I’ve been wracking my brain over this, even though the answer is probably right in front of it. When creating a recipe, how do you determine what your original gravity should be, when determining how much grain you should be using requires that you know your original gravity? I’ve just been using 1.050 as a benchmark (for pale ales) when creating recipes, but really it’s just an arbitrary number based on the range for pale ales. If I were to make a stout or imperial, I would kick it up a notch, but I honestly don’t know how you would actually determine the gravity I SHOULD be aiming for.
Does that make sense? I mean, so far the beers have been coming out just fine using my methods, but it’s been irking me… Just curious how others determine what their gravity should be when creating a recipe from scratch.
Using a recipe builder would be the best way to go about it. Brewer’s Friend has one that is easy to use. You can also get a 30 day free trial of Beersmith, to decide if you want to buy it.
When creating a recipe, I 1st look in the recipe section of the various forums I hang out in, looking for common ingredients, common OGs and IBUs. Then I use Ray Daniel’s ‘Designing Great Beers’(great book by the way) to look at the historical perspectives and common ingredients.
Then when I have a general idea, I hit a online recipe site (I use Brewtoad- it’s free and I’m part Scottish).
Ultimately though, it’s tweaking the recipe based on results. Did I like how it turned out? How might I tweak it to improve. Usually takes multiple attempts to lock in the recipe, and even then, I still change things up.
So, if you like your results, what does it matter? :cheers:
I decide how strong I want the beer, is it a session or a one and done. Then I play around with the recipe in Brewers friend until it looks good. I’ll check the bu/gu chart sometimes. I brew out of style a lot by design.
You can use the default or common setting for efficiency in Beersmith or one of the online calculators (say 74%) for all grain brewing, and then calculate the efficiency you get on your system after 2-3 batches. Things like the crush of your grain, boil off rate from your kettle, etc. will make your OG vary a bit. Once you have a few batches under your belt you will have a better feel for it. As mentioned above, designing great beers has a good explanation of recipe formulation, and once you understand it and can calculate it by hand, you will understand what the software or online calculators are doing.
I build my recipes in Beersmith. I love the software and I think it’s worth every penny of what I paid but more than that Brad’s website. blog and newsletters are a wealth of info.
[quote=“dannyboy58”]I build my recipes in Beersmith. I love the software and I think it’s worth every penny of what I paid but more than that Brad’s website. blog and newsletters are a wealth of info.
I like how you can choose what style you intend as the base for the recipe. As you go the program shows you how well the recipe should conform to the style in terms of OG, color, and expected FG and ABV. I brew to taste, not necessarily to style, but the styles are a nice frame of reference for “bore sighting” your recipe.
You can look up what the OG range should be for each style @ http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf
When you determine your OG you can figure out how much of each grain you’ll need by deciding what percent of each you will use and use this formula:
OG X % of grain= ? / grains potential SG / efficiency= lbs of grain
Example:
SG of 150 and using 70% 2-row and my efficiency using BIAB is around 67% so…
150 X .70 = 105/ 36 =2.91 / .67= 4.35lbs of 2-row
You can use the grain chart from here: http://www.onebeer.net/grainchart.html
[quote=“toddfore”]You can look up what the OG range should be for each style @ http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf
When you determine your OG you can figure out how much of each grain you’ll need by deciding what percent of each you will use and use this formula:
OG X % of grain= ? / grains potential SG / efficiency= lbs of grain
Example:
SG of 150 and using 70% 2-row and my efficiency using BIAB is around 67% so…
150 X .70 = 105/ 36 =2.91 / .67= 4.35lbs of 2-row
You can use the grain chart from here: http://www.onebeer.net/grainchart.html[/quote]
