Creating Recipe for "Wort Challenge"

[Hwk-I-St8]

So, you've probably seen the "Wort Challenge" type competitions where a small brewery generates wort and contestants pick up 5 gallons or so of pre-boil wort and morph it into whatever beer they want. It's then bottled and entered into a comp with the other contestants.

I'm doing one of these next week and I'm working on what to do with it. I have a plan, but I usually use Brewer's Friend to plan and manage my recipes.

I'm thinking maybe the easiest way to do this is to treat it like an extract recipe in BF. They gave us a range for pre-boil gravity and which of their beers the wort is based off of, so I need need to be able to easily manage that to make final adjustments after I get the wort.

My plan is to set up the recipe as an extract (with assumptions on the type of extract used) and then adjust the amount of extract to match the pre-boil gravity of the wort I get. Then I can make any final recipe adjustments and go on with my brew day.

Anyone done one of these? If so, did you approach it this way or did you just "wing it"?

 

[2row]

Reviving this question!
I have this same situation, trying to figure a recipe beginning with 5 gallons of pale malt wort. What is the theory to calculate other malts to achieve a desired recipe? I want to add dark malts for a black IPA, so I guess I will need to mash with some additional base malt to get conversion.
I use Brewers Friend recipe creator. I'm just not sure how to enter the existing wort into a recipe. Any ideas how to accomplish this? If anyone has a formula or advice, I'd be interested in responses.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Can the 5 gal of wort be properly described to recipe software as "extract"? If a 'mini-mash' (or steep) adds additional water, would the start-of-boil estimates involve combining two worts?

 

[cmac62]

I think I'd pitch some flavorful farmhouse type yeast and put some hop tea and dryhops in there and call it a day. Maybe some juniper and call it a satti. No boil. No one will expect that.

 

[2row]

Can the 5 gal of wort be properly described to recipe software as "extract"? If a 'mini-mash' (or steep) adds additional water, would the start-of-boil estimates involve combining two worts?

I just checked it out, Brewer's Friend allows a "custom" ingredient, but I would have to know the PPG and DP. It also requires me to enter units like a grain (oz, Lb, grams etc) so I don't know how to enter that, even if I make assumptions that it's 5gal of 1.060sg or something. Hmmmm

 

[2row]

There are no style guidelines for the competition, it's wide open. So I'm just trying to firugre out how to add specialty grains and have it all come out right. I'd also like to add some volume of wort to get over 7gal preboil so I can wind up with a full 5gal finished batch. I think I'm making this too complicated, but I just don't want to have it turn out undrinkable.
Maybe I'll just have a separate mash, and combine in the boil kettle...

 

[2row]

I think I'd pitch some flavorful farmhouse type yeast and put some hop tea and dryhops in there and call it a day. Maybe some juniper and call it a satti. No boil. No one will expect that.

Yes! That sounds like a way to make a nice batch!

 

[cmac62]

Yeah, I'd do a partial mash or steep only with the extra volume you want to going into the BK, then boil as usual with hops and other stuff added like regular. Sound like you have a plan. Good luck with the comp.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

See this thread for some comments and ideas :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/wort-give-away-contest-questions.648669/#post-8276803

 

[2row]

See this thread for some comments and ideas :

Thanks for sharing that, lots to consider!

 

[2row]

I just wanted to post about how my recipe and brew went.
I decided to do a spearate mash and add it to the wort from the brewery. I used Brewers Friend to make a recipe using 2.5 gallon batch size. Their recipe creator has a diastatic power calculator so I made sure to add enough base malt to convert the specialty grains in the mash. I did a separate mash with vienna and the specialty grains to make a breboil vol of about 4 gallons. Then I added the premade wort (which was more like 3 gallons instead of 5) and proceeded as normal from there. Worked out pretty well, but my mash temp was low, so it turned out a little hot and thin. But this was due to my process error, not the recipe.
I made a brown ale fermented with apples. I've made better, I've made worse...