Efficiency and specialty malts

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Desertbrewer

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Hi guys,
Been lurking around for a while, and have seen a lot of great info about brew house efficiency, but haven't seen how to address the problem I'm having with my setup so sorry if it's been asked a thousand times.

I do BIAB, got about four 5-gallon batches under my belt, and am getting great efficiency dunk-sparging (at least 80-85%). I only have a 7 gallon brew kettle atm, so often I "top up" with a gallon of boiled water at the end.

My question pertains to ratios involving specialty malts, in order to achieve desired color, is there a way for me to calculate/factor in the added water, yet still hit my efficiency?

For example; brewed Yooper's Oatmeal Stout 2 weeks ago, brew day went great and I really wanted to get 6 gallons into my fermentor to get 5.25 gallons of beer to package. Took gravity readings throughout the boil and saw that I could top up and still hit 1.052 (the OG for that recipe), so I did. This, however, lightened the color considerably, yet my OG was precisely on point.

How would I have calculated how much more dark grains to use? Does beer smith do these kinds of adjustments? Also, does it pertain to others such as crystal malts, and the base malt will be the thing to adjust for most of the gravity calculation?

I'm currently just using the free online calculators, I know they probably aren't as accurate.
 
Adding top up water will not affect your efficiency. Efficiency is all about how much of the potential sugar you actually obtained, but has nothing to do with how much water that sugar is dissolved in.

To adjust for color, I would first do your recipe calculations using all of the eventual water, including your top up water. This should figure in the effects of dilution. Then, redo your recipe calculations with the actual amount of brewing (strike + sparge) water.

Brew on :mug:
 
Right, I get what you're saying about efficiency.

Ok, so if I had scaled the stout recipe up to 6 gallons (I think it was 5 or 5.5, not sure) then I would have ended up with color much closer to what it should be, except my OG would be higher (I know this because I didn't scale up and I hit the OG on target).

So in a brewing program, I could calculate the difference in efficiency for mine being higher... It would be somewhere between the given recipe and the 6 gallon version?

In other words

Step 1: scale up according with top up water

Grain bill will increase.

Step 2: adjust for efficiency difference

Grain bill will decrease

Is this correct?
 
Yes, any time you are using a recipe you need to scale for your system's efficiency and volume. This goes for base malts and adjuncts. Most of the brewing programs have a way to do this.
 
Right, I get what you're saying about efficiency.

Ok, so if I had scaled the stout recipe up to 6 gallons (I think it was 5 or 5.5, not sure) then I would have ended up with color much closer to what it should be, except my OG would be higher (I know this because I didn't scale up and I hit the OG on target).

So in a brewing program, I could calculate the difference in efficiency for mine being higher... It would be somewhere between the given recipe and the 6 gallon version?

In other words

Step 1: scale up according with top up water

Grain bill will increase.

Step 2: adjust for efficiency difference

Grain bill will decrease

Is this correct?

Not quite. Design for the OG you want including the top up water. Then just cut the water to what you will actually brew with. Do not scale the grain bill to the same OG for the lower water amount. The software will then tell you what your OG should be prior to adding top up water. You will have two OG predictions then: prior to top up water, and after top up water.

You should calculate your actual efficiency, and tell your brewing software the actual efficiency you get, so it can make better predictions.

Brew on :mug:
 
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