good question / dumb question

[Chefflahertycec]

Dumb question first... When doubling a recipe (AG) to a 10 gallon batch, is there anything special I should do besides double ingredients? Good question.... I have never done extract / partial mash brewing. I've been strictly AG. I found a recipe that calls for 4# Amber malt extract. Are there any calculators anyone could recommend to translate this ingredient to grain equivalent? If I were to just go with the extract, at what point in the process would I add it? I'm going to take a guess and say pre boil wort? Last but not least, Does it really save that much money to go AG instead of partial mash? According to my research, the extract would cost almost $12 - $20 Which is more than half the cost of my grain build for the recipe.

 

[Valtyr]

That should be okay in most cases. I think your best bet would be to find a recipe builder and use that to scale the recipe up to 10 gallons. There are a few that are free, and a few that cost a little bit. I know a good number of people on here swear by Beer Smith. I plan on getting that one myself.

As far as the extract, it depends on if it's dry or liquid extract. It looks like it would take about 5.5-6.5 pounds of base malt to replace it, according to this chart:
http://www.jaysbrewing.com/2011/11/17/lazy-chart-for-converting-dme-lme-grain/

I'm sure there's better conversion charts out there, though.

For adding the extract, some is added pre-boil, and some is added as a late addition, a few minutes before the end of the boil. You could also do it all pre-boil, if you want.

As far as price, extract does tend to be quite a bit more expensive.

Good luck with your recipe.

 

[RM-MN]

Your amber malt extract isn't just pale malt but some combination of pale malt, carapils, and probably some kind of Crystal. Since you didn't specify the malting house it's hard to know just what combination they used. For this batch, I'd suggest you just use the malt extract to get the same results from the recipe. Malt extract can be added at almost any time but I'd probably wait until flameout to add it. The wort will still be hot enough to pasteurize the malt extract and that addition then will help chill the wort.