't make too much of a difference.

Also, use this for conversions (I do):

https://www.jaysbrewing.com/2011/11/17/lazy-chart-for-converting-dme-lme-grain/

 

[mongoose33]

Wheat DME is mostly wheat malt with some base malt, I am guessing (WAG) 60/40. You need to adjust for that, if you want. With 1 pound, it probably won't make too much of a difference.

Also, use this for conversions (I do):

https://www.jaysbrewing.com/2011/11/17/lazy-chart-for-converting-dme-lme-grain/

Actually, that's what I used! I'm trying to tweak the recipe a bit, move it more toward Maris Otter than it was.

The real original recipe had only 1 lb. of Light DME in it; we tweaked it to add a couple more L DME pounds to increase ABV. So I'm trying to account for that in the grain bill.

 

[slym2none]

Nice. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[mongoose33]

OK--I ordered enough of the above to make it twice, the second time a tweak if I need to.

<rubbing hands together with glee!>

 

[brewcat]

Why not just go with 10 lbs of Maris Otter? For straight up conversion I would use; 5.50 lbs Maris Otter. 1.25 lb wheat. 4.25 lbs two row.

I've been converting my old extract recipes and I'm down to one. So far they have tasted like they should. I think you will be very pleased.

 

[mongoose33]

Just finished brewing the above recipe--and I'm really really happy (this may change, of course ).

I had much better efficiency than the first time. I haven't calculated it yet but my OG was 1.063, which is actually dead on what I was hoping for. Even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while.

What I did differently from my first all-grain attempt was I batch sparged, double-crushed the grain, stirred during the mash, used mostly distilled water, and it all seemed to work out.

Here's the odd part: I started w/ 4.5 gallons in the mash, added 3 more for the batch sparge, but I only pulled off 6 gallons. Not enough--I wanted 7 to start. So I sort of "fly sparged" after the batch sparge, sprinkling another 5 water bottles (RO water) onto the grain bed.

What surprised me is the final runnings still were pretty good--the very last pint of runnings had a gravity of 1.04. Maybe I should have run some more water through there.

The wort tastes like...well, wort, but it was good. I'm now in the "exercise patience" mode. I hate that.

Thank you all for the feedback!

 

[urg8rb8]

Just finished brewing the above recipe--and I'm really really happy (this may change, of course ).

I had much better efficiency than the first time. I haven't calculated it yet but my OG was 1.063, which is actually dead on what I was hoping for. Even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while.

What I did differently from my first all-grain attempt was I batch sparged, double-crushed the grain, stirred during the mash, used mostly distilled water, and it all seemed to work out.

Here's the odd part: I started w/ 4.5 gallons in the mash, added 3 more for the batch sparge, but I only pulled off 6 gallons. Not enough--I wanted 7 to start. So I sort of "fly sparged" after the batch sparge, sprinkling another 5 water bottles (RO water) onto the grain bed.

What surprised me is the final runnings still were pretty good--the very last pint of runnings had a gravity of 1.04. Maybe I should have run some more water through there.

The wort tastes like...well, wort, but it was good. I'm now in the "exercise patience" mode. I hate that.

Thank you all for the feedback!

You probably lost the 1.5 gallons due to gain absorption.