Specialty Grains, Recipe Formulation, and Mash Efficiency

[thespiff]

Hey all, I have a question about modifying the grain bill of all-grain recipes to your system. Currently, my system is producing about 60% total efficiency. I suspect this is due to my LHBS grain crush, but I am not quite ready to buy my own mill.

Anyway, most all-grain recipes anticipate a higher efficiency than 60%, so if I want to hit the target OG I need to increase my grain bill somewhat.

Should I scale all of my mashable grains up equally? Or should I leave specialty grains untouched and only scale "base" malts? Or is it more complicated?


To give a concrete example, this Belgian Dubbel recipe is designed for an OG of 1.063 in a 5gal batch at 70% efficiency:

6LB Pilsner
3LB Munich
1LB Caramunich
0.5LB Aromatic
0.25LB Special B
1LB Turbinado sugar

At 60% efficiency, I'll only hit 1.055. I'd like my ABV to be nearer to 7% than 6%. So do, I only scale up the Pilsner to hit my target? Munich too? Or everything? Knowing that my mash efficiency is low, it seems reasonable to think that the conversion of ALL grains is impacted by that, so I should scale everything. But I have a feeling that isn't right?

 

[doug293cz]

Hey all, I have a question about modifying the grain bill of all-grain recipes to your system. Currently, my system is producing about 60% total efficiency. I suspect this is due to my LHBS grain crush, but I am not quite ready to buy my own mill.

Anyway, most all-grain recipes anticipate a higher efficiency than 60%, so if I want to hit the target OG I need to increase my grain bill somewhat.

Should I scale all of my mashable grains up equally? Or should I leave specialty grains untouched and only scale "base" malts? Or is it more complicated?


To give a concrete example, this Belgian Dubbel recipe is designed for an OG of 1.063 in a 5gal batch at 70% efficiency:

6LB Pilsner
3LB Munich
1LB Caramunich
0.5LB Aromatic
0.25LB Special B
1LB Turbinado sugar

At 60% efficiency, I'll only hit 1.055. I'd like my ABV to be nearer to 7% than 6%. So do, I only scale up the Pilsner to hit my target? Munich too? Or everything? Knowing that my mash efficiency is low, it seems reasonable to think that the conversion of ALL grains is impacted by that, so I should scale everything. But I have a feeling that isn't right?

I would scale the base grains (Pils & Munich) and leave the others (including the sugar) as is. Caramel/Crystal malts are pre-converted as part of the kilning process, and roasted grains don't provide much in the way of fermentables anyway. Sugars alway provide 100% mash efficiencies, if added to the BK.

Brew on

 

[Yooper]

I'd scale all grains. 60% of all grains is what you are getting, so all grains should be scaled up, not just the base grains.

Say you have:
10% crystal malt
80% two row
10% Munich malt

Keep that. Keep the % the same of all grains, if you want the same recipe and the same results.