Upscaling recipe in Beersmith results in less amounts of Crystal Malts?

[beervoid]

So I got my recipe sorted in Beersmith and now I wanted to upscale it from 5 gal to 15 gal and strangely enough my crystal malt dropped from 7.4% to 4.8%
Is this normal?

The original malt bill for 5 gal is
12 lb Pale malt 2 row 3srm 88.9%
1 lb Crystal malt 20L 7.4%
0.5 lb Carapils Dextrine 3.7%

Using the beersmith upscale I went to 15 gal and I get the following malt bill

36 lb 15oz Pale malt 2 row 3srm 91.3%
1 lb 15.4oz Crystal malt 20L 4.8%
1 lb 8.7oz Carapils Dextrine 3.8%

 

[jwalk4]

Well an easy way around it is to multiply all your malts by three, assuming your efficiency stays the same (which I hear it won't for some reason).

New 15 Gallons batch malt bill is as follows:
12 x 3 = 36 lb 2 Row
1 x 3 = 3lb of Crystal 20
.5 x 3 = 1.5 of Carapils

 

[LLBeanJ]

I believe BS will deviate from linear scaling if you check the "Match original gravity, color and bitterness" check box. So, if you checked that box when you scaled it, then yes, it's normal.

 

[beervoid]

I've tried upscaling with checkbox, this will give me a very different malt profile.

upscaling without checkbox and the malts stay the same but SRM and Bitterness are a tad bit higher.

What should I do to keep the recipe as close to the original as possible?
Which option is better?

 

[LLBeanJ]

I would say that BS knows best and for that reason, use the checkbox and accept what it comes up with.

 

[violinguy]

I'm finding that too many of my brews have way too much crystal/caramel malt. I'm trying to keep it below 6% going forward. I would be happy if BS took away some....

 

[beervoid]

Ha great advice! you are right the worst thing is too much crystal malt..
I'll go for it and trust the beersmith god
Thanks everyone

 

[Oginme]

Scaling is never actually linear in most cases, the larger the difference between the original and final batch sizes the greater the non-linearity. Next, there is usually an efficiency difference both in the extraction and in the process losses when making such a large size which accounts for differences, normally in the quantity of the base malt.

Lastly, I've had fairly good luck scaling from 10 liter to 20 liter batches using BeerSmith, but there is always some tweaking to account for differences in process. The best route is to match gravity and color for grain amounts. IBU (actually, perceived bitterness and not the predicted value) gets a little trickier due to differences in the geometry of my two boil pots which effect the utilization of hop oils, and this cannot be readily predicted without some experience.


My usual instinct (having done some process simulation in my career) is never to believe the model until proven. That said, trusting in BeerSmith for your first brew at the different batch size is a good starting point. If you are comparing this to the batch made at the smaller size, it will give you some basis for making future adjustments.