Noob trying to decipher a recipe I was given

[mikerunsmountains]

I got the recipes for a couple of my favorite beers from a small brewery in a town I went to college in. The problem is that I'm still pretty new to brewing and am still brewing extract kits. I know what the ingredients are that are in the recipe, but I have no idea how to figure out how much I need of each. Everything he sent me is in percentages. Here is the email with the recipes I received:

IPA - O.G. is 1.060, IBU is 75, % ABV is 6.5
Briess Pale Ale malt is base malt so 100% fermentables come from here
Briess 2 row Caramel 60L 5% of total grist
Briess 2 row Carapils 5% of total grist
90 minute boil
Centennial Hops: 60% at 90 minutes, 10 % at 40 minutes and 10% at 30 minutes
Amarillo Hops 20% at 10 minutes
Cascade Hops are aroma hops added at end of boil
After active fermentation is done I dry hop with Cascades
I have my own yeast strain, but Pacific Northwest Ale yeast would work well for this and the porter.


Porter – O.G. is 1.060, IBU is 42, %ABV is 6.0
Briess Pale Ale is base malt at 88% of fermentables
Briess Munich 10 L is 12% of fermentables
Briess 2 row Chocolate Malt is 10% of total grist
Briess 2 row Carapils is 5% of total grist
Briess Blackprinz Malt is 3% of total grist
Briess Extra Special is 2 % of total grist
90 minute boil
German Perle Hops 90% added at 90 minutes
Willamette hops 10% added at 10 minutes
Willamette hops added as aroma hops at end of boil.

I typically brew 5 gallon extract batches. These, of course, look like I'd need to move to all grain. How would I, or can I, translate this to extract? If anyone could help me figure out how much I'd need that would be awesome. And it'd be even better if someone could explain how to come up with those numbers on my own for future reference.

 

[ong]

So, DME adds about .08 points per pound used in a 5 gallon batch, so 7 lbs would get you to 1.056, or 8 lbs to 1.064. LME is about .07 points per gallon, so 9 lbs would get you to 1.063.

A 1.060 batch would usually be about a 12 lb grist, so you can figure 5% of grist would be (close to) half a lb. (more like .6 lbs). That would let you calculate your specialty grain additions.

Hops will be a little trickier if no units are provided! In both these recipes more than one hop is used, so it's hard to tell what the ratio is, even if the IBUs are known. This is where it gets to be a little more art than science -- if the porter has a bunch of hop flavor, it's got a bigger whirlpool addition of Willamette, etc.

 

[btbnl]

The easiest way is to plug the numbers into recipe building software - personally I like Brewer's Friend but others swear by Beersmith.

For example, for a 5 gallon batch of the IPA I see that a malt bill with
10lb Pale 2-Row
0.5lb Crystal 60
0.5lb Carapils
gives me an OG of 1.061 at 75% efficiency, pretty much matches the grist percentages, and results in 6% ABV at 75% attenuation. Although it wasn't specified, the color then comes out to about 7 SRM. To use extract, use extra light or light and replace the 2-row with 6.5lb DME or 8lb LME.

Similarly for the hops using
1.50oz Centennial (8%) at 90 min
0.25oz Centennial (8%) at 40 min
0.25oz Centennial (8%) at 40 min
0.50oz Amarillo (8%) at 10
gives me 73 IBU and again the right kind of percentages.

I'll leave the porter as an exercise for the reader.

 

[doug293cz]

If you have an 8 gal or larger pot, why not just jump to BIAB instead of trying to do this in extract. All you need to get started, in addition to the pot, is a paint strainer bag from HD/Lowes/etc. Much nicer bags are available from http://biabbags.webs.com/. They cost more, but have finer mesh than the paint strainer bags, and will last almost forever. Check out the BIAB sub-forum under the all grain forum.

To figure out the grain bill for the IPA you need to do some math. Start out by deciding how much wort you want in your BK at the end of boil, let's say 5.5 gal (which should net about 5 gals after fermentation and packaging.) For an OG of 1.060 (60 pts/gal), and 5.5 gal you will need 60 * 5.5 = 330 total gravity points. If we assume a mash efficiency of 75%, then you need 330 / 0.75 = 440 points of potential from the grain. Typical grains have about 36 potential points/lb, so you will need about 440 / 36 = 12.25 lbs of grain. Your grain bill needs:

5% caramel 60L
5% carapils
90% pale 2-row​

so:

0.05 * 12.25 = 0.6125 lbs (9.8 oz) caramel 60L
0.05 * 12.25 = 0.6125 lbs (9.8 oz) carapils
0.90 * 12.25 = 11.025 lbs (11 lbs, 0.4 oz) pale 2-row​

This should get you pretty close to the required grain bill. You can input this to a recipe calculator (BeerSmith, BrewersFriend, etc.) to tweak if necessary.

For the hops, you will need to know the alpha acid content of the actual crop(s) that you have. This is usually printed on the packaging. The easiest way to go from here is to work within your recipe calculator. Since you want 60% of your total 75 IBU from the 90 minute addition of Cascade, add only the 90 min hops to you recipe in your calculator and adjust the amount of that until the IBU estimate is 0.6 * 75 = 45. Then add the 40 min addition to your recipe and adjust the amount until the IBU estimate is (0.6+0.1) * 75 = 52.5. Then add and adjust the 30 min, followed by the 10 min, using the same method as above. For the end of boil and dry hop amounts you will have to guess, but using amounts similar to the bittering additions should get you a starting point for your estimate.

Brew on