Jamil’s Classic Styles Recipes Questions

[sictransit701]

My question is regarding the grain percentages listed in the Brewing Classic Styles book.

In the book, he lists specialty grain percentages with liquid base malt extract. Then, he lists an all grain option with the base malt as grain.

When you do the all grain option, you end up getting different percentages for the specialty grains.

I’m an all grain brewer and have done his all grain options on several recipes. The beers have turned out great. I’m feeling I’m not getting the maltiness intended, because the all grain option lowers the percentages of the specialty grains. For example, I did his Black Widow Robust Porter and there was no robustness. Doing the all grain option adds more percentage of grain than there was of liquid malt extract and lowers the impact of the specialty grains.

Should I only add enough grain for the base malt to reach the same percentages as the liquid malt extract and specialty grains?

I hope this makes sense.

 

[rmr9]

When I’ve brewed his recipes in the past I just add the poundage amount of the specialty malts, I didn’t bother with percentages. Not sure if it’s the “right” way but it always worked well for me.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Doing the all grain option adds more percentage of grain than there was of liquid malt extract and lowers the impact of the specialty grains.

I am not sure your "lowers the impact of the specialty grains" statement is really true. 1 lb of extract will add more gravity points than 1 lb of grain. Say you have a recipe with 6 lbs of DME with 1 lb of Crystal 80, and another recipe with 9 lbs of 2-Row and 1 lb of Crystal 80. Assuming that both recipe have a similar OG, I would expect the same impact in both from the 1 lb of Crystal 80, even if the percentage by weight is different. I would expect the same for any specialty grain.

But feel free to increase the amounts of specialty grains to match your preferences. On that specific recipe, did you use Chocolate and Black Patent malts in the same color range as specified in the recipe? I would think that level of roasted malts (1.25 lbs) would give plenty of robustness to a Porter.

 

[Brewsmith]

The problem is you are interpreting the percentages based strictly on weight. The extract percentage in the recipe is the fermentable sugars percentage. Malt extract is going to have more fermentable sugar per pound than grain.

I would just follow the recipe as the book as it says. I have my copy open here to the robust porter

11.75 lbs 2-row or 8.6 lbs Light LME
1.5 lbs Munich or 1 lb Munich LME
1 lb Crystal 40
0.75 lb Chocolate Malt
0.5 lb Black Patent

One thing to remember about the recipes in the book is that they all assume a 70% mash efficiency, a 7 gallon pre-boil volume, and 5.5 gallons post-boil. You may have to make adjustments for your efficiency and system, but I would keep the all grain percentages from the book

 

[Bobby_M]

When you read the upfront pages, it explains that the all grain modification to the recipe is based on the assumption of (75% efficiency? I'm going off memory so look it up). One workaround is to have an equipment profile in your software called BCS with the efficiency set to 75% and add the grains as listed. Then scale the batch to your actual equipment profile. In Beersmith, you use the scale button. In Brewfather you just change to the equipment profile and say yes when it asks if you want to scale.