Help adjusting a recipie

[Fooch]

I am fairly new to brewing I have done a hand full of extract and specialty grain batches, but this will be my first attempt at AG. I found an Imperial IPA that I want to brew this weekend that I found as an add in from beersmith called Imp Pale. It looks really good, but I overlooked an important part, the boil size and the batch size. The boil size is 7.43 gals and the batch is 6.5. My biggest boil pot is 7.5 and my biggest fermenter is about 7 gals(a plastic brewers best type container) and my biggest secondary is a 5 gallon better bottle. This will not fit and.

I adjusted the batch size in beersmith to 5.5 gallons and all it changed was my sparge volume, and my OG before boil and after. Which is expected if all you do is lower the sparge water. And I understand you can't lower the strike water with that much grain or else you'll bind that all up. But do I need to lessen the amount of grains?

But what I want to know. Is this going to drastically change the taste of the beer? Usually I would just say screw it and "lets see what happens, might come up with something awesome", but with am $80+ grain bill I really don't want to just waste it. Do I need to make some alterations to the recipe? This is the recipie as it is for a 6.5 gal batch.

DME:
- 2 lbs Extra Light
Grains:
- 8 oz honey malt
- 12 oz White Wheat Malt
- 12 Flaked Wheat
- 1 lb. Caramel 40L
- 1 lb. Carapils
- 2 lb Caramel Crystal 15L
- 3 lb. Munich 10L
- 9 lb. Pale Malt 2-row
Hops:
- 1oz Warrior(60 min)
- 1.75oz Galena(60 min)
- 1oz Centennial(20 min)
- 1oz Centennial(5 min)
- 2oz Cascade(5 min)
- 2oz Cascade(leaf)(Dry Hop)
- 2oz Centennial(leaf)(Dry Hop)
Yeast:
- White Labs California Ale V(WLP051)


Do I need to make adjustments to get a good beer? Or do I just let it ride?

 

[tre9er]

You're going to get a much higher alcohol content, color will be darker and the hop presence will be greater...if what you're saying is that BS didn't reduce the amount of any ingredients when you scaled it down.

Scaling the recipe is easy, really. It's all math. What percentage of each fermentable did the orig. recipe have? Ie. DME is 20%, 2-row is 25%, etc. BS should tell you that from the orig recipe. Reducing each until the percentages are still equal, the OG is what it's supposed to be, that should solve the issue. If you're unsure what I'm saying, I might have time to plug it into my setup and tweak it.

 

[bobbrews]

With that kettle size, shoot for a 5 to 5.25 gallon batch in your fermenter with no top off water. This is way more reasonable than trying to put 6.5 gallons in the primary after a full wort boil with your current system.

You're currently at 15% total crystal malt. This is about 3 times too much for the typical American IIPA. Include the sweet honey malt in there and you're at 18%. I would advise lessening the crystal and honey malt to a collective 5-6%.

If using the extract, use it for an OG adjustment around flameout, and not at boil start. Before adding it, quickly cool an after boil sample down to the 60s (f) and test the OG. Add the appropriate amount of DME if you want the OG to be higher.

 

[Fooch]

You're going to get a much higher alcohol content, color will be darker and the hop presence will be greater...if what you're saying is that BS didn't reduce the amount of any ingredients when you scaled it down.

Scaling the recipe is easy, really. It's all math. What percentage of each fermentable did the orig. recipe have? Ie. DME is 20%, 2-row is 25%, etc. BS should tell you that from the orig recipe. Reducing each until the percentages are still equal, the OG is what it's supposed to be, that should solve the issue. If you're unsure what I'm saying, I might have time to plug it into my setup and tweak it.

I get what you are saying. You are saying since I dropped the gallons by about 14%, I should drop all ingredients by 14%? And that I am just trying to equally drop everything down and get it as close as to the 6.5 gal batch's OG as possible and it should be the same?

 

[rklinck]

I get what you are saying. You are saying since I dropped the gallons by about 14%, I should drop all ingredients by 14%? And that I am just trying to equally drop everything down and get it as close as to the 6.5 gal batch's OG as possible and it should be the same?

Beersmith will do the calculations for you. There is a "Scale Recipe" button (it has two different size carboys as the graphic. Put the volumes back to the original recipe. Then click on the "Scale Recipe" button and put in your intended batch size. Then BeerSmith will calculate everything for you to give you the proper measurements for you batch size.

 

[tre9er]

Yeah, essentially that's what I'm saying, but the percentages I'm talking about also make sure you have the same proportions of each ingredient relative to the total batch, ya dig? I know there is a scale button that should do this for you, as mentioned, rather than just changing the water volumes. What you should see though is the same proportions of each ingredient, with the same original gravity, with all weights and volumes reduced.

 

[Fooch]

Beersmith will do the calculations for you. There is a "Scale Recipe" button (it has two different size carboys as the graphic. Put the volumes back to the original recipe. Then click on the "Scale Recipe" button and put in your intended batch size. Then BeerSmith will calculate everything for you to give you the proper measurements for you batch size.

How did I miss that lol. You're a life saver. Thanks again everyone for the comments