Scaling recipes
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Biscuits
Well-Known Member
Simple answer...yes.
Complicated answer...no.
Without going into specifics and droning on about all the differences, think equipment and efficiency changes as the recipe scales up or down.
I would say scaling down from a 5 gallon recipe to a 1 gallon would put you closer than scaling from a 10 gallon up to a 50 gallon.
I am no expert but just my $0.02 based on my limited experience.
Complicated answer...no.
Without going into specifics and droning on about all the differences, think equipment and efficiency changes as the recipe scales up or down.
I would say scaling down from a 5 gallon recipe to a 1 gallon would put you closer than scaling from a 10 gallon up to a 50 gallon.
I am no expert but just my $0.02 based on my limited experience.
Weezy
Well-Known Member
To help out Biscuits.... For scaling a *recipe*, yes, you can literally just scale the weights up and down. However the effects of the different brewing system will ultimately require tweaks to the recipe to make the beer taste the same.... Efficiency differences, how fast can your chill a 1 gallon batch vs. a 50 gallon batch impacts hopping, temperature control, etc.
McKnuckle
Well-Known Member
Grain and hops are reasonably scalable, with the caveats given above. But water is not. If your boiloff rate is 1 gallon per hour, for example, and you start with 2 gallons... you'll end up with 1 gallon. But if you start with 10 gallons (5:1), you'll end up with 9 gallons. So it's obvious that this is not an evenly proportional relationship, and must be accounted for in the recipe.
One gallon to 5, probably, although I'd recommend running the numbers through a brewing program. From 5 gallons to 50, I doubt it. The grain ratio might be close but I think the hops would have to be adjusted for equal IBUs. A fifty gallon batch would likely have a higher hop utilization % than five gallons, enough so that the hops would need to be reduced.
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