Using "Brewing Classic Styles" with a 5 Gallon Kettle

[locusta]

So I've tried brewing a couple of the recipes in "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer, but I only have a 5 gallon kettle rather than the (10ish?) one suggested by the book. The first beer we tried to brew came in way, way over OG and the second, which I tried to adjust for boil amount using BeerSmith, came in a bit low. Does anyone have suggestions on how to tweak the recipes to make sure they work with my smaller kettle? We typically boil about 2.5 to 3 gallons and then top-up in the carboy.

 

[TexanRudeboy]

Using extracts you shouldn't be coming in very far off gravity. If the amount of water is correct and the weight of the extract is correct then the gravity should be pretty much correct. I've brewed a number of recipes from that book using a 4gal kettle and topping off with no issues. One issue a lot of people encounter is taking a sample before the top off has mixed fully. You can have pockets of varying gravity if it's not mixed completely. Other than that I can't imagine what would cause gravity to be really far off.

 

[CPORT546]

I've made quite a few recipes from that book or used them as starting points. When I put them in beersmith they always come out way too high on the OG. I just use the scaling tool to bring them back. If you do the math to figure out what you over shot you could reduce by that percentage for future brews.


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